WILLIAM SMITH : HIS MAPS AND MEMOIRS 
167 
found would not be worth getting by a pit in the Bay ; and if coals 
can be found it would be well if the red marl could be sunken 
through without it, which I have reason to expect, or at least that 
it nxay be thin. It is a "rock that varies much in thickness, and in 
the southern parts becomes extinct. The red marl, which is an 
uncomformable cover to coal, of least extent in those parts, is 
sunken through, at all the pits, from 10 to 30 fathoms in thickness ; 
this, like the limestone, varies much in thickness, and there are 
circumstances attending it which lead me to think it may not be 
very thick in some parts of the North Riding. 
Nearly forty years since, I lived amongst coal-pits, commonly 
sunken through the lias and the red marl, and some of them through 
superincumbent beds as high in the series as the inferior oolite. 
We know that the alum shale or lias clay, and some of the other 
strata in these eastern moorlands, are of extraordinary thickness ; 
but there ie no reason to believe that the red marl, and especially 
the beds below it, which have no relation to those above, are 
thereabout thicker than usual." 
GEOLOGICAL MAP OF HACKNESS, 1832. 
Phillips informs us* that " Among the many eminent persons who 
at different periods of Mr. Smith's life, took a lively interest in his 
welfare, it is the pleasing duty of his biographer to mark with grateful 
distinction one whose friendly regard he gained about this period, and 
retained during the remainder of his life. Sir John V. B.Johnstone, Bart, 
of Hackness. On succeeding to his estates, this enlightened gentleman 
was desirous of converting to practical effect on his farms, some of the 
geological and botanical truths which he knew to have been established 
in the museum and the laboratory ; he found in Mr. Smith the union of 
practical and theoretical knowledge which was necessary for his object, 
and a desire to exemplify that knowledge in agricultural improvements, 
which exactly coincided with his own wishes. From 1828 to 1834, Mr. 
Smith acted as his land-steward, resided at Hackness, occupied himself 
in the usual concerns of a large landed estate, and then passed (in the 
judgment of the writer) six of the calmest and happiest years of his 
declining life. The worthy proprietor of Hackness had hoped that the 
retirement which seemed so well suited to Mr. Smith's age and taste, 
* Memoirs of William Smith, p. 113. 
