NATURE 



[July 2, 1896 



Jagoon has a good entrance, and provides firm anchorage. 

 There are about 400 inhabitants, with a native missionary 

 and a white trader ; but there is no good supply of 

 water on the island. 



Apparatus is being taken for boring about 1000 feet, 

 but it is not anticipated that the bore will reach more 

 than 700 feet in the time allotted, although three shifts 

 will be working night and day, but not on Sundays, for 

 the inhabitants are strict Sabbatarians. Delays are 

 almost certain to occur, for the rock will be in places 

 •soft and cavernous, and the occasional dropping of the 

 crown, resulting in probable injury to the diamonds, 

 is not unlikely. For this I'eason the Department of 

 Mines in New South Wales has provided steel cutters, 

 which will be used whenever the nature of the rock 

 permits it. The hole will start at four inches diameter, 

 and it may be necessary in the later stages to drop to 

 three inches, for which apparatus will be at hand. 



The necessity for an investigation into the submarine 

 structure of a coral reef is so well known to the readers of 

 N.VTURE, that it is unnecessary to enter into any minute 

 particulars. The e.xplorers are instructed to bring back a 

 core which will show what the under parts of a typical atoll 

 are made of, and thus make known, what there has never 

 been an opportunity of studying before, the foundations 

 and under-structure of a reef which has not received 

 sufficient uplift to clear the water. The different parts 

 of this core will almost certainly indicate how its com- 

 ponent rocks have originated — by living coral growing 

 ■on coral in situ, on coral debris, on other types of organic 

 irocks, or on a platform of denudation or deposition. 



" Of the cores and of such other specimens as may be 

 <ollected by the expedition (not referring to specimens 

 ■collected by the volunteers in their private capacity), the 

 first set will be ultimately presented to the British 

 Museum, the second to the Ministry of Mines at 

 'Sydney." 



In conclusion, I may be allowed to point out that 

 though a large sum of money has been granted by the 

 •Government Grant Committee and by the Royal Society, 

 It would have required very much more if the Admiralty 

 had not made a most speedy and generous response to 

 the request of the Royal Society. Even with that help, 

 it would have been impossible to do the work so soon, 

 ■or even probably at all, if further ready and kindly assist- 

 ance had not been received from individuals men- 

 tioned above, and from the Department of Mines of the 

 Government of New South Wales. The help thus 

 rendered has probably reduced by three-fourths the total 

 ■cost of the exploration, and it will be readily understood 

 that the English committee feels a lively gratitude, not 

 only to the Admiralty and its advisers, but to our good 

 friends in New South Wales, amongst whom it is a 

 pleasure to name Prof Anderson Stuart, Mr. Slee, and 

 Prof Edgeworth David, not forgetting Sir Saul Samuel, 

 the .Agent-General of the Colony in England. 



W. W. Watts. 



SIR JOSEPH PRESTIVICH, D.C.L., F.R.S. 



THE most eminent of British geologists has just 

 passed away, and those who last Saturday stood 

 around his grave amid the chalk hills of his pleasant 

 country home at Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, felt that 

 they were paying a last tribute to a veteran who had out- 

 lived all the associates of his prime, who had completed 

 all his earthly tasks, and had gone to rest full of honours, 

 and revered by all who knew him. 



Joseph Prestwich was born in 18 1 2 at Clapham, and 

 .after passing through elementary schools in London and 

 .in Paris, he proceeded to the famous grammar school of 

 Dr. V'alpy at Reading, and completed his education at 

 University College in Gower .Street. At this college his 



NO. 1392, VOL. 54] 



thoughts were directed to science by the lectures of 

 Edward Turner on chemistry, and of Dionysius Lardner 

 on natural philosophy. Turner, moreover, introduced the 

 subjects of geology and mineralogy into his course, and 

 thereby Prestwich gained those first lessons which 

 aroused his interest and led him by force of circum- 

 stances to devote his leisure to geological studies. Had 

 he been free to take up a profession he might, indeed, have 

 given his special attention to chemistry. He was, how- 

 ever, destined to enter into commercial life, and until he 

 was si.xty years of age he was busily engaged in the city 

 as a wine merchant. Assiduous and successful as a man 

 of business, he yet contrived, from his earliest years in the 

 office, to give great attention to geology, and he devoted 

 all the leisure he could command to this subject, first of 

 all as a means of relaxation, and finally because his 

 interests were centred in the study. In early years his 

 business-journeys enabled him to see and learn much 

 about the general geology of England and Scotland ; 

 and when still a youth he spent his holidays during two 

 successive years in studying the district of Coalbrook 

 Dale in Shropshire, in mapping the various strata 

 exposed at the surface from the Silurian rocks to the New 

 Red Sandstone and Drifts, in marking the lines of fault, 

 in noting in detail the character of the Coal-measures, 

 and in gathering together the fossils from the several 

 formations. The masterly memoir which he wrote on 

 this area was communicated to the Geological Society 

 of London in two portions in 1834 and 1836, being com- 

 pleted when the author was but twenty-four years of age. 

 Meanwhile he had paid a visit tothe north of .Scotland, and 

 had given some account of the Ichthyolites of Gamrie in 

 Banffshire, a task which he undertook at the suggestion 

 of .Sir Roderick (then Mr.) Murchison. This was his 

 first paper published in the Transactions of the Geo- 

 logical Society, of which he had been elected a Fellow 

 in 1833. 



Later on he came to devote his special attention to 

 the Eocene formations in the neighbourhood of London, 

 and in course of time he thoroughly investigated the 

 entire area of the London Basin. In particular he 

 defined and named the Thanet Sands and the Woolwich 

 and Reading Beds ; and he studied the sequence of organic 

 remains in the London clay, and the subdivisions of the 

 Bagshot series. In these researches he paid especial 

 attention to the lithological changes of the strata and to 

 their fossils, so that he could picture the physical con- 

 ditions under which the several formations were deposited. 

 He extended his observations into the Hampshire Basin, 

 and showed that the Bognor beds formed part of the 

 London clay, and eventually he proceeded into France 

 and Belgium to correlate the subdivisions there made 

 with those he had established in this country. This 

 great work among the Eocene strata occupied much of 

 his time for nearly twenty years, and it served to fully 

 establish his reputation not only as a keen and accurate 

 observer, but as a most philosophical geologist. .Another 

 great achievement soon awaited Prestwich, and that was 

 the investigation of the valley gravels supposed to contain 

 the works of man in association with extinct mammalia. 

 Boucher de Perthes had in 1847 announced such dis- 

 coveries in the Somme Valley, but they had received 

 little attention. The somewhat similar discoveries in 

 Kent's Cavern, by MacEnery, had likewise been neglected. 

 Attention was, however, forcibly directed to the subject 

 by the discoveries made in Brixham Cave in 1858, and 

 Dr. Falconer then induced Prestwich to examine the 

 evidence brought forward in the valley of the Somme. 

 The results of these researches, which were carried on 

 in conjunction with Sir John E\ans, and which were 

 followed by a study of the English evidence at Hoxne, 

 in Suftblk, in the Ouse Valley, and elsewhere, are well 

 known. The contemporaneity of man with the Manunoth 

 and other Pleistocene mammalia was fully established, 



