I'm going to sail close to the wind of posting bare links here, but I've just found
this site.
It's about the above-named William Smith, who created the first ever large scale geological map of England, Wales and part of Scotland.
It's got scans of the whole map, and detailed, printable scans of each of the sections (the whole thing in reality is 6ft by 9ft). All done c1800 bu observation, correlation and meticulous draughtmanship.
There's been a book published recently "The Map that Changed the World" by Simon Winchester. From the reviews I've seen (not yet read it) it's very good.
For Whigs admit no force but argument.
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