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GSA TODAY | SEPTEMBER 2015 Silhouette of William Smith, given by Smith (who probably drew it) to Samuel often deep mines, and Smith soon became involved in under-
Woodward on 27 June 1833, when they met at the British Association meeting ground surveys, which set him thinking about the succession of
in Cambridge. Courtesy of Norfolk Museums Service. strata. These same beds had inspired pioneer stratigraphic obser-
vations by John Strachey in 1719.
William “Strata”Smith
Smith’s work impressed local landowners, who asked him to
Hugh Torrens, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK survey routes for the planned, double-branched Somerset Coal
Canal (SCC), which would take coal barges to nearby cities like
William Smith’s career should be of special Bath and Bristol, and farther on to London. On a 1794 fact-
interest to today’s aspiring geoscientists for the finding tour of canal and colliery installations, Smith continued
very many difficulties—both “scientific” his embryonic geological investigations using the general appear-
(a word not yet in common use) and financial— ance of the “lie of the land.” Canal digging started in July 1795
that he overcame with extraordinary resolve. Most notably, he along two sub-parallel valleys about two miles apart. Through
largely single-handedly produced the remarkably accurate and this first widespread “surgery” of the countryside, excavations
enormous (2.57 m × 1.80 m) stratigraphic map of England and revealed to Smith a regular succession of gently dipping strata,
Wales, with a part of Scotland, published in September 1815 (see which he could compare from one canal branch to the other.
next page). Mostly self-taught and trained on the job, Smith’s By late 1795, at the age of 26, Smith had worked out a local strati-
motivations were primarily practical—finding and developing graphic column, and on 5 Jan. 1796, he recorded his critical obser-
resources and reclaiming lands. For much of his life, Smith was vation that some of the strata contained fossils, and that those
ignored or treated as an outsider; in any case, there was not yet fossils could be used to individualize, or identify, the strata. This
much of a proper geological community that could take interest realization allowed Smith to separate, for the first time, strata that
in such an unusual man. had previously been hopelessly confused because of their shared
lithologies—a major geological breakthrough. Smith’s first such
William Smith was born on 23 March 1769 at The Forge, surviving list, from the “Chalk” (now Cretaceous) to the “Coal”
Churchill, Oxfordshire, England, son of village blacksmith John (now Carboniferous) is dated 1797.
Smith and his wife Ann; his father died when he was 7, after which
he was raised by his uncle. He grew up on the notably fossiliferous Smith’s training as a land surveyor led him to realize that he
Middle Jurassic rocks in the English Cotswolds, where such fossils could now color such strata onto maps, since he understood their
were his playthings. Educated at the village school until the age of thickness and dip, and thus their geometry. From 1799, he started
11 or 12, Smith at 18 became assistant to engineer and land both to map local strata and to show them on geological cross
surveyor Edward Webb at the town of Stow on the Wold, where he sections. While canal excavations provided Smith with valuable
learned to make accurate maps and to assess land values. geological data, however, by 1799 there were more practical and
Impressed by Smith’s abilities, Webb in late 1791 sent Smith to immediate construction problems. The SCC had decided to use a
survey estates belonging to Lady Elizabeth Jones in north “caisson” canal lift, but the first one failed, and after disagreement
Somerset. Smith walked more than 50 miles to get there and over its fate, Smith was dismissed in June 1799. Immediately after-
lodged at Rugbourne Farm, which he later named the birthplace ward, Smith dictated to two Bath clerical friends an improved
of all his ideas. In Somerset, thin coal seams were mined in small, “Order of the Strata round Bath,” which was widely disseminated
in manuscript. In June 1801, he issued a prospectus for his
38 intended book, Accurate delineations and descriptions of the natural
order of the various strata that are found in different parts of
England and Wales. Smith knew that his stratigraphic ideas held
great economic potential, since they revealed where to find coal,
iron, clay, and other minerals so vital to British industrialization.
Smith now set up a partnership with Jeremiah Cruse as land
surveyors in Bath, which proved a fortunate location because
so many landed gentry holidayed there. Between 1802 and
1805, in the Bath shop, Smith publicly displayed his fossil
collections in stratigraphic order. From 1800 on, he also trav-
eled in search of both commissions and data concerning the
ordering of strata farther afield in the British Isles. Smith’s life
was now highly itinerant and financially precarious. At various
sites throughout England and Wales, to stay solvent, he worked
as a land and mineral surveyor, a drainer, a coal explorationist,
a sea-defense builder, a harbor improver, and a canal surveyor.
The difficulty of combining writing with so much traveling
meant that Smith was only able to publish one book during
this period, Water Meadows (1806), on draining bogs for prac-
tical use, but its publication was unprofitable.
Smith’s work brought him into close contact with the polymath
John Farey, who was so impressed with its novelty and economic
importance that in early 1802, he brought Smith’s work to the
