| William
Smith is a remarkable figure in the history of natural science
because of the significance of his discoveries and the slow pace of the
acceptance of his ideas. He is know known as the "Father of English
Geology," yet during his lifetime he suffered jail for debt, financial
ruin, and the shameless plagiarism of his work, all in part the result
of his "low" birth and lack of formal education which prevented him
from being accepted by the gentlemanly science societies of the time.
His major contribution to Romantic natural history was his idea of
"faunal succession," that is, the view that each era of natural history
produced a different layer of material remains which could be studied
to determine what life was like in earlier periods of geologic
time. He made important discoveries about the fossil
record, including the fact that groups of fossils found together
were likely to be creatures who had lived together in precise periods
during the earlier history of the planet. A passage from his notes suggests a precise moment when an interest in fossils as aesthetic or "romantic" curiosities was passing into the study of fossils as scientific records of the ancient past: Fossils have been long studied as great curiosities, collected with great pains, treasured with great care and at a great expense, and shown and admired with as much pleasure as a child's hobby-horse is shown and admired by himself and his playfellows, because it is pretty; and this has been done by thousands who have never paid the least regard to that wonderful order and regularity with which nature has disposed of these singular productions, and assigned to each class its peculiar stratum. (January 1796) |