Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

all this out, and made it clear.” His attention to the

subject was almost incessant; and it is estimated that in the

course of his life he devoted not less than 25,000 hours to its

experimental and chemical investigation. He was at the same time

carrying on an extensive private practice, and officiating as

lecturer at St. Thomas’s Hospital and other Medical Schools. It

will scarcely be credited that the paper in which he embodied his

discovery was rejected by the Royal Society, and was only accepted

after the lapse of seventeen years, when the truth of his views had

become acknowledged by scientific men both at home and abroad.

 

The life of Sir William Herschel affords another remarkable

illustration of the force of perseverance in another branch of

science. His father was a poor German musician, who brought up his

four sons to the same calling. William came over to England to

seek his fortune, and he joined the band of the Durham Militia, in

which he played the oboe. The regiment was lying at Doncaster,

where Dr. Miller first became acquainted with Herschel, having

heard him perform a solo on the violin in a surprising manner. The

Doctor entered into conversation with the youth, and was so pleased

with him, that he urged him to leave the militia and take up his

residence at his house for a time. Herschel did so, and while at

Doncaster was principally occupied in violin-playing at concerts,

availing himself of the advantages of Dr. Miller’s library to study

at his leisure hours. A new organ having been built for the parish

church of Halifax, an organist was advertised for, on which

Herschel applied for the office, and was selected. Leading the

wandering life of an artist, he was next attracted to Bath, where

he played in the Pump-room band, and also officiated as organist in

the Octagon chapel. Some recent discoveries in astronomy having

arrested his mind, and awakened in him a powerful spirit of

curiosity, he sought and obtained from a friend the loan of a two-foot Gregorian telescope. So fascinated was the poor musician by

the science, that he even thought of purchasing a telescope, but

the price asked by the London optician was so alarming, that he

determined to make one. Those who know what a reflecting telescope

is, and the skill which is required to prepare the concave metallic

speculum which forms the most important part of the apparatus, will

be able to form some idea of the difficulty of this undertaking.

Nevertheless, Herschel succeeded, after long and painful labour, in

completing a five-foot reflector, with which he had the

gratification of observing the ring and satellites of Saturn. Not

satisfied with his triumph, he proceeded to make other instruments

in succession, of seven, ten, and even twenty feet. In

constructing the seven-foot reflector, he finished no fewer than

two hundred specula before he produced one that would bear any

power that was applied to it,—a striking instance of the

persevering laboriousness of the man. While gauging the heavens

with his instruments, he continued patiently to earn his bread by

piping to the fashionable frequenters of the Pump-room. So eager

was he in his astronomical observations, that he would steal away

from the room during an interval of the performance, give a little

turn at his telescope, and contentedly return to his oboe. Thus

working away, Herschel discovered the Georgium Sidus, the orbit and

rate of motion of which he carefully calculated, and sent the

result to the Royal Society; when the humble oboe player found

himself at once elevated from obscurity to fame. He was shortly

after appointed Astronomer Royal, and by the kindness of George

III. was placed in a position of honourable competency for life.

He bore his honours with the same meekness and humility which had

distinguished him in the days of his obscurity. So gentle and

patient, and withal so distinguished and successful a follower of

science under difficulties, perhaps cannot be found in the entire

history of biography.

 

The career of William Smith, the father of English geology, though

perhaps less known, is not less interesting and instructive as an

example of patient and laborious effort, and the diligent

cultivation of opportunities. He was born in 1769, the son of a

yeoman farmer at Churchill, in Oxfordshire. His father dying when

he was but a child, he received a very sparing education at the

village school, and even that was to a considerable extent

interfered with by his wandering and somewhat idle habits as a boy.

His mother having married a second time, he was taken in charge by

an uncle, also a farmer, by whom he was brought up. Though the

uncle was by no means pleased with the boy’s love of wandering

about, collecting “poundstones,” “pundips,” and other stony

curiosities which lay scattered about the adjoining land, he yet

enabled him to purchase a few of the necessary books wherewith to

instruct himself in the rudiments of geometry and surveying; for

the boy was already destined for the business of a land-surveyor.

One of his marked characteristics, even as a youth, was the

accuracy and keenness of his observation; and what he once clearly

saw he never forgot. He began to draw, attempted to colour, and

practised the arts of mensuration and surveying, all without

regular instruction; and by his efforts in self-culture, he shortly

became so proficient, that he was taken on as assistant to a local

surveyor of ability in the neighbourhood. In carrying on his

business he was constantly under the necessity of traversing

Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties. One of the first things he

seriously pondered over, was the position of the various soils and

strata that came under his notice on the lands which he surveyed or

travelled over; more especially the position of the red earth in

regard to the lias and superincumbent rocks. The surveys of

numerous collieries which he was called upon to make, gave him

further experience; and already, when only twenty-three years of

age, he contemplated making a model of the strata of the earth.

