1896. JOSEPH PRESTWICH. 97 



the present day." All geologists seek to interpret the past by the 

 light of the present, but while Uniformitarians (as they are called) 

 demand time unlimited, their opponents, sometimes spoken of as 

 Catastrophists, would rather infer a greater potency in the agents of 

 upheaval or denudation than grant an unlimited amount of time. 



As Prestwich puts it, " Not that time is in itself a difficulty, but 

 a time-rate, assumed on very insufficient grounds, is used as a master- 

 key, whether or not it fits, to unravel all difficulties. What if it were 

 suggested that the brick-built Pyramid of Hawara had been laid 

 brick by brick by a single workman ? Given time, this would not be 

 beyond the bounds of possibility ; but Nature, like the Pharaohs, 

 had greater forces at her command to do the work better and more 

 expeditiously than is admitted by Uniformitarians." (Collected 

 Papers, 1895, P- 2). He maintained that modern estimates of denu- 

 dation and deposition, and of rates of upheaval and depression, were 

 no test of what happened in the past : that, in fact, the potency of 

 agents had diminished. Referring to the Glacial period, in his 

 inaugural lecture on "The Past and Future of Geology," delivered 

 at Oxford, in 1875, he thus expresses himself: "This last great 

 change in the long geological record is one of so exceptional a 

 nature, that, as I have formerly elsewhere observed (Phil. Trans., 

 1864, p. 305), it deeply impresses me with the belief of great purpose 

 and all-wise design, in staying that progressive refrigeration and con- 

 traction on which the movements of the crust of the earth depend, 

 and which has thus had imparted to it that rigidity and stability which 

 now render it so fit and suitable for the habitation of civilised man ; 

 for, without that immobility, the slow and constantly recurring changes 

 would, apart from the rarer and greater catastrophes, have rendered 

 our rivers unnavigable, our harbours inaccessible, our edifices insecure, 

 our springs ever-varying, and our climates ever-changing ; and while 

 some districts would have been gradually uplifted, other whole 

 countries must have been gradually submerged ; and against this 

 inevitable destiny no human foresight could have prevailed." 



His great text book on geology to which we have alluded, will 

 remain as a monument of his zeal and untiring labour. On its com- 

 pletion he resigned his professorship, and retired to his quiet home 

 among the Chalk hills of Kent. There, however, he maintained his 

 interest in his favourite science, and continued to labour to the very 

 end of his days. Soon after leaving Oxford, in 1888, he was called 

 upon, as our leading geologist, to preside over the meeting of the 

 International Geological Congress, which then held its fourth session 

 in London. 



The study of the drifts of the south and south-east of England 

 now absorbed most of his time, and he devoted more attention o the 

 grouping of the later superficial deposits and to the great physical 

 changes to which they bear witness. His ideas on all these topics 

 have not met with the unanimous approval of geologists, nor was such 



