Lecture by Hugh Torrens and display of two versions of Strata Smith’s large map

On Saturday 14 February, Mr. Gamolfeax and myself attended a Lecture by Prof. Torrens, organized by the East Midlands Geological Society at the University of Nottingham. The Lecture was entitled 'William Smith and his geological advances as expressed through his work in Yorkshire.'  Prof. Torrens is attached to the University of Keele, where a Geology Department resides in a building named in my honour (and there is a building named after me here at the Geological Survey). Prof. Torrens gave a satisfactory, if incomplete account of my connections with Yorkshire, as well as expounding a little upon the history of my Map of the Strata of England and Wales. I was particularly obliged that he was able to explain to the audience some of the difficulties I experienced in correlating certain Strata around Bath with those in Yorkshire.

Those attending the Lecture were provided with an opportunity to view two versions of my Map, one from the Geological Survey and the other from the University of Nottingham. Mr. Gamolfeax was inclined to prefer the colouring applied to the University’s version, which is delicately executed and incorporates revisions made subsequent to the issue of the Geological Survey’s version. Yet this excellent copy was very nearly lost, I am told, about 24 years ago. There was a Department of Geology at Nottingham which was dismantled in about 1991. The Geology Library was dispersed and my Map, out of simple ignorance as to its value, was thrown into a container of rubbish. It was then retrieved by a gentleman who understood its worth. This gentleman returned the map to its proper place, only to find on the following day that it had been once again cast into the rubbish. He took the map home for safe keeping, where it remained for some years while he was out of England. On his return, he brought the map back to the University and, upon explaining matters, the University immediately understood the need to preserve this wonderful copy.

Mr. Gamolfeax has more than once told me of the great peril in which our institutional libraries now stand, for it seems that in these times books are esteemed as things of little account. As I understand it, knowledge is now stored by some electrical process which makes printed paper redundant. Mr. Gamolfeax believes that some map collections will suffer the same fate once they have been copied and stored in what he calls electronic form.

Mr. Gamolfeax has appended some representations of the event which he was able to capture on what he describes as a digital camera―a most striking invention, which he tells me originated as a photographical process that was first demonstrated in Paris by a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre, in the year of my death. He regrets that the images are imperfect owing to a transparent overlay.

Detail of SE England from early version of 1815 map held by BGS

Detail of SE England from later version of 1815 map held by NU

Strata Smith's 1815 map: Nottingham University version

Strata Smith on the Reverend Joseph Townsend and The Character of Moses

Dear Mr. Roberts,

In reply to your question, I knew the Revd. Townsend very well; a fine, upstanding Gentleman, widely read, and much loved by his parishioners. He wrote a number of works, but the book to which you are referring is no doubt his "Character of Moses" which he published in 1813. In this work he announced his complete accordance with my tabulation of the English Strata, and had engraved 21 plates identifying the Organic Remains peculiar to each Stratum. These Fossils he had collected himself over a period of many years, and I had the great privilege of organizing them on stratigraphical principles so that in due course he became convinced of the correctness of my System.

In my own day, scientific men were beginning to challenge the agency of the Creator as set down in the Book of Genesis. Being a Pious but Practical man, and having now acquainted myself a little with the views of Geologists now living, I will not attempt to speculate on the influence that He has exerted on the arrangement and Organic Remains of the strata of the Earth, and how much we must allow to the workings of Nature.

I am most respectfully, Sir, your humble servant, Wm. Smith

Strata Smith at Hackness in Yorkshire

Dear North York Moors NP

I much regret that I was unable to reply sooner to your question of two days ago regarding my memories of Hackness in Yorkshire, but I am dependent upon the goodwill and availability of my host, Mr. Gamolfeax, who was taken up with other matters and who, for the most part, is available only until one o’clock in the afternoon. He was yesterday engaged in visiting a large theatrical outfitters in London, with a command from his peers at the Geological Survey to attire himself as Mr. William Smith in preparation for two forthcoming events at Keyworth. I have to say that he does not cut so fine a figure as the Original.

