110 



CHAPTER V. 



1858-1859. 



BEIXHAM CAVE FLINT IMPLEMENTS VISITS TO 

 ABBEVILLE GOWER CAVES. 



PRESTWICH'S attention for some time had been occupied 

 with fossiliferous deposits in the Drift and with raised 

 beaches, his investigations of the latter leading to those 

 wide generalisations which later he was to give the 

 world in a series of papers to the Royal Society. As 

 a whole, his work had been chiefly in stratigraphical 

 geology : he had worked out in detail the structure of 

 the London and Hampshire basins as no one else had 

 done, and he had made himself the chief geological 

 authority on water-supply. But his powers were now 

 to be directed to a new field of research, in which he 

 became an acknowledged pioneer, and which brought 

 about a complete revolution of modern thought re- 

 garding the antiquity of the human race. In this 

 new inquiry his extraordinary memory was of especial 

 service. He never forgot what he had observed and 

 written, so as years went on and fresh discoveries 

 threw further light on unsettled questions, this gift 

 of memory enabled him to bring all his accumulated 

 knowledge to bear upon the subject immediately under 

 consideration. 