 

While engaged in levelling for a proposed canal in Gloucestershire,

the idea of a general law occurred to him relating to the strata of

that district. He conceived that the strata lying above the coal

were not laid horizontally, but inclined, and in one direction,

towards the east; resembling, on a large scale, “the ordinary

appearance of superposed slices of bread and butter.” The

correctness of this theory he shortly after confirmed by

observations of the strata in two parallel valleys, the “red

ground,” “lias,” and “freestone” or “oolite,” being found to come

down in an eastern direction, and to sink below the level, yielding

place to the next in succession. He was shortly enabled to verify

the truth of his views on a larger scale, having been appointed to

examine personally into the management of canals in England and

Wales. During his journeys, which extended from Bath to Newcastle-on-Tyne, returning by Shropshire and Wales, his keen eyes were

never idle for a moment. He rapidly noted the aspect and structure

of the country through which he passed with his companions,

treasuring up his observations for future use. His geologic vision

was so acute, that though the road along which he passed from York

to Newcastle in the post chaise was from five to fifteen miles

distant from the hills of chalk and oolite on the east, he was

satisfied as to their nature, by their contours and relative

position, and their ranges on the surface in relation to the lias

and “red ground” occasionally seen on the road.

 

The general results of his observation seem to have been these. He

noted that the rocky masses of country in the western parts of

England generally inclined to the east and south-east; that the red

sandstones and marls above the coal measures passed beneath the

lias, clay, and limestone, that these again passed beneath the

sands, yellow limestones and clays, forming the table-land of the

Cotswold Hills, while these in turn passed beneath the great chalk

deposits occupying the eastern parts of England. He further

observed, that each layer of clay, sand, and limestone held its own

peculiar classes of fossils; and pondering much on these things, he

at length came to the then unheard-of conclusion, that each

distinct deposit of marine animals, in these several strata,

indicated a distinct sea-bottom, and that each layer of clay, sand,

chalk, and stone, marked a distinct epoch of time in the history of

the earth.

 

This idea took firm possession of his mind, and he could talk and

think of nothing else. At canal boards, at sheep-shearings, at

county meetings, and at agricultural associations, ‘Strata Smith,’

as he came to be called, was always running over with the subject

that possessed him. He had indeed made a great discovery, though

he was as yet a man utterly unknown in the scientific world. He

proceeded to project a map of the stratification of England; but

was for some time deterred from proceeding with it, being fully

occupied in carrying out the works of the Somersetshire coal canal,

which engaged him for a period of about six years. He continued,

nevertheless, to be unremitting in his observation of facts; and he

became so expert in apprehending the internal structure of a

district and detecting the lie of the strata from its external

configuration, that he was often consulted respecting the drainage

of extensive tracts of land, in which, guided by his geological

knowledge, he proved remarkably successful, and acquired an

extensive reputation.

 

One day, when looking over the cabinet collection of fossils

belonging to the Rev. Samuel Richardson, at Bath, Smith astonished

his friend by suddenly disarranging his classification, and re-arranging the fossils in their stratigraphical order, saying—

“These came from the blue lias, these from the over-lying sand and

freestone, these from the fuller’s earth, and these from the Bath

building stone.” A new light flashed upon Mr. Richardson’s mind,

and he shortly became a convert to and believer in William Smith’s

doctrine. The geologists of the day were not, however, so easily

convinced; and it was scarcely to be tolerated that an unknown

land-surveyor should pretend to teach them the science of geology.

But William Smith had an eye and mind to penetrate deep beneath the

skin of the earth; he saw its very fibre and skeleton, and, as it

were, divined its organization. His knowledge of the strata in the

neighbourhood of Bath was so accurate, that one evening, when

dining at the house of the Rev. Joseph Townsend, he dictated to Mr.

Richardson the different strata according to their order of

succession in descending order, twenty-three in number, commencing

with the chalk and descending in continuous series down to the

coal, below which the strata were not then sufficiently determined.

To this was added a list of the more remarkable fossils which had

been gathered in the several layers of rock. This was printed and

extensively circulated in 1801.

 

He next determined to trace out the strata through districts as

remote from Bath as his means would enable him to reach. For years

he journeyed to and fro, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback,

riding on the tops of stage coaches, often making up by night-travelling the time he had lost by day, so as not to fail in his

ordinary business engagements. When he was professionally called

away to any distance from home—as, for instance, when travelling

from Bath to Holkham, in Norfolk, to direct the irrigation and

drainage of Mr. Coke’s land in that county—he rode on horseback,

making frequent detours from the road to note the geological

features of the country which he traversed.

 

For several years he was thus engaged in his journeys to distant

quarters in England and Ireland, to the extent of