WILLIAM SMITH : HIS MAPS AND MEMOIRS 
SMITH'S GEOLOGICAL WORK. 
I propose now to deal with the geological work Sipitk 
accomplished. 
SMITH, 1799. 
" A Map of Five Miles round the City of Bath, on a scale of one inch 
and a half to a mile, from an Actual Survey, including all the new roads, 
mth Alterations and Improvements to the present time. 1799. Printed 
for and sold by A. Taylor and W. Nayler, Booksellers. Bath." * 
The map is circular, and fifteen inches in diameter. It bears the- 
following inscription in Smith's handwriting : — 
'•'Presented to the Geological Society, February 18th, 1831. 
Wm. Smith, Coloured Geologically in 1799." 
" Though no lines are drawn, Smith's well-known method of 
colouring the base of a formation with a deep tint, and shading thi& 
upwards towards the outcrop of the next overlying stratum, enables 
us to see how carefully he had mapped all the geological lines around 
Bath. There are only three colours employed on the map and no index ; 
but it is evident that the yellow tint represents the Bath Oolite, the 
base of the freestones being very accurately mapped so that even the 
smallest outlines can be made out agreeing most closely wi.th the map 
of the Geological Survey ; a blue tint is drawn at the base of the Lias, 
and a red one at the base of the Trias, the inliers of Carboniferous 
being left blank." 
This " may be justly regarded as the oldest geological map in 
existence."! It is hung in the library of the Geological Society, Burling- 
ton House. 
SMITH. 1800. 
In 1800 Smith coloured a geological map connecting the structure 
of the north of England with the structure of the South-western districts^ 
and delineating the whole oolitic series through England, in some places 
very correctly, and in all with a general approach to accuracy. This 
* This excellent map, though with the date m one place altered 
to 1800, but with 1799 in another, appears in a fine work, " The His- 
toric and Local New Bath Guide," 12mo, 160 pp., and there can be no 
doubt Smith obtained it from this source, and added the colours.- T.S. 
t J. W. Judd.— Wm. Smith's :\rS. Maps, GeoL Mag., 1897, pp. 439- 
447. 
