The Map that Changed the World tells the tale of “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 about their own origins.” In
setting out to tell the story of what he sees as the most important map of the
19th century, Simon Winchester ends up telling the story of the
map’s creator: William Smith. In doing
so, he not only describes the birth of the new science of geology, but also
provides a compelling picture of late 18th and early 19th
century England from the perspective of the struggling middle and lower
classes. By telling the story of William
Smith and his stratigraphical map of England, Winchester introduces the reader
to the economic, social, cultural, and scientific issues of the day, which may
be the most important feature of his book.
The map in question is
William Smith’s groundbreaking geological map that showed, in vivid color, the
age and type of rocks throughout England and Wales. Interestingly, Scotland and Ireland are
excluded from Smith’s colossal undertaking, which required him to cover the
length and breadth of the area on foot.
Winchester claims that this particular map is ultimately responsible for
“the making of great fortunes – in oil, in iron, in coal, and in other
countries of diamonds, tin, platinum, and silver – that were won by explorers
who used such maps. It is the map that
laid the foundations of a field of study that culminated in the work of Charles
Darwin.” According to Winchester, the
creation of the map is different from all of the other great scientific
creations of mankind because it is the sole creation of one man, not a group
effort.
Other than the development
of geology as a unique and separate area of research, Winchester focuses on
changes in England’s economy and a move away from the literal interpretation of
Scripture for the explanation of all phenomena, as well as social barriers from
within England’s natural philosophy establishment to those from the lower
classes. The first two areas are
critical to the development of the map and the direction of William Smith’s
life, and show how he was able to support himself while creating the map, while
the third illustrates the political infighting among scientists and the dangers
of not publishing what are now known as “least publishable units” to lay claim
to a specific area of inquiry so that the unscrupulous could not claim it as
their own after copying research notes or learning new methods directly from
the source.
Economically, turn of the
century England experienced drastic changes, one directly related to geology
and one related more to the quality and quantity of food produced by English
farms. Geology became economically important
as the use of coal increased exponentially, methods for its extraction
improved, and the creation of canals for inexpensive transportation of coal
from mine to market grew. Coal was used
for heating, for powering the fires of industries, for use in the new steam engines,
and after conversion to tar to fuel lamps.
Technological increases, particularly the use of steam engines, allowed
coal to be mined at greater depths and with less risk to the miners. At the
same time mine owners, desiring to increase their profits by reducing their
transportation costs, began building canals from their mines to the location of
their markets. These three coal-related issues combined to increase interest in
geology, when William Smith showed that the location of coal deposits could be
extrapolated from the rocks found in a region.
Smith came to this
conclusion after he noted that the rock strata in mines in a small geographical
area all appeared in the same order and with the same slope. This meant that he could tell approximately
where and at what depth coal seams could be found in an area. After traveling throughout England and Wales
studying various rock formations he was able to determine what strata were
located under a given location. Canals
come into the picture because their construction, in which Smith was consulted,
gave him the chance to examine the strata through which the canal was cut. This enabled him to determine which strata
were found in the different regions the canal ran through, increasing his
understanding of the geographical layout of England. He had also correlated the appearance of
fossils with different rock strata and noted that the fossils, like the strata
always appeared in the same order. This
allowed him to examine the fossils found on the ground and determine what
strata lay beneath – laying the groundwork for the creation of his geological
map.
The other major change in
the English economy that Winchester focuses on in telling the tale of William
Smith and his map is agriculture. The great
new innovation in English agriculture was the enclosure acts, which radically
altered English agriculture by enclosing fields for the use of individual
farmers and increased agricultural efficiency.
The old method of English farming held the fields near a village in
common, with farmers taking strips of land for themselves and leaving others
fallow, while the new method closed off the fields and introduced the use of
new machines, new theories of crop rotation, and the introduction of new
livestock. According to Winchester this
economic change resulted in better foods such as white bread and roast beef,
and a lengthening of the English lifespan.
Winchester introduces this for several reasons. First, the world of agricultural change was
that which Smith was born into: his birthplace of Churchill was not “enclosed”
until the 1770s. Second, Winchester sees
it as part of a greater trend of enhanced knowledge of the world and comfort in
it that was the hallmark of the era.
As well researched and readable
as The Map that Changed the World is, it also has some quirky
problems. The first is the minor issue
that Winchester frequently steps aside to describe landscapes, houses, farms,
and stone as plain, pretty or uninspiring.
It is not entirely clear whether this is a value judgment, or if it is
meant only to provide the reader a different feel for different locales. One excellent example is his description of
Smith’s birthplace of Churchill, which Winchester describes the new system as
creating “the English countryside that we still see today, mannered, orderly,
and inordinately pretty,” while the old method “was woefully inefficient, the
landscape it created plain and uninteresting.” He also notes that the
weathering of older stone buildings “are quite sublime.” The only time that it
is obvious that Winchester may be passing a value judgment that might interfere
with his objectivity is found in the prologue, in which he calls Smith’s map “incomparably
beautiful.”
An additional issue with
Winchester’s text is his digression into his own childhood experiences in
Dorset with its Jurassic period strata and his early fascination fossils. It would be easy to dismiss this as merely an
attempt to draw the reader further into the story of geology and his love for
it, or to provide a more personal feel for how William Smith felt when
discovering his first fossils, or noting that he could read the strata from the
lay of the land. It seems strange that Winchester
would choose to insert himself into the text in this manner, where it had not
had the feel of a personal journey before.
It is also interesting that the text quickly loses this personal
touch. It almost seems as if Winchester
is attempting to makes a connection between himself and Smith, no matter how
tenuous.
These two issues aside, The
Map that Changed the World is valuable on many levels. First, it re-introduces modern society to
another of the great scientific minds that laid the groundwork for our
understanding in the world. If, as
Winchester claims, Smith’s geological work ultimately led to Darwin’s Origin
of Species, then he deserves the same level of approbation as Einstein,
Newton, and Copernicus. Second, it
provides the reader with a look at the changes in English society at the turn
of the 19th century almost from the perspective of the individuals
they affected. A major benefit of
Winchester’s informal tone is that his work is accessible enough for readers to
feel some of what Smith and others experienced.
Finally, Winchester shows that the world of science is beset by the same
vanities and prejudices as the societies the scientists are part of. By showing that Greenbough went through a
large amount of effort to in effect steal Smith’s work on the map, Winchester
shows that scientists frequently have the same motivations as the “regular”
people.
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