14 
takings generally wish to deceive. Ignorance on both sides lies 
at the base of the enterprise. But on that very account, I 
repeat, that even a slender amount of science infused into the 
general education of the country would strongly tend to prevent 
the unceasing recurrence of such ruinous absurdities. The 
truly practical man, — the scientific mining engineer, — reasons 
and advises on very different principles. lie is conversant with 
geological maps and sections ; his experienced eye distinguishes 
the geological relations of the deep and wide-spreading strata 
of which a country is composed, and as a rule, he knows the 
utmost limits of the ground where it is safe to adventure ; and, 
further, if he add to this a general knowledge of the organic 
forms that characterize these formations, a glance will tell him 
(however black the shale, or ferruginous the water,) that rocks 
containing certain forms of graptolites, trilobites, lingulse, and 
pentameri, were formed untold ages before the commencement 
of our carboniferous epoch. 
It is foreign to my present object to trace the career of Smith 
in the application of his principles to agriculture, canal 
engineering, the interception of springs, opening of quarries, 
or the detailed determination of the position of coal bearing 
strata, concealed by overlying masses of new red sandstone. 
The immediate scientific results of his work* you see in this 
diagram, which exhibits his enlarged and corrected ideas of 
superposition, as understood by him, in the year 1816 , and by 
this map, published in the previous year. This was the first 
geological map of England, or, indeed, of any kingdom, ever 
produced, — a work in those days of extreme difficulty, when we 
consider that almost all the data were new and collected by him- 
self; and that no large uniform topographical maps of authority 
then existed on which to depict them. Though propositions were 
made to the Government of the day, it yielded him no aid ; 
the arduous work, wonderful in its kind, was accomplished 
by his own individual efforts ; and it was not till many 
years later that, recognizing the national importance of a 
* Smith’s Column and Map. 
