26 



CHAPTEE II. 



1830-1834. 



CITY AND HOME LIFE ZETETICAL SOCIETY VISITS TO 

 SHROPSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



WHEN Joseph Prestwich entered upon his City career, 

 which was to last over forty years, he was about 

 eighteen years of age. It was not the career he would 

 have chosen, it was not congenial, but circumstances 

 were such that it was his duty to adopt it, and there- 

 fore he applied himself to business with all the con- 

 scientiousness and earnestness of his nature. Perhaps 

 there are few endowed as he was, who would have had 

 the moral courage to resist the fascinations of science. 

 At the outset he planned out his life and resolved that 

 there should be no interruption to his geological work. 

 The hours at his own disposal he allotted, as before, to 

 the identification of fossils and to the analysis of 

 minerals. Time for that work, and for practical chem- 

 istry as well as for his mathematics and reading, had 

 to be found in the early morning before breakfast and 

 after his return from the City at six or seven in the 

 evening, when each hour had its appointed subject. 

 By this method he was able to accomplish much ; yet 

 one is at a loss to understand how he found leisure 



