Simon Winchester - The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

C HAPTER -O PENING I LLUSTRATIONS

Incorporated in eighteen of the nineteen chapter openings (including those of the prologue and the epilogue) will be found small line drawings of Jurassic ammoniteslong-extinct marine animals that were so named because their coiled and chambered shells resembled nothing so much as the horns of the ancient Egyptian ram-god, Ammon . Soun Vannithones drawings of these eighteen specimens are placed in the book in what I believe to be the ammonites exact chronological sequence. This means that the books first fossil, Psiloceras planorbis , which illustrates the prologue, is the oldest ammonite, and is to be found deepest down in any sequence of Jurassic sediments; by the same token the final fossil, Pavlovia pallasioides , comes from a much higher horizon, and is very much younger. Much like the epilogue it illustrates, it was fashioned last. It must be said, though, that anyone who flips rapidly from chapter to chapter in the hope of seeing a speeded-up version of the evolutionary advancement of the ammonite will be disappointed: Ammonitesfloating, pulsating, slow-swimming beasts that were hugely abundant in the warm blue Jurassic seasdo not display any conveniently obvious changes in their featuresthey neither become progressively smaller with time, nor do they become larger; their shells do not become more complex, or less. True, some ammonites with very ridged shells do indeed evolve into smoother-shelled species over the ages, but these same creatures then become rougher and more ridged again as time wears on, managing thereby to confuse and fascinate all who study them. Only studies of ammonites from successive levels will reveal sure evidence of evolutionary change, and such study is too time consuming for the chance observer. Ammonites are, however, uniformly lovely; and they inspired William Smith: two reasons good enough, perhaps, for including them as symbols both of Smiths remarkable prescience and geological times amazing bounty. However: eighteen ammonites and nineteen chapter openings? There is one additional illustration, of the microscopic cross-section of a typical oolitic limestone, which I have used to mark the heading for chapter 11. Since this chapter is very different in structure from all the others, and since much of its narrative takes place along the outcrop of those exquisitely lovely, honey-colored Jurassic rocks known in England as the Great Oolite and the Inferior Oolite, it seemed appropriate and reasonable to ask the legions of ammonites, on just this one occasion, to stepor swim very slowlyto one side.

Prologue: Psiloceras planorbis

Chapter One: Echioceras raricostatum

Chapter Two: Amaltheus margaritatus

Chapter Three: Dactylioceras tenuicostatum

Chapter Four: Harpoceras falciferum

Chapter Five: Hildoceras bifrons

Chapter Six: Sonninia sowerbyi

Chapter Seven: Stephanoceras humphriesianum

Chapter Eight: Parkinsonia parkinsoni

Chapter Nine: Zigzagiceras zigzag

Chapter Ten: Tulites subcontractus

Chapter Eleven: Oolitic Limestone

Chapter Twelve: Clydoniceras discus

Chapter Thirteen: Macrocephalites macrocephalus

Chapter Fourteen: Sigaloceras calloviense

Chapter Fifteen: Peltoceras athleta

Chapter Sixteen: Cardioceras cordatum

Chapter Seventeen: Aulacostephanoides mutabilis

Epilogue: Pavlovia pallasioides

T EXT I LLUSTRATIONS

A N OTE ON THE M AP I NSERT

The brilliance of William Smiths achievement can be amply demonstrated by comparing his great map of 1815 with the one produced today by the British Geological Survey. The similarity of so much of the detailvisible even at a scale where much cannot be seenis proof absolute of the accuracy and prescience of Smiths work, yet does not admit of the one signal difference between the two productions: that while the survey map is the fruit of the labors of thousands, William Smiths map, drawn a century and a half before, is the result of the dedication and determination of one man who worked for almost twenty years, always entirely alone.

Psiloceras planorbis

A bove one of the many grand marble staircases within the east wing of Burlington House, the great Palladian mansion on the north side of Londons Piccadilly, hangs a pair of huge sky blue velvet curtains, twisted and tasseled silk ropes beside them. Although many may wonder in passing, rarely does any one of the scores of people who climb and descend the stairs inquire as to what lies behind the drapes. A blocked-off window, perhaps? A painting too grotesque to show? A rare Continental tapestry, faded by the sunlight?

Once in a while someone curious and bold will demand a look, whereupon a functionary will emerge from behind a door marked Private, and with practiced hand will tug gently on the silk ropes. The curtains will slowly part, revealing an enormous and magnificent map of England and Wales, engraved and coloredin sea blue, green, bright yellow, orange, umberin a beguiling and unfamiliar mixture of lines, patches, and stippled shapes.

The German Ocean, it says to the east of the English coast, instead of todays North Sea. There is, in an inset, a small cross-section of what is said to be the underside of the country from Wales to the river Thames. Otherwise all is readily familiar, comfortingly recognizable. The document is exquisitely beautifula beauty set off by its great size, more than eight feet by sixand by the fact that it towerslooms, indeedabove those who stand on the staircase to see it. The care and attention to its detail is clear: This is the work of a craftsman, lovingly done, the culmination of years of study, months of careful labor.

At the top right is its description, engraved in copperplate flourishes: A Delineation of The Strata of England and Wales with part of Scotland; exhibiting the Collieries and Mines; the Marshes and Fen Lands originally Overflowed by the Sea; and the Varieties of Soil according to the Variations in the Sub Strata; illustrated by the Most Descriptive Names. There is a signature: By W. Smith. There is a date: Augst 1, 1815.

This, the official will explain, is the first true geological map of anywhere in the world. It is a map that heralded the beginnings of a whole new science. It is a document that laid the groundwork for the making of great fortunesin oil, in iron, in coal, and in other countries in diamonds, tin, platinum, and silverthat were won by explorers who used such maps. It is a map that laid the foundations of a field of study that culminated in the work of Charles Darwin. It is a map whose making signified the beginnings of an era not yet over, that has been marked ever since by the excitement and astonishment of scientific discoveries that allowed human beings to start at last to stagger out from the fogs of religious dogma, and to come to understand something certain about their own originsand those of the planet they inhabit. It is a map that had an importance, symbolic and real, for the development of one of the great fundamental fields of studygeologywhich, arguably like physics and mathematics, is a field of learning and endeavor that underpins all knowledge, all understanding.