Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 9.2 Plate illustrating fossils from the Jurassic Kelloways Stone
fromWilliam Smith's Strata Identified by Organized Fossils (1817). 1 is a
small gastropod; 2-4, ammonites; 5, the distinctive bivalve Gryphaea
(colloquially known as the Devil's Toenail); and 6, a brachiopod. Courtesy
of Hugh Torrens.
in a blue clay found in Essex that produced a 'tenacious soil'. Smith
confidently proclaimed the ease with which his scheme could be used:
'The organized Fossils (which might be called the antiquities of nature)
and their localities also, may be understood by all, even the most illit-
erate: for they are so fixed in the earth as not to be mistaken or
misplaced ... consequently, they furnish the best of all clues to a
knowledge of the Soil and Substrata.' In Stratigraphical System of
Organized Fossils Smith described in detail his fossil collection, which
because of debt he was forced to sell to the British Museum in batches
between 1815 and 1818. The money raised was not enough to save him
from the debtors' jail and he spent ten weeks incarcerated in the middle
of 1819. Smith planned to issue Stratigraphical System in several parts,
but in the end only the first part comprising 119 pages appeared.
As a spin-off from his geological map of 1815 Smith also pro-
duced a Geological Table of British Organized Fossils that took the
