At Bristol he worked in palaeontology, describing a new species of plesiosaurus, but also published papers on the geological makeup of Bristol and the Silesian fossils near the Welsh border. After moving to Dublin he worked on "foraminifera" and brachiopods, before switching to petrological work. His first major paper was on the granite of Leinster, where he conducted a detailed chemical analysis of the rock and invented the diffusion column to assist in this. In 1896 he travelled to the Pacific Ocean to investigate the formation of the Funafuti coral atoll, drawing inconclusive results. In 1905 he published the collection of essays "The Age of the Earth", and in 1911 an anthropological work "Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives".