In England, the mining surveyor William Smith, starting in the 1790s, found empirically that fossils were a highly effective means of distinguishing between otherwise similar formations of the landscape as he travelled the country working on the canal system and produced the first geological map of Britain.
En Inglaterra o topógrafo de minas William Smith, desde a década de 1790, atopou empiricamente que o exame dos fósiles era un medio moi efectivo para distinguir entre formacións noutros aspectos similares da paisaxe cando viaxaba polo campo traballando no sistema de canles e elaborou o primeiro mapa xeolóxico de Gran Bretaña.