WILLIAM SMITH I HIS MAPS AND MEMOIRS 
201 
Phillips* informs us tliat " At this period of his life Mr. Smith was 
utterly unacquainted with books treating of the natural history of 
the earth ; he had no other teacher than that acquired ' habit of 
observation ' which he has justly recommended to his followers. It is 
difficult in these days to conceive of such insulated and independent 
research, as that into which the young philosopher entered ; rumoars 
at least of the progress of science now circulate through the Cotteswold 
Hills ; and it would be impossible for the most reserved student to be 
wholly uninfluenced by them. That Mr. Smith was so uninfluenced 
is a fact attested by the very nomenclature which he created and 
estabhshed in Geology. The ' cornbrash,' the ' forest marble,' the 
' lias,' etc., form a system of names almost barbarous to ears polite, 
but so firmly rooted in English Geology, as to constitute a most durable 
monument of the sagacity and originality of their author." 
" William Smith, Author of the Geological Map of England " was 
on the Sub-Committee of Geology and Geography appointed at the first 
meeting of the British Association at York in 1831.| The other mem- 
bers were W. Buckland, W. D. Conybeare, Sir Philip G. Egerton, J. D. 
Forbes, G. B. Greenough, W. Hutton, E. I. Murchison, J. Phillips, A. 
Sedgwick, H. Witham and J. Yates. At this meeting William Smith 
exlubited his " Geological Map of the district round Hackness."i 
Smdth was also on the same Committee at the Oxford meeting in 1832. § 
In the first Report issued by the British Association, which 
contained reports of both the York and Oxford meetings, the Rev. 
W. D. Conybeare gives a " Report on the Progress, Actual State, and 
Ulterior Prospects of Geological Science." In this he says (pp. 370-371), 
*' The English School has distinguished itself by the ardent and success- 
ful zeal with which it has developed the whole of the secondary forma- 
tions; in these the zoological features of the organic remains associated 
in the several strata, afford characters far more interesting in themselves 
and important in the conclusions to which they lead, than the mineral 
contents of the primitive series. This school generally recognises the 
masterly observations of Smith, first made public in 1799, as those 
which have principally contributed to its establishment ; although the 
* Mag. Nat. Hist., Vol. III., p. 215. 
t See 1st Report Brit. Assoc., p. 47. 
j loo. cit., p. 91. 
§ See Rep. Brit. Assoc., p. 114. . 
