JOSEPH PRESTWICH. 661 



an excellent and oft quoted account of the growth of London as 

 dej>endeut on the means of obtaining a supply of water. In the same 

 address he referred to the many aspects of geological science, and 

 remarked that, "While treating of these abstract and philosophical 

 questions, geology deals also with the requirements of civilized man, 

 showing him the best mode of providing for many of his wants, and 

 guiding him in the search of 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 paleontological questions 

 connected with the life of past periods, or than the great theoretical 

 problems relating to physical and cosmical phenomena." 



He reverted to the subject of water supply soon after he came to 

 reside in Oxford, publishing a pamphlet on the geological conditions 

 affecting water supply to houses and towns, with especial reference to 

 that city. He dealt in 1874 with the subject of the proposed tunnel 

 between England and France, and his essay, published by the Institu- 

 tion of Civil Engineers, gained for him the Telford medal. 



At an earlier period he superintended the inquiries concerning the 

 Bristol and Somerset coal field for the Eoyal Coal Commission, and 

 prepared reports (published in 1871) on that area, and on the proba- 

 bility of finding coal under the newer formations of the south of Eng- 

 land. With regard to the latter subject he took a favorable view, and 

 observed that we might look for coal basins "along a line passing from 

 Radstock, through the vale of Pewsey, and thence along the North 

 Downs to Folkestone." The results of the Dover boring have so far 

 justified this conclusion, which was based on the acute geological rea- 

 sonings of Godwin-Austen. At various periods, moreover, he described 

 important well sections at Yarmouth, Harwich, Kentish Town, and 

 Meux's brewery in London. 



The completion of his labors among the Eocene strata allowed Prest- 

 wich to devote more time to the newer deposits which had on various 

 occasions engaged his attention. 



He had examined the Norwich Crag as early as 1834, in company 

 with S. Woodward, and he then found a tooth of Ulephas meridionalis 

 in the Thorpe pit. Accompanied by Godwin-Austen, Morris, and Alfred 

 Tylor, he had in 1849 made a short excursion into the crag district, 

 and he then suggested that the fossiliferous shell bed which overlies 

 the Red Crag at Chillesford might represent the Norwich Crag. He 

 returned in 1858 to the subject of the crag in his description of the 

 remnants of that deposit which occur at Leuham and other places on 

 the chalk areas of the North Downs. Although the species of fossils 

 were but doubtfully identified by Searles Wood, and some authorities 

 came to regard them as probably Eocene, yet Prestwich contended for 

 their Pliocene age, and his views have been fully confirmed by the sub- 

 sequent observations of Mr. Clement Reid. 



