It was fortunate for Mr. Smith, and for the progress of his views, that he gained at this time the friendship of a man singularly competent to estimate the truth and value of these views, and both able and willing to advocate the merit of their author. The Rev. Benjamin Richardson was at this time living in Bath, and possessed a choice collection of local fossils, mostly gathered by his own diligent hands. Extensively versed in natural history, and generally well acquainted with the progress of science, he was perfectly enthusiastic in following out, and liberal in enabling others to prosecute, new and ingenious researches, especially if they tended to practical and public good. He knew accurately the country in which Mr. Smith had principally worked, and was acquainted with the views entertained on the subject of fossils, which had been recorded in books, or were adopted by the collectors, who were even then celebrated in the vicinity of Bath. He had no knowledge of the laws of stratification and the connection between the forms of organic life and the order of superposition of the strata; while, on the other hand, his new friend had very little knowledge of the true nature of these organic forms, and their exact relation to analogous living types. The result of a meeting between two such reciprocally adjusted minds was an electric combination; the fossils which the one possessed were marshalled in the order of strata by the other, until they all found their appropriate places, and the arrangement of the cabinet became a true copy of nature.