versity of Sydney) and F. A. Bather (of the Geological Department. British Museum), who, trained in geology under Prestwich, have since gained distinction. His field excursions, however, were always highly appreciated by many who found no time to pursue the science in after life.

Various papers proceeded no rom his pen; he dealt with the much discussed origin of the parallel roads of Glen Roy, and he wrote on the agency of water in volcanic eruptions, believing that the water was but a secondary cause, and that the phenomena were dependent on the effect of secular refrigeration. He dealt also with the problem of the thickness of the earth's crust, and published an elaborate paper on underground temperatures.

He also made a special study of the Chesil Beach, coming to the conclusion that it was a wreck of an oil and extensive raised beach, of which a remnant still exists on Portland. His view concerning the comparatively recent date of the Weymouth anticline has not, however, proved to be sound.

During his term of professorship, Prestwich wrote his well-known work entitled "Geology-Chemical, Physical, and Stratigraphical," in two volumes, published in 1886 and 1888, a work admirably illustrated. In the first volume he remarked that among geologists two schools have arisen, "one of which adopts uniformity of action in all time, while the other considers that the physical forces were more active and energetic in past geological periods than at present." Advocating this latter teaching he felt he should be "supplying a want by placing before the student the views of a school which, until of late, has hardly had its exponent in English text-books." He indeed protested on many occasions against the doctrine of uniformity of action, both in kind and in degree. Such, indeed, was the teaching of Ramsay in his presidential address to the British Association at Swansea in 1880. That geologist referred to the great changes, of which we have evidence in comparatively late geological times, in the upheaval of mountain chains and in the vicissitudes of the Glacial period; and, in regard to volcanoes, he believed that "at no period of geological history is there any sign of their having played a more important part than they do in the epoch in which we live." Ramsay based his argument on the record of the rocks, and, leaving out of consideration cosmical hypotheses, he concluded that, from the epoch of our oldest known rocks down to the present day, "all the physical events in the history of the earth have varied neither in kind nor in intensity from those of which we now have experience." This conclusion may be taken to mean that any kinds of physical change that have happened in the past, since the earliest rocks were laid down, may happen again, and we believe that this is the real view of the Uniformitarian. Mr. Teall again, in 1893, forcibly urged the claims of the Uniformitarian school, pointing out "that denudation and deposition were taking place in pre-Cambrian times, under chemi

cal and physical conditions very similar to, if not identical with, those of the present day." All geologists seek to interpret the past by the light of the present; but while Uniformitarians (as they are called) demand time unlimited, their opponents, sometimes spoken of as Catastrophists, would rather infer a greater potency in the agents of upheaval or denudation than grant an unlimited amount of time.

As Prestwich puts it: "Not that time is in itself a difficulty, but a time rate, assumed on very insufficient grounds, is used as a master key, whether or not it fits, to unravel all difficulties. What if it were suggested that the brick-built pyramid of Hawâra had been laid brick by brick by a single workman? Given time, this would not be beyond the bounds of possibility; but Nature, like the Pharaohs, had greater forces at her command to do the work better and more expeditiously than is admitted by Uniformitarians." (Collected Papers, 1895, p. 2.) He maintained that modern estimates of denudation and deposition and of rates of upheaval and depression were no test of what happened in the past; that, in fact, the potency of agents had diminished. Referring to the Glacial period, in his inaugural lecture on "The past and future of geology," delivered at Oxford in 1875, he thus expresses himself: "This last great change in the long geological record is one of so exceptional a nature that, as I have formerly elsewhere observed (Phil. Trans., 1864, p. 305), it deeply impresses me with the belief of great purpose and all-wise design in staying that progressive refrigeration and contraction on which the movements of the crust of the earth depend, and which has thus had imparted to it that rigidity and stability which now render it so fit and suitable for the habitation of civilized man; for, without that immobility, the slow and constantly recurring changes would, apart from the rarer and greater catastrophes, have rendered our rivers unnavigable, our harbors inaccessible, our edifices insecure, our springs ever varying, and our climates ever changing; and while some districts would have been gradually uplifted, other whole countries must have been gradually submerged; and against this inevitable destiny no human foresight could have prevailed."

His great text book on geology, to which we have alluded, will remain as a monument of his zeal and untiring labor. On its completion he resigned his professorship and retired to his quiet home among the chalk hills of Kent. There, however, he maintained his interest in his favorite science and continued to labor to the very end of his days. Soon after leaving Oxford, in 1888, he was called upon, as our leading geologist, to preside over the meeting of the International Geological Congress, which then held its fourth session in London.

The study of the drifts of the south and southeast of England now absorbed most of his time, and he devoted more attention to the grouping of the later superficial deposits and to the great physical changes to which they bear witness. His ideas on all these topics have not

met with the unanimous approval of geologists, nor was such a happy result to be expected on a complex subject where there is great room for diversity of opinion. His views on the primitive character of the flint implements of the chalk plateau of Kent have, however, opened up a new and interesting inquiry, and one more likely perhaps to gain support than his evidences of a submergence of Western Europe at the close of the Glacial period, and their bearing on questions relating to the tradition of a flood.

It is, however, yet early to judge of these controverted questions. They require further detailed study and impartial consideration, and whatever conclusions be eventually accepted, there can be no doubt that the patient and enthusiastic labors of Prestwich on these most difficult problems will have largely contributed to their solution.

