Description
William Smith was a man ahead of his time: his map has become an invaluable resource and his striking innovations in the pictorial representation of scientific information are still in use today. This absolutely sumptuous and completely fascinating new edition of his work is full of beautiful reproductions of his hand coloured maps and drawings, introduced by Robert Macfarlane – Brett, Daunt Books Marylebone
A definitive reference that showcases the groundbreaking work of William Smith, ‘the unsung father of English geology’. This sumptuous and comprehensive evaluation showcases Smith’s 1815 hand-coloured map, A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland, and illustrates the story of his career, from apprentice to fossil collector and from his 1799 geological map of Bath and table of strata to his detailed stratigraphical county maps.
The book is organized into four geographical sections, each beginning with four sheets from the 1815 strata map, accompanied by related geological cross sections and county maps (1819-24), and is followed by displays of Sowerby’s fossil illustrations (1816-19) organized by strata. Interleaved between the sections are essays by leading academics that explore the aims of Smith’s work, its application in the fields of mining, agriculture, cartography, fossil collecting and hydrology, and its influence on biostratigraphical theories and the science of geology.
