The Map That Changed the World

by Simon Winchester

  A very few of the books that are listed below will make enjoyable reading—most notably the two enlightening works by the eminent paleontologist Richard Fortey, The Hidden Landscape and Trilobite!; Noel Annan’s highly readable study of Dean Buckland in The Dons; and Roger Osborne’s most original The Floating Egg. Other books that seem likely to appeal to the general reader I have marked with an asterisk.

  The greatest of all the works noted here—aside, of course, from Darwin—is the majestic tome (no other word can possibly do justice) written in 1933 by W. J. Arkell: The Jurassic System in Great Britain. This utterly beautiful book, elegant in design and writing, represents the life’s work of a man who was passionately fascinated by the most celebrated—and, one might say, looking at the rocks and villages along its outcrop, the most English—of all the geological periods. It has long been out of print, and a clean copy will cost a good deal of money. But to anyone whose interest in geology at its best may have been piqued by this short account, I urge them—find yourself an Arkell, buy it, and treasure for yourself and for your descendants. There are all too few books of its like.

  To write this book I made use of the following:

  Allaby, A., and M. Allaby. The Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1999

  Allsop, Niall. The Somersetshire Coal Canal Rediscovered. Bath, England: Millstream Books, 1993.

  *Annan, Noel. The Dons. London: HarperCollins, 1999.

  *Arkell, W. J. The Jurassic System in Great Britain. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1933.

  Bassett, Michael G. “Formed Stones.” Folklore and Fossils. Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1982.

  Bennett, Stewart. A History of Lincolnshire. Chichester, England: Phillimore & Co., 1999.

  Berger, Lee. In the Footsteps of Eve. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

  *Bernal, J. D. Science in History. London: Watts & Co., 1954.

  Blundell, D. J., and A. C. Scot. Lyell: The Past Is the Key to the Present. London: Geological Society of London, 1998.

  *Briggs, Asa. A Social History of England. London: Penguin, 1987.

  Brooke, J., and G. Cantor. Reconstructing Nature. London: T. & T. Clarke, 1998.

  Brooke, John Hedley. Science and Religion. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

  Brown, Roger Lee. A History of the Fleet Prison, London. Lampeter, England: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.

  Clew, Kenneth. The Somersetshire Coal Canal and Railways. Newton Abbott, England: David & Charles, 1970.

  Cox, L. R. “New Light on William Smith and His Work.” Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 25, pt. 1, 1942.

  ——————. William Smith and the Birth of Stratigraphy. International Geological Congress, 1948.

  Craig, G. Y. The Geology of Scotland. London: Geological Society of London, 1991.

  Craig, G. Y., and J. H. Hull. James Hutton—Present and Future. London: Geological Society of London, 1999.

  *Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. New York: New American Library, 1958.

  Daunton, M. J. Progress and Poverty. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1995.

  Davies, G. L. “The University of Dublin and Two Pioneers of English Geology.” Hermathena 109 (1969).

  Doyle, Peter. Understanding Fossils. New York: Wiley, 1997.

  Doyle, Peter, and Matthew Bennett, eds. Unlocking the Stratigraphical Record. New York: Wiley, 1998.

  Duff, P. McL. D., and A. J. Smith, eds. The Geology of England and Wales. London: Geological Society of London, 1992.

  Eastwood, T. Stanford’s Geological Atlas. London: Edward Stanford Ltd., 1964.

  Edmonds, J. M. “The Geological Lecture-Courses given in Yorkshire by William Smith and John Phillips, 1824–1825.” Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, 1975.

  ——————. “The First ‘Apprenticed’ Geologist.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 76 (1981).

  Eldredge, Niles. The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co., 2000.

  Emsley, Clive. Crime and Society in England, 1750–1900. London: Longman, 1987.

  Eyles, Joan M. “William Smith: The Sale of His Geological Collection to the British Museum,” Annals of Science, 23, no. 3 (1967).

  ——————. “William Smith (1769–1839)—a Bibliography of his Published Writings, Maps and Geological Sections, Printed and Lithographed." Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History. (April 1969).

  ——————. “William Smith: Some Aspects of his Life and Work.” In C. J. Schneer, ed. Towards a History of Geology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969.

  ——————. “William Smith, Richard Trevithick and Samuel Homfray: Their Correspondence on Steam Engines 1804–1806.” Transactions of the Newcomen Society 43 (1970–71).