Throughout his long life Prestwich felt deeply indebted to geology, and, as he once put it, not merely because it was a source of healthful recreation, but "for its kindly and valued associations, and above all, for the high communing into which it constantly brings us in the contemplation of some of the most beautiful and wonderful works of the creation."

In the early part of the present year Her Majesty conferred the honor of knighthood upon him, but Sir Joseph Prestwich was too feeble in health to accept it in person. He died on June 23, and was buried in the churchyard of Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, not far from his pleasant home of Darent Hulme.

HENRY BRUGSCH.'

By G. MASPERO.

Henry Brugsch was born in Berlin on February 18, 1827, and he died there on September 9, 1894. He has himself told in his Recollections what he wished to have known of his life. To that book I refer those who wish to know what the man was, and shall content myself with speaking here of what we owe to the scholar.

3

The early years of his scientific career were entirely devoted to the study of the language and the popular script of the ancient Egyptians. He began these studies while still at college, alone and without any help save that of the aged Passalacqua; but he progressed so rapidly and so well that in 1848, when but 21 years old, he published his first memoir, Scriptura Egyptiorum Demotica, ex Papyris et Inscriptionibus Explanata, in which he gave the first outlines of Demotic grammar-imperfect, it is true, and following the principles of exaggerated phoneticism which F. de Sauely had endeavored to introduce into that branch of Egyptology. Lepsius criticised the attempt of the young man with unmerciful severity. E. de Rougé was more indulgent. He saw as well as did Lepsius the serious faults of the book, but he gave full justice to the power for work and the intelligence of the author, and he tried to show him the right way. In an article entitled, "Sur les éléments de l'écriture démotique," he showed him the points in which his system was wrong, and taught him the method by which he might obtain with certainty the decipherment of the signs and the construction of the phrases.5 Brugsch received the lesson with gratitude, and immediately corrected his method of study. From this time he was inspired by the principles of de Rougé, and each

Translated from Actes du Dixième Congrès International des Orientalistes, session de Genève, 1894. Quatrième partie. Leide, 1897. Pp. 95–102.

3 With the statement: Scripsit Henricus Brugsch, discipulus primæ classis Gymnasii Realis quod Berlini floret.

4Compare the preface of E. F. August, director of the gymnasium, to the Scriptura Ægyptiorum Demotica.

E. de Rougé Lettre à M. de Sauley sur les éléments de l'écriture démotique, in the Revue Archéologique le Série. 1848. Vol. V.

5

new memoir evinced new progress, whether it treated of the signs employed in popular script,' or showed the identity, by means of the demotic," of the hieroglyphic inscription of Phile with the decree of Rosetta. The same is true of his Doctor's thesis, in which he gave a résumé of the grammatical system which prevailed in Egypt in the earliest period; of an article in which he showed the identity of a Greek fragment of our library with the demotic papyrus Minutoli 18 of the Berlin Museum, and of the chrestomathy of demotic texts, accurately translated and analyzed, which he attempted to construct. All these publications, so little known to the present generation, belong to the best published in their time. The errors were numerous, it is true, and the works have been severely criticised, but we feel everywhere the profound love of the scholar for his subject, and we must admire the infinite resources of sagacity and patience which he expended to compensate for the real imperfections of his philological education. Had he died at that time, and left nothing else behind him, he would have been reckoned among the masters of Egyptology, in the first class with those who, not content to walk further in the trodden path, have opened new roads.

At first he had neglected the hieroglyphs. Now he ardently began their study; but he had not yet made himself master of them when he undertook, in 1853-54, with the help of the King of Prussia, his first voyage in Egypt. There he met Mariette, and spent several months in the Serapeum studying the recently discovered demotic inscriptions. Next he went to the Said and remained a long time in Thebes. He gave an account of his travels in a notice on the Natron lakes, but especially in his Récits d'Egypte," where he describes, after Champollion, and analyzes the monuments and inscriptions he had seen. The first result of this long excursion in the land of the Pharoahs was that it furnished him with the material necessary for his Grammaire Démotique. This book appeared in 1855, and it has endured for forty

Numerorum apud veteres Ægyptios Demoticorum doctrina. Berlin. 1849. 4°. 2 Die Inschrift von Rosette nach ihrem aegyptisch-demotischen Texte sprachlich und sachlich erklärt, first part of the Sammlung demotischer Urkunden. Berlin. Folio. 1850.

3 Uebereinstimmung einer hieroglyphischen Inschrift von Philae mit dem griechischen und demotischen Anfangstexte des Dekretes von Rosette. Berlin. 1846. 4°. 4 De Naturâ et Indola linguæ popularis Egyptiorum. I. De nomine, de dialectis, de litterarum sonis. Berlin. 8°. 1850.

5 Lettre à M. de Rougé au sujet de la découverte d'un manuscrit bilingue sur papyrus en écriture démotico-égyptienne et en grec cursif de l'an 114 avant notre ère. Berlin. 4. 1850.

6 Sammlung demotischer Urkunden. Berlin. 4°. 1850.

7 Wandrung nach den Natronklöstern in Aegypteň. Berlin. 16°. 1855.

8 Reiseberichte aus Aegypten, über eine in den Jahren 1853-54 unternommene wissenschaftliche Reise nach dem Nilthale. Leipzig. 1855. 89. Compare Recueil de Monuments. Vols. I-II. Leipzig. 4. 1863.

9 Grammaire Démotique, contenant les principes généraux de la langue et de l'écriture populaire des anciens Égyptiensl. Berlin. Folio. 1855.