From the author of the bestselling The Teacher 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 initial geological map and ultimately became the daddy of contemporary geology.

In 1793 William Smith, a canal digger, produced a startling discovery that was to carefully turn the fledgling science of the annals of the planet earth — and a central plank of established Christian religious beliefs — on its head. He about The Map That Changed the World: William Smith as well as the Birth of Contemporary Geology pointed out that the rocks he was excavating had been arranged in layers; more important, he could observe quite clearly the fact that fossils found in one layer were completely different from those within another. And out of that realization emerged an epiphany: that by following fossils, one could trace levels of rocks as they dipped and rose and dropped — clear across Britain and, indeed, very clear across the world. Determined to publish his profoundly important discovery by developing a map that would display the concealed underside of Britain, he spent twenty years traveling the length and breadth from the kingdom by stagecoach and on foot, studying rock and roll outcrops and fossils, piecing together the image of this unseen universe.

In 1815 he posted his epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map, a lot more than eight ft tall and 6 ft wide. But four years after its triumphant publication, and along with his youthful wife going steadily mad to the idea of nymphomania, Smith finished up in debtors’ prison, a victim of plagiarism, swindled out of his recognition and his revenue. He still left London for the north of England and continued to be homeless for ten lengthy years as he searched for function. It wasn’t until 1831, when his company, a sympathetic nobleman, brought him into contact with the Geological Culture of London — which had earlier refused him a fellowship — that at last this tranquil genius was showered using the honors long overdue him. He was summoned south to receive the society’s highest award, and King William IV offered him a lifetime pension.

The Map That Changed the Globe is, at its foundation, an extremely individual tale of endurance and achievement, of one man’s dedication when confronted with ruin and homelessness. The world’s coal and oil industry, its gold mining, its highway systems, and its railroad routes had been all derived entirely from your creation of Smith’s initial map.; and with a keen attention and thoughtful details, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing finding.