  ——————. “William Smith’s Home Near Bath: The Real Tucking Mill.” Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History (1974).

  ——————. “G. B Greenough, FRS (1778–1855).” Nature, April 16, 1955. Fearnsides, W. G., and O. M. B. Bulman. Geology in the Service of Man. London: Pelican, 1944.

  *Fortey, Richard. The Hidden Landscape. London: Pimlico, 1993.

  *——————. Trilobite! London: HarperCollins, 2000.

  Geikie, Sir Archibald. The Founders of Geology. London: Macmillan, 1897.

  Gillispie, Charles Coulston. Genesis and Geology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.

  Gould, S. The Lying Stones of Marrakech. New York: Harmony Books, 2000.

  *——————. Wonderful Life. London: Penguin, 1989.

  Grantham, John. The Regulated Pasture—a History of Common Land in Chipping Norton. Chipping Norton, England: J. Grantham, 1997.

  Green, G. W. British Regional Geology: Bristol and Gloucester Region. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1992.

  Greene, John C. The Death of Adam. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1959.

  Hains, B. A., and A. Horton. A British Regional Geology: Central England. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1969.

  Hardy, Peter. The Geology of Somerset. Bradford on Avon, England: Ex Libris Press, 1999.

  Harland, W. B., et al. A Geological Time Scale, 1989. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

  *Hawkes, Jacquetta. A Land. London: Cresset Press, 1953.

  Hill, Christopher. Reformation to Industrial Revolution. London: Penguin, 1992.

  *Holmes, Arthur. Principles of Physical Geology. New York: Nelson Thornes, 1993.

  Hutton, James. Theory of the Earth, Vol. III (facsimile). London: Geological Society of London, 1997.

  Innes, Joanna. “The King’s Bench Prison in the Later Eighteenth Century.” In John Brewer and John Styles, eds., An Ungovernable People: The English and Their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Hutchinson, 1980.

  *Jones, Steve. Darwin’s Ghost. New York: Random House, 2000.

  Kearey, Philip. The New Penguin Dictionary of Geology. London: Penguin, 1996.

  Knell, Simon J. The Culture of English Geology. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2000.

  Korsmeyer, Jerry. Evolution & Eden. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1998.

  Lapidus, Dorothy F., with I. Winstanley. The Collins Dictionary of Geology. London: HarperCollins, 1990.

  Laudan, Rachel. From Mineralogy to Geology: The Foundations of a Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

  Le Bas, M. J., ed. Milestones in Geology. London: Geological Society of London, 1995.

  Lindberg, David, and Ronald L. Numbers, eds. God and Nature. University of California Press, 1986.

  Lyell, Charles. Principles of Geology. London: John Murray, 1834.

  McClay, Keith. The Mapping of Geological Structures. New York: Wiley, 1987.

  McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. New York: Doubleday, 1999.

  Mather, Kirtley. Source Book in Geology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harv
ard University Press, 1967.

  Meades, Eileen. The History of Chipping Norton. Chipping Norton, England: Bodkin Books, 1984.

  Melville, R. V. and E. C. Freshney. British Regional Geology: The Hampshire Basin. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1982.

  Numbers, Ronald L. Creation by Natural Law. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.

  ——————. The Creationists. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992

  ——————. Darwinism Comes to America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

  *Osborne, Roger. The Floating Egg. London: Pimlico, 1999.

  Packard, Lisa. Dr. Johnson’s London. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000.

  Pevsner, Nicolaus, and John Harris. The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire. London: Penguin, 1964.

  Phillips, John. “Biographical Notice of William Smith, LLD.” Magazine of Natural History (1839): 213.

  ——————. Memoirs of William Smith, LLD. London: John Murray, 1844.

  Plumb, J. H. England in the Eighteenth Century. London: Penguin, 1990.

  Porter, Roy. The Making of Geology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

  Priestley, Philip. Victorian Prison Lives. London: Pimlico, 1999.

  Robson, Douglas A. Pioneers of Geology. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England: Natural History Society of Northumberland, 1986.

  Rudwick, Martin. The Great Devonian Controversy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

  Rule, John. The Laboring Classes in Early Industrial England, 1750–1850. London: Longman, 1986.

  Rupke, Nicolaas. The Great Chain of History. Oxford. England: Clarendon Press, 1983.

  Sale, Richard. A Guide to the Cotswold Way. Marlborough: Cordwood Press, 1999.

  Serest, Michel, ed. A History of Scientific Thought. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.

