416 SUMMARY OF WORK. 



carried his deductions far beyond these local limits. 

 He collected a vast mass of evidence from the writings 

 of Continental geologists, regarding what he considered 

 to be evidence of a submergence of Western Europe 

 at the close of the Glacial period [130]. His data 

 ranged from the coasts of Belgium and France to Gib- 

 raltar, and embraced the whole wide basin of the Medi- 

 terranean. Besting, however, on the testimony of 

 witnesses of unequal value, they lack the directness 

 and coherence of his own personal observations, and 

 the deductions based upon them, though elaborately 

 worked out, have not yet obtained general acceptance. 

 As regards the conclusions drawn by him in some of 

 his later papers dealing with the supposed evidence 

 of changes of level in the South of England, geological 

 opinion is likewise divided [see especially 128]. These 

 papers, though the result of much close personal ob- 

 servation made during the course of many years, were 

 not written out and communicated to the world until 

 the closing years of his life. In the long interval 

 which, in "'some cases, had elapsed between his labours 

 in the field and the discussion of them in these papers, 

 much had been done in certain directions by other 

 observers. In regard, for example, to the " Head" or 

 " Bubble-Drift " of the South of England, we may share 

 his regret that he was unable to revisit all the ground, 

 and to review his conclusions in the light of more re- 

 cent research. But it was of great service to the 

 history of geological progress that the actual field- 

 notes;._and matured opinions of so patient and accurate 

 an observer should have been at last put on record by 

 himself. 



One of the most useful services rendered by Sir 

 Joseph Prestwich to the cause of his own science was 



