Heroes of science

by P. Martin Duncan

Such things are common in the lives of men, but they are not often encountered by so resolved and patient a spirit as that of Mr. Smith. One who saw the struggle may boldly say this, because there can be no other motive for mentioning private and personal griefs but to show forth the character of the mind which could firmly bear and overcome them. As a mean of reducing his difficulties he proposed to sell that geological collection which had been so much prized, and through the assistance of some friends a communication was opened with the Treasury. Two gentlemen being deputed to examine the collection, reported favourably, and their lordships were pleased to authorize the purchase, in order that the specimens might be fitted up in the British Museum. There was also some defined notion of engaging Mr. Smith’s services at the museum to take charge of and explain the geological principles which this collection was intended to illustrate; but this project came to nothing.

In the winter of 1818-19, Mr. Smith revisited, after an absence of ten years, his native village, re-examined the unforgotten localities where in childhood his “pundibs” and “poundstones” were gathered, and collected “marlstone” fossils from an excavation at Churchill Mill, nearly at the same points where he had noticed them in 1787. In one whose life had been one long wandering, and who had earned for himself an immortal name, this return to the haunts of his childhood and the simplicity of village occupations, must have excited many interesting reflections. He had sold his patrimony, and what had been the modest dwelling of his ancestors for two hundred years; he had disbursed in travelling for what he deemed a public object all that he had earned; while one of his two brothers, quietly prosecuting trade in his native village, had grown a rich and prosperous man.

In the autumn of 1819 Mr. Smith gave up his house in London, after fifteen years’ occupation, and was compelled to submit to the sale of his furniture, collections, and books, preserving in fact, only his papers, maps, sections and other drawings, through the kindness of a most faithful friend. While this happened, he was in Yorkshire busily engaged, apparently oblivious, perhaps sternly regardless, of what seemed to others an insupportable misfortune. He deemed it an inevitable corollary to his irretrievable losses in the unlucky speculation already mentioned near Bath, and armed himself with what seemed more than fortitude to meet it.

One more used to monetary arrangements would have foreseen and averted this occurrence; but on the practical geologist the blow fell with stunning effect. He surrendered with deep regret his interest in the much-loved and really valuable little property near Bath, quitted London, and consented to have no home. From this time for seven years he became a wanderer in the north of England, rarely visiting London, except when drawn thither by the professional engagements which still, even in his loneliest retirements, were pressed upon him, and yielded him an irregular, contracted, and fluctuating income.

In the winter of 1819-20, Mr. Smith, having perhaps more than usual leisure, undertook to walk from Lincolnshire into Oxfordshire. The object proposed was to pass along a particular line through the counties of Rutland, Northampton, Bedford, and Oxford, but the ultimate destination was Swindon, in Wiltshire.

“Leaving the great road at Colsterworth, with some reflections on the birthplace of Newton,[5] we crossed in a day’s easy walk, the little county of Rutland, its hills of oolite and sand, its slopes of upper lias, and its valleys often showing marlstone, and reached the obscure village of Gretton, on the edge of Rockingham Forest. Whatever may now be the accommodations at this village, they were very wretched in 1819 (December), but the odd stories of supernatural beings and incredible frights which were narrated by the villagers assembled at the little inn, greatly amused Mr. Smith, and reminded him of exactly parallel tales which circulated around Whichwood Forest in his boyhood.

“The next morning we walked to Kettering, noticing on the road the peculiar characters of the Northamptonshire oolite. In this walk Mr. Smith had somehow sprained or over-fatigued himself, and he chose to proceed to Wellingborough in a chaise. From this point, situated on sand of the oolite series, we resumed our geological proceedings on foot, and passing by Irchester, Woolaston, and Boziate, traversed in the next hills the oolite, the forest marble, the cornbrash, and an outlier of Kelloway’s rock. The road up Boziate Hill was mantled with fossiliferous stone, some of which, obtained from the hill-top, was believed to be Kelloway’s rock, and was found to contain Ammonites sublævis and other fossils. A fine specimen of this ammonite was here laid by a particular tree on the road side, as it was large and inconvenient for the pocket, according to a custom often observed by Mr. Smith, whose memory for localities was so exact, that he has often, after many years, gone direct to some hoard of this nature, to recover his fossils. This road, however, over Boziate Hill, he was not to travel again.

“From Olney to Buckingham the route was performed in chaise. The stone dug here in clay attracted much attention, and Mr. Smith doubted whether to rank it as forest marble or cornbrash. We now crossed the oolitic country to Aynhoe, celebrated for its fossils, on foot; next day continued the walk to Deddington, Chapelhouse, and Churchill, and after a few days walked to Burford, and then travelled in the ordinary way to Swindon, Oxford, and London. In passing through Oxford, Mr. Smith, for the first time in his life, had the pleasure of seeing Professor Buckland, at the house of Mr. Bliss, the bookseller, with whom he walked over Shotover Hill, on his way toward London.”

This little tour is thus briefly narrated, because it appears in all respects a fair example of the usual way in which Mr. Smith explored the country, walking when the object he had in view required this mode of examination, travelling as fast as possible in all other cases, but always recording in note-books or on maps, the observations he made.