WILLIAM SMITH : HIS MAPS AND MEMOIRS 
95 
theories to the effect that " the foregoing or perhaps of ten thousand 
other minerals, all originally, while in a soft or fluid state, tending to- 
wards the centre ; it must mechanically, and almost necessarily follow, 
by the continual revolution of the crude mass from west to east, like 
.... rolhng up the leaves of a paper book .... must in some place 
or other, appear to the day, in which case there needs no specific gravi- 
tation to cause the hghtest to be uppermost, etc., for every one in its 
turn, in some place of the globe or other will appear near the surface." 
This part of his paper, which is illustrated by a plan of the beds of the 
€arth (which resembles the plan of a spiral staircase), does not interest 
us, except that on his sketch he gives the following order for the 
beds :— - 
Chalk. 
Freestone [Oolites]. 
Limestone ] ^-^ . 
Marl J 
Yellow Earth ] i p • i 
_^ , ^ , r I irias and rermiansL 
Red Earth J ^ 
Coal Cliffs) , 
^ , y ICarboniterous!. 
Coal ) 
Lead, Copper, etc. 
JOHN WOODWARD, 1723. 
John Woodward, in his Natural History of the Earth, 1723, pp. 
4-6, -expressed views somewhat similar to those of Smith. He says: 
I made strict enquiry wherever I came, and laid out for intelligence 
of ail places where the entrails of the earth were laid open, either by 
nature (if I may so say) or by art and human industry. And where- 
soever I had notice of any considerable natural spelunca or grotto, 
any s'nking of wells, or digging for earths, etc., or the like, 1 forthwith 
had recourse thereunto. The result was, that in time I was abundantly 
assured that the circumstances of these things m remote countries 
Avere much the same as those of ours here." 
. .mCOLAS DES3UREST. 
Still before Smith's time were the views of Desmarest, as expressed 
in the Eneyclopedie Methodique,'^ of which the following is a translation : 
* Geographie Physique, tom I., pp. 416-417. (LXIV Livraison). 