As to Hackness, I was invited by Sir John Johnstone, the enlightened proprietor of that estate, to become his land-steward in 1828, where I believe I spent six of the happiest years of my old age. Sir Johnstone gave me the greatest encouragement to continue with my scientific endeavours, as well as to arrange my existing papers with a view to bringing to perfection some unfinished writings on the English strata. My greatest joy was to execute a Geological Map of the Hackness Hills at the scale of 12 chains to an inch [six and a half inches to a mile], which map was lithographed by Mr. Day in 1832. I do not know that any man before me had ever constructed a geological map upon so large a scale or had laid down the lines of stratification in such intricate detail. You will doubtless be aware that stone from the Hackness Quarries was employed in building the round Museum at Scarborough.

I have been asked to keep this communication short, and therefore, I am most respectfully, Your Humble Servant, Wm. Smith.

A message from William ‘Strata’ Smith

It affords me great satisfaction to find that so long after my death I am still remembered as the Father of English Geology. Yet I little imagined that my Map of the Strata of England and Wales would be celebrated two hundred years after its first appearance [in 1815], for it was not many years after made redundant by the publication of that rival map of Mr. Greenough, which not only derived much from my own Map, but gained advantage from the labours of those Gentlemen of the Geological Society, who had the leisure and pecuniary means to travel more widely through this island than was granted me by the demands of my profession. Such trials and unhappy memories as are associated with that time are now long past, and it is indeed a great comfort to find that my name is held in such high regard by geologists now living.

Through the kindness of the Geological Survey, which I find was removed some years ago from London to the village of Keyworth, outside Nottingham, I am able to come to you in spirit, if not in body. I was present at the birth of the Geological Survey, when Mr. De la Beche established that institution as a Department within the Trigonometrical Survey in about the year 1835. A few years later I accompanied that Gentleman when he invited me to assist himself and the Architect, Mr. Barry, in visiting the principal Stone Quarries to select a stone suitable for building the Houses of Parliament following the devastating fire―though I did not live to see its fulfilment. I have been asked to speak more of this matter in a future communication.

Until then I bid my readers a happy and prosperous new year, and I look forward to fulfilling the task laid upon me by my advisor here, Mr. Gamolfeax―to say something, so far as memory will allow, of my life and work, and of the very different times in which I lived.

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Gamolfeax says:  William Smith (1769–1839), nicknamed ‘Strata Smith’, is justly celebrated as the ’father of English geology’. This year of 2015 marks the bicentenary of the publication of Smith’s pioneering ‘map of the strata of England and Wales’ as he usually styled it. This map is regarded as the world’s first national geological map, and was almost certainly the first to be based on the principals of biostratigraphy: utilising the evidence of fossil organisms contained within rock strata, both to determine the succession of geological strata, and to map and correlate individual units across country.

The full title of Smith’s great map is  A delineation of the strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland; exhibiting the collieries and mines, the marshes and fen lands originally overflowed by the sea, and the varieties of soil according to the variations in the substrata, illustrated by the most descriptive names. It was engraved and published by John Cary and issued in 15 sheets at a scale of 5 miles to an inch. Although bearing the date 1 August 1815, copies of the map were available for colouring under Smith’s supervision some months before. The first finished copy (mounted on canvas) was presented by Smith at a meeting of the Board of Agriculture on 23 May 1815, as recorded in his diary for that year.

Smith continued to modify the geological information depicted on the map until the appearance in 1820 of a rival map at a slightly smaller scale (about 6 miles to an inch), which was more complete and more accurate. Prepared by George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855) and sponsored by the Geological Society, this new map, which very likely derived much of its basic information from Smith’s hard-won labours, immediately superseded Smith’s own, thus robbing him of any further income from the sale of his large map. And whereas Smith’s map embodied the distillation (by 1815) of some 24 years of personal observation, the rival map derived great advantage from the combined efforts of several prominent geologists of the day, many of whom were applying the principals of stratigraphy established by Smith.