  Sheppard, Thomas. William Smith: His Maps and Memoirs. Hull, England: Brown & Sons, 1920.

  Singer, Peter. A Darwinian Left. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

  Smith, E. A. George IV. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

  Smith, Peter L. Canal Architecture. Princes Risborough, England: Shire Publications, 1997.

  Stanforth, Alan. Geology of the North York Moors. National Park Information Service, 1993.

  Strahler, Arthur M. Science and Earth History: The Evolution/Creation Controversy. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1987.

  Thomson, David. England in the Nineteenth Century. London: Pelican, 1991.

  *Toghill, Peter. The Geology of Britain. Shrewsbury, England: Swan Hill Press, 2000.

  Tonga, Neil, and Michael Quincy. British Social and Economic History, 1800–1900. London: Macmillan, 1980.

  Torrens, H. S. “Early Maps of the Somersetshire Coal Canal. ” Cartographic Journal (June 1974).

  Truman, A. E. Geology and Scenery. London: Pelican, 1949.

  Very, David, and Alan Brooks. The Buildings of England: Gloucestershire 1. London: Penguin, 1999.

  Vile, Nigel. Exploring the Kennet & Avon Canal. Newbury, England: Countryside Books, 1992.

  Watkins, Alan. Churchill and Sarsden. Gloucester, England: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1988.

  Wicander, Reed, and James Monroe. Historical Geology. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 2000.

  Woodward, Horace. The History of the Geological Society of London. London: Geological Society, 1907.

  Ziegler, Peter. Geological Atlas of Western and Central Europe. London: Shell International Petroleum BV, 1990.

  Acknowledgments

  In writing this book I owe the very greatest debt to Professor Hugh Torrens, the renowned historian of geology latterly based at Keele University in the English Midlands, who probably knows more about William Smith than anyone else alive, and is indeed himself in the process of writing the definitive academic study of Smith’s career and legacy. He gave generously of his time, his advice, and his help, and handed me an immense number of his own most useful papers, both published and unpublished, from which I learned much; a lesser man, on learning that a rival biography was in the making, would certainly have reacted more coolly. I thank Professor Torrens for his magnanimity, and can only repeat now what I suggested to him at the time—that this short book should be thought of simply as the hors d’oeuvre while we wait in eager anticipation for his main dish, soon to come. I earnestly hope that he will find that this brief account—while not so scholarly as the work he plans—will be a worthy enough tribute to the shadowy and half-forgotten figure whom we both so much admire. I wish also to record my thanks to the tireless and indefatigable Soun Vannithone, who, though taking no time off at all from cooking his legendary Laotian cuisine at a pub (the Racing Page, in Richmond, well worth the detour), managed to complete, precisely on time, the intricate and delicate illustrations on these pages. Alan Davidson, who since his time as British ambassador in Vientiane, has kept in close touch with Soun, helped at all stages; and to Alan and Jane Davidson I offer my sincere gratitude.

  Professor Jim Kennedy, at the University Museum, Oxford, kindly made available the papers of William Smith, William Buckland and John Phillips; Stella Brecknell, the librarian and archivist who oversees this magnificent treasure-trove of documents, proved of enormous assistance, seeing to it that almost all of the most interesting items in her care made their way to me on the remote Scottish island where, perhaps perversely, I chose to write this book. Professor Keith Thomson, also at the University Museum, gave me helpful advice about the impact on pre-Darwinian thought that came about as a result of William Smith’s discoveries and theories.

  Many of those who lectured in geology at Oxford when I was an undergraduate there in the mid-sixties remain in what is now grandly called the Department of Earth Sciences, and were each in their own way keen to help their prodigal student who, after so long a time away, decided to stumble back into writing about their discipline. In particular I wish to thank David Bell, Steve Moorbath, and Stuart McKerrow, whose lectures on igneous geology, geochemical dating techniques, and Jurassic paleontology respectively evidently left more of an impression on me than my generally lackluster examination results suggested.

  Ron Oxburgh—now the Lord Oxburgh—was also at the Department in the sixties, and lectured on structural geology: he too has been helpful in more ways than the simply technical, not least because of his presidency of the Geological Society of London: I have many reasons for wishing to offer my gratitude for his efforts and enthusiastic support of this project. Rachel Laudan, from her home in Mexico, wrote helpfully about her own early interest in William Smith, and kindly sent me her entire doctoral thesis and several other papers that threw new light on Smith’s many achievements. That her position has long been generally critical of Smith did not in the least diminish her support for this book: the fact, she wrote, that he had mapped all England, and essentially on his own, has long since persuaded her that Smith was indeed a remarkable man, and she has long thought he deserved a biography—providing only that it stopped short of suggesting that he deserved a sainthood. I hope that in this I have been temperate, and fair.

  For various specific items of help and advice I wish also to thank: Robin Cocks, Jill Darrell, Richard Fortey, Ann Lum, Susan Snell and Brian Rosen at London’s Natural History Museum; Wendy Cawthorne at the Geological Society of London; David Buchanan of the Scarborough City Museums; my friend Francis Herbert at the Royal Geographical Society; my long-term traveling companion Kirk Johnson at the Denver Natural History Museum in Colorado; his colleague there, Bob Raynolds; Ian MacGregor of the Meteorological Office Archive, who seems to be able to find out what the weather was like on any particular day in the last three centuries; the authors Simon Knell and Roger Osborne, who have both written fascinating recent books on the development of geological thought; Nicolaas Rupke, who is an academic specialist in Holland researching this the same, very English field of study; Patrick Wyse-Jackson, the geology archivist at Trinity College, Dublin; Robert Millspaugh of the Amer
ican Association of Petroleum Geologists; Professor Ronald Numbers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, for his views on evolutionists; Joanna Innes of Somerville College, Oxford, a specialist on early London prisons, for her help with details of life in the King’s Bench debtors’ prison; Derek and Eileen Brown for their hospitality and friendship in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, close to where William Smith was born; Brian Excell and Fiona Ann Drury for their comments on the Tisbury Coral; Denys Brunsden, winner of a William Smith Award, for his help on the Jurassic of Dorset; Lord and Lady Derwent of Hackness Hall, near Scarborough, for their hospitality and help when I arrived to ask about William Smith’s Yorkshire exile; and Heather MacFadyen of Bristol, who kindly searched, with great professional expertise, the famous collection of the late Victor and Joan Eyles, a couple who—because of their profound knowledge of the subject—should by rights have long ago written the book I am writing now. My hope is that they would approve of the work I have done in their stead. My son Rupert Winchester also searched the papers in the Public Records Office at Kew—under the invigilation of a supremely helpful staff, he says—for details of Smith’s imprisonment, and less fruitfully, his marriage. Juliet Walker was tirelessly helpful, as she has been for so many of my projects: I hope she finds the Aeron chair I sent from Oklahoma at least a comfortable small recompense for all she managed to do.

  My editors in London, Anya Waddington, Juliet Annan, and Clara Farmer, have proved wonderfully sympathetic in dealing with the complications inherent in a book about so curious a subject as geology—with Clara especially so since her father, David Farmer, is a geologist and very kindly looked over his daughter’s shoulder to make sure there were not too many errors of fact or judgment. Donna Poppy in London and Sue Llewellyn in New York, each deploying her remarkable copyediting skills, helped make sure that such infelicities as remained were ironed out and smoothed away. The proofreading phase of this book happened to coincide with my brief stay as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, where I decided to take advantage of my situation by asking the members of my writing class if they would each care to look at a couple of chapters to try to spot the most egregious of errors. They managed to detect some; and so I am happy to record my thanks to a group of clever and talented young men and women who I suspect—since most of them hope to become writers—will become distinguished and familiar bylines before very long. The names for which editors should thus be on the lookout are those of Amy Biegelsen, Robert Peter Cuthbert, Melissa Klimala Dean, Gina DiPonio, Kristen Ina Grimes, Kurt Hagstrom, Frank Karabetsos, Daniel Lavetter, Kathleen Lingo, Zachary Martin, Kristen Morgan Miller, Casey Sanchez, Vanessa E. Raizberg and Leslie Synn. Responsibility for those mistakes that managed to survive their scrutiny—and I hope there are few—should be laid squarely at my door alone. In New York the legendary Larry Ashmead—who, by extraordinary chance, was once a geologist too, but moved on to become one of the most cherished editors in American publishing—seemed to think the manuscript passed muster, and made criticisms that were as constructive as they could only be, coming from a publisher who knew his rocks. My agents—Peter Matson in New York and Bill Hamilton in London—were also enthusiastic about my telling the tale of William Smith, L.L.D.: I hope they will think the finished product lives up to their own expectations, which they communicated with such early eagerness to the publishers.