172 Scientific Intelligence. 



Prestwich was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853, 

 and was appointed a Vice-President in 1870. In that same year 

 he was chosen President of the Geological Society, and in the 

 course of his two addresses he dealt with the subjects of deep-sea 

 researches and water-supply. 



His attention had been given at various intervals to the later 

 Tertiary deposits, and in 1871 his three great papers on the 

 structure of the Crag-beds of Suffolk and Norfolk were published 

 by the Geological Society. So much had been written by others 

 on these very fossiliferous strata, that the author had not scope 

 for so much originality as was the case with his Eocene researches. 

 These later papers were, however, characterized by the same 

 exhaustive treatment of the subject, in the record of many sec- 

 tions, and in the enumeration of the organic remains. His 

 memoirs on the Pliocene or Crag formations were eventually 

 followed by a series of articles dealing with more recent deposits. 

 In the meanwhile Prestwich, who had retired from business in 

 1872, was offered the chair of Geology at Oxford, vacant through 

 the death in 1874 of John Phillips. It came rather as a surprise 

 to his friends that a man who had achieved such distinction and 

 had earned repose should again go into harness. A young and 

 ardent teacher would, however, at that time have been out of 

 place, and, as events proved, no one better than Prestwich could 

 have been selected to fill the post with such advantage to the 

 University. 



One result of his labors in Oxford was his large and hand- 

 somely illustrated work, in two volumes, entitled \" Geology 

 Chemical, Physical, and Stratigraphical " — a work in which he 

 opposed the strictly uniformitarian teachings of some geologists, 

 and urged that, though the agents were similar in kind in past 

 ages, they were not similar in degree to those of the present day. 

 Retiring from Oxford in 1888, Prestwich again surprised his many 

 friends by his renewed activity. Paper after paper issued from 

 his pen, dealing with the most difficult problems connected with 

 the later superficial deposits — notably his memoir read before the 

 Royal Society on the " Evidences of a Submergence of Western 

 Europe and of the Mediterranean Coasts at the close of the 

 Glacial or so-called Post-Glacial Period." He dealt also with 

 the rudely-made plateau flint-implements of the Chalk Downs, 

 many of them found near his Kentish home. Although individ- 

 ually they would not attract much notice, he maintained that 

 these rudely^chipped flints bore traces of human workmanship, 

 and collectively showed evidence of a peculiar type of earlier date 

 than the ordinary Palseolithic implements. 



These later writings of Prestwich have initiated many new 

 lines of inquiry, even if they h^ve failed to carry conviction to 

 all his readers. 



The last honor bestowed upon him, in the early part of this 

 year, was that of knighthood, which he was unable to accept in 

 person from Her Majesty owing to his feeble health. He died on 

 June 23, at his home, Darent Hulme, near Shoreham* h. b. w. 



