Heroes of science

by P. Martin Duncan

Up in the north of England on the east coast Smith loved to wander beneath the cliffs, noting the minutest variations in the stratification, detecting the slightest marks of dislocation, watching the peculiarities of the sea’s action on materials of unlike qualities, and inferring the causes which had anciently modified the outline of the land, and covered the low cliffs of the oolitic series with fragments of the lias from Whitby, of the coal and limestone from Teesdale or Swaledale, and of the granite and syenite from the Shap Fells and Carrock Pike. In numerous papers dedicated to the local geology of Scarborough, his reflections on these subjects are recorded; his exertions in examining one curious case of dislocation on the north side of the Castle Hill, brought on rheumatic, or rather a paralytic affection of the muscles of the lower extremities, which bound him a prisoner in bed in the early part of 1825.

Previous to this accident, he had taken part in a course of lectures to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Hull; after it had occurred, and before its effects were removed, while yet he was incapable of walking, and was actually lifted into the carriage which took him away, he accepted and executed a similar engagement proposed by the Literary and Philosophical Society of Sheffield. It was a singular spectacle, to witness the delivery of lectures which required continual reference to large maps and numerous diagrams, by a man who could not stand, but was forced to read his address from a chair, to an audience of several hundred persons in a room not very well adapted for the voice. But it was far more extraordinary to witness during all the severity of the disorder, the unpretending patience and fortitude of the sufferer, who, had he then permitted his mind to dwell too curiously on the state of his health and the state of his finances, might have added the bitter foretaste of want and privation to the actual difficulty of the moment. Such reflections and such anticipations might sadden the hearts of those who surrounded him, but Mr. Smith would have thought it unworthy of his resolved mind and firm trust in Providence, to have abated one jot of his accustomed cheerfulness, shortened one of the innumerable playful stories which were always springing to his lips from the rich treasure-house of his memory, or turned his meditations from his favourite subjects.

At Sheffield, while slowly recovering the use of his limbs, he busied himself in arranging a body of information which he had gathered concerning the neighbouring coal districts; and on removing soon afterwards to his old quarters at Doncaster, he worked much on the large “Old Survey of Yorkshire,” thinking to complete the colouring of it. By degrees he recovered entirely from his painful disorder, and from this year (1825) to 1839, nothing of the kind ever affected him again.

But these years were fruitful of events interesting to the friends of William Smith. In February, 1831, the Council of the Geological Society of London honoured him by awarding to him the first Wollaston medal; and the terms with which the gift was accompanied render this act on the part of the society and the president extremely memorable. Dr. Wollaston’s services to physical science were well known and duly honoured in his lifetime; geology has felt, and will long feel the benefit of his dying bequest. He invested one thousand pounds in the three per cent. Reduced Bank Annuities, in the joint names of himself and the Geological Society, and directed that after his decease, “the society should apply the dividends in promoting researches concerning the mineral structure of the earth, or in rewarding those by whom such researches should hereafter be made; or in such manner as should appear to the Council of the said society for the time being, conducive to the interests of the society in particular, or the science of geology in general.” He afterwards enjoined the society “not to hoard the dividends parsimoniously, but to expend them liberally, and, as far as might be, annually, in furthering the objects of the trust.” The first year’s income from this fund was appropriated to the acquisition of a die for a medal bearing the head of Dr. Wollaston, and this having been undertaken by Mr. Wyon, the society was prepared in 1831 to fulfil the trust with which they were charged. The council accordingly passed unanimously the following resolutions, Jan. 11, 1831:—

“1. That a medal of fine gold, bearing the impress of the head of Dr. Wollaston, and not exceeding the value of ten guineas, be procured with the least possible delay.

“2. That the first Wollaston medal be given to Mr. William Smith, in consideration of his being a great original discoverer in English geology; and especially for his having been 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.”

The announcement of this award was made by a congenial spirit. The chair of the Geological Society was then filled by one of its most honoured members, an original thinker and faithful observer, well qualified to appreciate the originality of Mr. Smith’s discoveries, and well acquainted by actual research with their extent and their value. In his address on this occasion, Professor Sedgwick, speaking in the name of the Geological Society, sketched a brief but satisfactory history of Mr. Smith’s career, demonstrated the entire justice of the award of the Council of the Geological Society, and added his personal testimony in favour of Mr. Smith’s claims in terms of no ordinary value.

“I for one can speak with gratitude of the practical lessons I have received from Mr. Smith. It was by tracking his footsteps, with his maps in my hand, through Wiltshire and the neighbouring counties, where he had trodden nearly thirty years before, that I first learned the subdivisions of our oolitic series, and apprehended the meaning of those arbitrary and somewhat uncouth terms, which we derive from him as our master, which have long become engrafted into the conventional language of English geologists, and through their influence have been, in part, also adopted by the naturalists of the continent.

“After such a statement, gentlemen, I have a right to speak boldly, and to demand your approbation of the council’s award. I could almost dare to wish that stern lover of truth, to whose bounty we owe the “Donation Fund,” that dark eye, before the glance of which all false pretensions withered, were once more amongst us. And if it be denied us to hope that a spirit like that of Wollaston should often be embodied on the earth, I would appeal to those intelligent men who form the strength and ornament of this society, whether there was any place for doubt or hesitation? whether we were not compelled, by every motive which the judgment can approve and the heart can sanction, to perform this act of filial duty, before we thought of the claims of any other man, and to place our first honour on the brow of the father of English geology?

“If, in the pride of our present strength, we were disposed to forget our origin, our very speech bewrays us: for we use the language which he taught us in the infancy of our science. If we, by our united efforts, are chiselling the ornaments and slowly raising up the pinnacles of one of the temples of nature, it was he who gave the plan, and laid the foundations, and erected a portion of the solid walls by the unassisted labour of his hands.