100 
WILLIAM SMITH I HIS MAPS AND MEMOIRS 
an excellent proof of the practical benefit to be derived from geological 
enquiries. Mr. Sineaton was in want of lime wliicli possessed the pro- 
perty of forming a good cement for works exposed to the sea ; and find- 
ing the lime afforded by the Has limestone at Aberthaw, on the coast 
of Glamorganshire, to answer his purpose, he was led to seek for stone 
of the same qualities in other places. This he found, in the first instance 
at Watchet, on the Somersetshire coast, ' where all agreed that they 
were the very same stratum of lias hmestone, that were found on each 
side the Channel, though at the distance of twenty miles.' He went 
accordingly to Watchet, and examined the situation of the beds there, 
which he has very well described ; and he subsequently traced the 
progress of the lias, through Monmouthshire and the intermediate 
counties, as far north as Newark in Nottinghamshire, a course which 
corresponds precisely with the results of more recent investigation. He 
mentions likewise, that Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Blagden had assured 
him of its existence at Lyme on the cast of Dorsetshire, which is the 
more remarkable, as a considerable mass of other strata intervenes 
upon the surface between that place and those which Mr. Smeaton 
had examined himself. It is not, however, improbable that Smeaton's 
inquiries upon this subject may have been connected with some previ- 
ous communication with Mr. Michel ; since he appears to have 
received from that gentleman, the list of the strata to which we have 
already referred, before the publication of his own work on the light- 
house."* 
AGEICULTURAL SURVEYS, 1794. 
In 1794 and the following few years, the Board of Agriculture 
published a series of County Surveys. Several of them contained 
maps indicating the nature of the surface soils by colours. In the 
Devonshire map " dunstone " and limestone " occur in the list of 
soils, and on two of the others coal tracts are shown. There are no 
suggestions of stratigraphical structure, however, though there are a 
few sections of coal pits, etcf 
* Dr. Fitton points out that Smeaton's book, though dated 1791, 
is stated in the Introduction to have been printed in 1786. I can find 
no such information in my copy, though no doubt the fact that mine 
is the second edition, and dated 1793, accounts for the difference. — T.S. 
t Details of the dates of publication of these various County Sur- 
veys oscur in Sir Ernest Clarke's account of " The Board of Agriculture, 
1793-1822," in Joiirn. Roy. Agric. Soc. 3rd Series. Vol. 9, 1898, pp. 
1-41. 
