8o NATURAL SCIENCE. Feb., 



questioned. In 1857, Prestwich announced the memorable discovery 

 of marine Pliocene deposits on the summit of the North Downs ; 

 this conclusion was long denied by the officers of the Geological 

 Survey, but, as in most cases, Prestwich's view finally gained 

 universal acceptance. In i860, he placed the question of the antiquity 

 of man on a new footing, by his memoir on the implement-yielding 

 gravels of Amiens and Abbeville. This was the first of Prestwich's 

 classical papers on the drifts, a subject on which he had first written 

 in 1 85 1, and one which has ever since been his favourite. Most 

 of Prestwich's work was done in the intervals of business life, and 

 it was not till 1874 ^ na ^ ^ e was appointed Professor of Geology 

 at Oxford, where he taught till 1888. During his stay there he 

 compiled his great Text-book of Geology, a work rich in suggestions, 

 though unfortunately so behind the times in two departments that it 

 has never exercised so wide an educational influence as it otherwise 

 would have done. After Professor Prestwich had left Oxford for 

 his picturesque home in the gorge of the Darenth, he returned with 

 enthusiasm to his old love — the English gravels. In 1890, he 

 issued his series of papers on the " Westleton Shingle." In these his 

 genius for summarising complex controversy and for picking out the 

 fundamental facts from a bewildering crowd of trivial and apparently 

 contradictory observations enabled, him to build up a theory which 

 has gradually gained ground, and will certainly be the starting point 

 for all future work. In the following year, he took up the defence of 

 the rough flint implements found by Harrison on the chalk downs of 

 Kent, a discovery almost as memorable as that of the implements in 

 the gravels of the Somme. Until Professor Prestwich's defence of 

 the claims of these stones to be regarded as shaped by man, the 

 discovery was not accepted, owing to the startling alterations rendered 

 necessary in the interpretation of the geology of the south-east of 

 England. In some later papers, Prestwich has taken to deluges, 

 with results unfortunate for his reputation among many younger 

 English geologists. But those who regret most that he has, perhaps 

 unwittingly, given encouragement to a reactionary school of 

 theologians, will rejoice most at the official recognition of the value of 

 his work. For, in former times, no one did more than Prestwich to 

 lead geology out of bondage, and to point out possible lines of march 

 through the wilderness. But for his far-seeing guidance in the past, 

 we should not now be able to look together so far forward into the 

 unexplored country that lies before us, and to discern there the 

 streaks of light in which Sir Joseph Prestwich sees mists upon the 

 hill tops, but in which his followers see the glow of dawn. 



New Literature on the Foraminifera. 

 Foremost among the numerous works lately published on the 

 Foraminifera is Professor Rupert Jones's " Monograph of the 

 Foraminifera of the Crag." It is the second part of a paper begun in 



