The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-08-19 00:00:00

PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND.

The committee of this society have received from the
Foreign Office a copy of a Vizierial letter, in which the
Governor General of Syria is directed by the Porte to
recover from the people of Baled the whole of the
amount claimed by Mr. Consul Moore on account of
damages and expenses caused to the fund by the attack
on Lieutenant Conder's party last year. The survey
party are now working at the Royal Albert Hall on the
map, Lieutenant Conder giving his attention chiefly to
the preparation of the volnminous memoirs which will
accompany it. In examining his notes he has made a
large number of discoveries in addition to those already
published in the society's periodical. Among the
latest may be .mentioned a new site for 'Emmaus,
hitherto a much disputed spot. He finds the name pre-
served in a corrupt Arabic form, at the exact distance
—about three score furlongs—from Jerusalem.
Ancient ruins are observed there, and it lies close to an
old Roman road. Another disputed site is that of
Ramathaim Z3phim, the birthplace of Samuel.
Lieutenant Conder suggests a place for which he argues
on the three grounds for identification which he has
always observed—viz., the preservation of the ancient
name, the nature of the surrounding country, and
the order, observed in the enuemration of
Biblical names. He thinks also that he has
found the sites of Ebenezer, "the Stone of
Help," and the Mizpeh of Samuel. These identifi-
cations are, it ,must 133 understood, only a part, and to
many not the most important part of the results of
this great work, which will include not only a restora-
tion of Biblical geography, but a complete account of
the whole country as it is and as it was. If the health
of the officers, which suffered severely from the effects
of climate, coupled with the excitement and fever con-
sequent on the Safed outrage, permits, the committee
propose finishing the field work next season. For this
purpose the party would probably leave England in
the late autumn or the end of the year.

"THE FATHER OF ENGLISH
GEOLOGY."
_The free lecture at South Kensington on Saturday evening
last was given by Mr. W. Stephen Mitchell, AT.A. , on "The
rise-of stratigraphical geology in England, and some of its
practical results."
The President of the Geological Society., Professor
Duncan, F.R.S , took the chair, and, in introducing
the lecturer, mentioned that a large pastion of the in-
formation that would be given WAS the resultof a care-
ful examination of the valley in which the discoveries of
"the Father of English Geology" were made.
Mr. Mitchell, in commencing his lecture, said he
wished it to be understood that when any of his state-
ments differed from the accounts already in print of
the way in which the "Father of English Geology,"
William Smith, was led, step by step, in his discoveries,
they differed intentionally. He made a reference to
the commercial condition of England at the conclusion
of last century, for the purpose of showing how the
various industries and means of inland communication
were entering on a new phase. This was referred to
again, after describing Smith's discoveries, it being
pointed out that but for their practical bearings being
made known, just at the time canals, roads, and the
drainage and irrigation of estates were beginning to be
recognised asimportant, probably like other partial pre-
vious discoveries of a similar nature, they would never
have gained any attention. A few episodes of Smith's
early life was rapidly sketched, the chief details ef the
lecture being the way in which the earliest ideas of
sequence of strata dawned on Smith's usind. The
points principally dwelt on were that, after a dame's
school education, the training in agriculture by, a
farmer uncle, and the subsequent serving a time in a
surveyor's office, he took to the life of a snrveyor,
noticing during his numerous surveys such different
soils as the plough revealed. Notes were taken of
these facts, and, though apparently without object
at the time, came in usefully afterwards. One of
the earliest notes leading to any result seem to have
been that wherever the 4.411a5". and !'red earth

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were together the "lies" was always uppermost.
The survey of coal pits at High Littleton in 1791
revealed to him the fact of a sequence of coal,
shale, and sandstone. The coal pit survey,
, coupled with his recollection and notes of what he
had seen of the constant relative positions of the
"has" and "red earth" was the first germ of his dis-
' coveries. and suggested to him the idea of a regularity
in the order of strata all through the country. The
surver for the coal canal which now runs along the
CAM Valley, south of Bath, made clear to him the
sequence of the strata from the coal-of High Littleton
to the oolite of Bath inclusive. The tour from Somer-
setshire to Newcastle and back, taken with some of
the canal committee, gave him an opportunity of see-
ing that the ideas of sequence of strata he had found
locally true, held good also all over the country so far
as he saw it. This idea or the sequence of strata being
the same all through the country must, it was
urged, be kept quite distinct from his subsequent
discovery of the identification of strata by
organic remains, and was based on physical
features. Generally the two discoveries are con-
fused together, but there was really an interval of
some 18 months between. The year 1792 is, with
hardly a doubt, the right year to assign to the dis-
covery of "sequence of strata never inverted." Both
his dis3overies were made known generally in 1793, and
in connection with this date it must be noticed Cuvier's
work of a similar nature did not appear till 1808, and
then hurriedly to "take date,' as he puts it. Smith's
first discovery was not as Sedgwick stated connected
with identification by fossils, nor was it as Whewell
Put it the result of generalization on the grouping of
strata, it was a simple observation of the physical
features depending on the strata. The other discoveries
followed naturally enough from careful observation.
Photographs (shown on a screen) of the Cam Valley,
south of Bath, and rock specimens lent by the Royal
5,.:h00l of Mines, served to show how any one going along
the Valley now can easily trace Smith's first ideas.
At the conclusion of the lecture Mr. Mitchell ex-
pressed a hope that the specimens of Smith's fossils
purchased by the nation, but now stowed away in
drawers in the British Museum, may be put in public
view as a memorial of the "Father of English Geo-
logy." The suggestion was met with applause and
the chairman, in proposing thanks for the lecture,
expressed a hope that it would be carried out. Smith's
manuscript table and earliest maps were exhibited in
the lecture theatre.