Notwithstanding his courageous and indefatigable industry, many circumstances contributed to prevent the promised publication of William Smith’s ‘Map of the Strata of England and Wales,’ and it was not until 1814 that he was enabled, by the assistance of some friends, to give to the world the fruits of his twenty years’ incessant labour. To prosecute his inquiries, and collect the extensive series of facts and observations requisite for his purpose, he had to expend the whole of the profits of his professional labours during that period; and he even sold off his small property to provide the means of visiting remoter parts of the island. Meanwhile he had entered on a quarrying speculation near Bath, which proved unsuccessful, and he was under the necessity of selling his geological collection (which was purchased by the British Museum), his furniture and library, reserving only his papers, maps, and sections, which were useless save to himself. He bore his losses and misfortunes with exemplary fortitude; and amidst all, he went on working with cheerful courage and untiring patience. He died at Northampton, in August, 1839, while on his way to attend the meeting of the British Association at Birmingham. It is difficult to speak in terms of too high praise of the first geological map of England, which we owe to the industry of this courageous man of science. An accomplished writer says of it, “It was a work so masterly in conception and so correct in general outline, that in principle it served as a basis not only for the production of later maps of the British Islands, but for geological maps of all other parts of the world, wherever they have been undertaken. In the apartments of the Geological Society Smith’s map may yet be seen—a great historical document, old and worn, calling for renewal of its faded tints. Let any one conversant with the subject compare it with later works on a similar scale, and he will find that in all essential features it will not suffer by the comparison—the intricate anatomy of the Silurian rocks of Wales and the north of England by Murchison and Sedgwick being the chief additions made to his great generalizations.” {149} The genius of the Oxfordshire surveyor did not fail to be duly recognised and honoured by men of science during his lifetime. In 1831 the Geological Society of London awarded to him the Wollaston medal, “in consideration of his being a great original discoverer in English geology, and especially for his being the first in this country to discover and to teach the identification of strata, and to determine their succession by means of their imbedded fossils.” William Smith, in his simple, earnest way, gained for himself a name as lasting as the science he loved so well. To use the words of the writer above quoted, “Till the manner as well as the fact of the first appearance of successive forms of life shall be solved,