Simon Winchester, Map that changed the world

The author, noted writer Simon Winchester (who graduated with a Geology degree from Oxford University), makes no secret of the fact that this text is an unabashed tribute to his hero, William Smith, a nineteenth century surveyor and canal digger whose passionate hobby was geology. In the course of Smith's vocation and avocation he went on to create what became the first geologic map of the British Isles in 1815 and to become the individual who many believe to be the father of modem geology.