353 
tually drawn attention,, remained as a momentous truth in 
established science. 
But the name of William Smith represents an advance in 
the knowledge of the earth, of greater importance than that of 
Werner. This was characterized chiefly, though far from 
exclusively, by true doctrine as to the superposition of the 
strata.* It was not so much the varied character of the rocks, 
nor the varied character of the fossils which they contained 
(though both of these were known to this thinker), as the 
order in which they had been laid on one another, which first 
influenced his thinking on the structure of the globe. It was 
clear and certain enough that sandstone and coal had not been 
laid down in the same circumstances in their original beds ; 
but this could not tell whether the actual sandstone or the 
coal in a particular series of rocks, had been first formed. 
When, however, it was noted that the coal had from the first 
lain beneath the sandstone, it was sure enough that the coal 
had been first laid down ; and so on through all the varied 
strata of the earth. A field of vast dimensions was thus opened 
for inquiring minds, and the work of many generations was 
cut out for them. Men imagined ere long that they had lighted 
on the nethermost rocks — the true foundations of the ever- 
lasting hills — and that they could trace the whole of the 
wonderful building of the globe all the way from the centre up 
to the grassy turf that crowned it ! But a great deal more 
has yet to be learned ere that can be done. 
Then came that most important of all advances, which is 
represented by the name of Cuvier. It was his great task to 
mark off the physiological distinctions that separated the kinds 
of creatures that lived on dry land and in the ocean, vdien 
the various strata of the earth were laid dov/n.-j* The difference 
between stone and stone was something, the position of 
rock above rock was something more : but the genera 
and species imbedded in one set of strata, shown to be so 
thoroughly different from those imbedded in another set, 
proved a far more important affair than either of the other 
two. The trees on land and the shell-fish in the ocean, 
compared with the fossil "wood and rocky forms and casts of 
ancient mollusca, brought wonderful results to the minds of 
men. Yet, if we consider calmly the true extent of those 
results, so far as they constitute real science, they seem to us 
to amount to little, if anything, more than the placing* of an 
* W hewell’s Hist . , vol. .iii. p. 42 k “ In 1792 lie [Smith] ‘ had considered 
how lie could best represent the order of superposition — continuity of course 
— and general eastern declinations of the strata.’ ” 
t Whewell, vol. iii. p. 418. 
