Reviews — Life of Sir Joseph Presiicich. 377 



London Tertiaries,' was capable of a threefold arrangement into — 

 1st, the basement-bed of the London Clay ; 2nd, the Woolwich and 

 Beading Series ; and 3rd, the Thanet Sands. Tracing out the range 

 and general physical features of the middle group, he brought 

 forward numerous sections showing the local variations of the 

 sediments from Hampshire to the east of Kent. He gave ample 

 lists of the fossil contents of the strata, and discussed them in their 

 bearings on the geographical conditions under which the deposits 

 were accumulated. For the first time the succession of geological 

 €vents recorded in the oldest Eocene strata of England was clearly 

 stated." 



" After reducing to order the older Tertiary series of England, 

 Prestwich conferred a still further service on geology by bringing 

 the English formations into line with those of France and Belgium. 

 In a series of elaborate papers communicated to the Geological Society 

 he established the correlation of these deposits, both lithologically 

 and palasontologically, and in so doing became the acknowledged 

 leader in the Tertiary geology of Western Europe." (p. 410.) 



" To one of his investigations in later Tertiary geology reference 

 may here be made as an instance of his sagacity of observation. He 

 had long been acquainted with certain ferruginous sands scattered 

 over the North Downs from Folkestone to Dorking. He recognized 

 these materials to be different from the red flint drift or loam, on 

 the one hand, and from the outliers of older Tertiary sands and 

 pebble-beds on the other. In 1854 some highly ferruginous parts 

 -of these deposits yielded a number of casts of shells which were 

 regarded by some palaeontologists as indicating the base of the 

 London Clay. Prestwich, however, assigned them to a much more 

 recent period. He shared the opinion of Searles Wood, who re- 

 garded them as probably of the age of the Lower Crag. More 

 recent observations by Mr. Clement Keid, of the Geological Survey, 

 and the discovery of other and better preserved fossils, have left no 

 doubt that Prestwich was entirely justified in looking upon these 

 remnants of a once extensive deposit as Pliocene." 



" Outside the rank of geologists Prestwich was probably best 

 known for his connection with the establishment of the antiquity of 

 man, and for his share in bringing home to the English public the 

 enormous importance of geological knowledge in dealing with water- 

 supply and other questions of every-day occurrence." 



When in the Spring of 1859, at the suggestion of Dr. Hugh 

 Falconer, he undertook to investigate the alleged proofs of the 

 occurrence of flint implements, together with the remains of extinct 

 mammalia in some of the old valley-gravels of the north of France, 

 he entered on the inquiry with no very sanguine hope of finding 

 that there was any good ground for the contention of M. Boucher de 

 Perthes, who some ten years before had proclaimed his belief in the 

 remote antiquity of the human race. But the evidence proved so 

 strong as entirely to satisfy him that the French observer, who had 

 met with but scant support or sympathy, was nevertheless right in 

 his main conclusion. It was important to establish the fundamental 



