256 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



contributed valuable papers, one of them embodying the conclusion 

 that the coal fields under the Secondary rocks of the south and south- 

 east of England might extend from Somersetshire to the neighbor- 

 hood of Folkestone, which has been confirmed by borings at Dover. 



Dr. Prestwich retired from business in 1872, and in 1874 became 

 professor of geology at Oxford. He continued his researches with 

 his accustomed activity, and enriched the literature of geology from 

 year to year with numerous valuable and original contributions, in 

 the form of papers and addresses to learned societies, in connection 

 with which his name constantly appears, and of books which are 

 indispensable to the thorough student of the science. 



Dr. Prestwich's annual address as president of the Geological 

 Society in 1872 gives an admirable statement of the purposes of 

 geological research with reference to the advent of man, and further 

 on of its practical applications to the questions of water supply and 

 coal. Among the theoretical problems that were then occupying 

 the attention of geologists of all nations, the speaker said, were the 

 phenomena connected with the prevalence of great and exceptional 

 cold immediately preceding our time, the first dim appearance of 

 man, his association with a race of great extinct mammalia belonging 

 to a cold climate, the persistent zoological characteristics of man 

 as contrasted with the variable animal types presented in geological 

 time, the search for connecting links, and the measure of man's an- 

 tiquity. Allied to these were the great questions relating to the 

 forms of the continents the elevation of the land, the origin of 

 valleys and plains, and all that prepared the globe for the advent of 

 man. Further, geology dealt with the requirements of civilized 

 man, " showing him the best way of providing for many of his wants, 

 and guiding him in the search for much that is necessary for his 

 welfare. The questions of water supply, of building materials, of 

 metalliferous veins, of iron and coal supply, and of surface soils 

 all come under this head and constitute a scarcely less important 

 although a more special branch of our science than the paleonto- 

 logical questions connected with the life of past periods, or than the 

 great theoretical problems relating to physical and cosmical phe- 

 nomena." Proceeding to consider the geological questions con- 

 nected with water supply, the author suggested that the site of a 

 spring or the presence of a stream determined probably the first 

 settlements of savage man; and his civilized descendants, until the 

 last few years, equally depended upon like conditions. These condi- 

 tions were connected with the rainfall and with the distribution of 

 the permeable and impermeable strata forming the surface of the 

 country. Under ordinary circumstances few large towns had arisen 

 except where a localized water supply was easily accessible, where 



