THE PAST AND FUTURE OF GEOLOGY: 



AN INAUGURAL LECTURE GIVEN BY JOSEPH PRESTWICH, M.A., F. R. S., 

 F. G. S., &c., PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 

 ON JANUARY 29, 1875. 



1 cauuot euter upou the subject of this address without a brief tribute 

 to the memory of my distinguished and lamented predecessor, Professor 

 Phillips. Educated in geology by his uncle, William Smith, the father 

 of pjuglish geology, John Phillips was thus nearly connected with the 

 early history of our science, and lived to give active and efficient aid to 

 its progress during more than half a century. His early training was 

 among the Oolitic hills of Gloucestershire and the Midland Counties, 

 but his first independent work was among the Palaeozoic rocks of York- 

 shire. In later life, he returned to the ground of his youth, and spent 

 his last years in investigating the rich and varied succession of life in 

 the different divisions of that Oolitic series of which his uncle was the 

 first to establish the stratigraphical order ; and his " Geology of the 

 Valley of the Thames " contains the best summary we possess of the 

 geology and palaeontology of these strata in this and the adjacent 

 counties. 



Besides his chief and early work on the "Geology of Yorkshire,-' 

 Phillips was also the author of an excellent " Treatise on Geology," of 

 works on the Malvern Hills, and on Vesuvius, of several memoirs in the 

 geological survey, and of above seventy papers scattered through various 

 scientific periodicals. He was a fellow of most of our great scientific so- 

 cieties, and the record of his many valuable contributions in each special 

 branch is to be found in their respective proceedings. I have to note 

 his work here. 



Shortly after Phillips's arrival in Oxford, the valuable geological col- 

 lections, many of which had remained hidden for want of space, were 

 transferred from their old quarters to the new and beautiful museum 

 Oxford now possesses. Valuable as these collections were in i)articular 

 sections, especially in cave remains, there was very much to be done in 

 completing the series of the local formations, and in the general selec- 

 tion, order, and grouping of the specimens. All this was admirably 

 carried out by Phillips, and the geology of the surrounding district is 

 now illustrated by a suite of fossils amassed and arranged with great 

 judgment, and forming one of the most complete local series in the king- 

 dom. To Phillips especially is this museum indebted for the remarkable 

 collection of the remains of the Cetiosaurns and of the Great Oolite — an 

 extinct gigantic reptile the size of a whale and with the gait and am- 



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