[For a period of nearly sixty years Sir Joseph Prestwich recorded his geological observations in a series of notebooks. These records, together with the illustrative sections, were afterwards copied, in many instances, into folio volumes dealing respectively with the Eocene and Miocene, the Pliocene and Post-Pliocene formations, and with well-sinkings, springs, etc. The systematic arrangement and indexing of his very copious notes no doubt greatly facilitated the labours of the author. The majority of his notes and sections have been published, but here and there among the notebooks and MSS. there are records of pits and railway-cuttings, as well as some statements of opinion, which appear never to have been printed. A selection of these is now given, together with references to published papers dealing with the same subjects. All additions are put in square brackets.

It was the desire of Sir J. Prestwich to have dealt more fully with the phenomena of the Glacial Period, but owing to the many calls upon his time, and to his aim invariably to obtain and to submit fully to his readers all the evidence bearing upon his subjects, he was led to postpone for many years his more elaborate works. Thus his important papers on the Crag formations were issued long after most of his observations had been made. Meanwhile other geologists had entered the field and made known many of the facts which he had previously gathered, a proceeding natural enough and one by no means to be regretted. Thus Sir J. Prestwich remarks in his paper on the Westleton Beds, Part I (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xlvi, 1890, p. 86), that “The Memoirs of the [Geological] Survey, to which I shall have frequent occasion to refer, now supply a mass of valuable details, which greatly facilitate the task and do away with the necessity of much local description.” The notebooks rarely contain any particular expressions of opinion; they simply record facts and only occasionally suggest correlations. The conclusions were for the most part worked out subsequently and embodied in various published papers.

Among the MSS. left by Prestwich is the rough draft of the Table of Contents of a paper dated 1892. It includes the following heads:—]