The Map That Changed the World William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

Simon Winchester

eAudio - 2004

From the author of the bestselling The Professor and the Madman comes the fascinating story of William Smith, the orphaned son of an English country blacksmith, who became obsessed with creating the world's first geological map and ultimately became the father of modern geology.In 1793 William Smith, a canal digger, made a startling discovery that was to turn the fledgling science of the history of the earth — and a central plank of established Christian religion — on its head. He noticed that the rocks he was excavating were arranged in layers; more important, he could see quite clearly that the fossils found in one layer were very different from those found in another. And out of that realization came an epiphany: that by followi...ng the fossils, one could trace layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell — clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world. Determined to publish his profoundly important discovery by creating a map that would... more