Salt Marl, with reference to the contiguous formations. The results are given in his notes on the Geology of the Salt Range, published in the current number of the Records. Whilst engaged on the coal in Hazara, he took the opportunity of examining the metamorphic and granitic rocks in the neighbourhood of Mansehra and Gorhi Habibullah. The question of their age, and that of the Tanols, as well as of their inter-relations, was gone into. The general results favour Mr. Wynne's idea of the oneness of the Tanols and Infra-Trias of the Sirban; which necessitates a great inversion of the schists, bringing them by a fold-fault in apparent superposition only above the Tanols, the latter being in normal order, and in some places showing a basal conglomerate of slate fragments similar to, though finer than, that at the base of the Infra-Trias of Sirban. The results of the examination of the gneissose rocks prove them to be granitic and intrusive in the schists. They are full of included fragments, and inosculate at their boundaries with the schists. Their resemblance to the gneissose granites of other parts of the Himalaya is very strong. In Burma Dr. Noetling's discovery of fossils in a series of limestones on the outskirts of the Shan plateau, east of Mandalay, which he had already noticed as bearing a very strong resemblance to certain limestones of the lower Silurian system of Sweden and Western Russia, is of the greatest geological interest and importance. He recognized 2 species of Crinoidarum, a gigantic species of Echinospharites and an Orthoceras, and considers that these few fossils, however few in number and fragmentary they be, prove certainly the lower Silurian age of the red and greenish-gray limestones occurring a little beyond the 24th mile on the road eastward from Mandalay. The following generalization of Dr. Noetling on this occurrence is well worthy "The presence of such a characteristic form as an Echinosphærites even permits the identi fication of the exact horizon of the red limestone. It is an equivalent of he Echinosphærites limestone of the Baltic provinces. It not only contains the same fossils, but also strongly resembles the latter lithologically. How can we account for such a strange phenomenon as this? We find here a fauna under 22° northern latitude which is precisely the same as that found in the Baltic provinces (59° to 66° N. Lat.), whilst the Silurian fauna of the Himalayas approaches much closer to the Silurians of Central Europe. The fauna of the lower Silurians of the Hima. layas is as different from that of the Shan hills as is the Silurian fauna of Bohemia from that of England. It must therefore be assumed that a branch of the Arctic province of the ocean by which the lower Silurian beds were deposited, reached at least to 22° N. Lat. of the Indo-Chinese peninsula; it is even likely that it extended still further to the south, as the limestone beds of the Shan hills are again met with in Tenasserim." PALEONTOLOGICAL.-I have glady recorded this discovery by Dr. Noetling, even though it be only one point of advance in our now slow geological progress; because in the present almost exclusive devotion of the service to economic research, paleontological investigation in India is becoming practically extinct, except for that help which is still so graciously accorded by paleontologists in Europe. This is a most regrettable, and even deplorable blot on our hitherto fair escutcheon among those of every Government Geological Survey in the world. Our exchanges from the State Surveys of America, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, France, and Russia, show a blazing record of pure geological and paleontological work, to which we can only respond by a fitful spark of chance discovery, or by the pleasanter glow of outside collaboration. We cannot always look for, or depend on, the gratuitous study and description of our unexamined stores of fossils from the Himalayas and Western India; on a portion of the last of which, however, even in his failing health, our untiring and revered friend, Dr. P. Martin Duncan, has only lately volunteered to devote himself as his, perhaps, last contribution to our Indian survey literature. Dr. Waagen continues at the preparation and description of the Salt Range fossils for the Paleontologia Indica: a fasciculus (Part 2, Vol. IV, Geological Results) is about to be issued. Professor P. M. Duncan, and our former colleague, Mr. R. Lydekker, have contributed papers to the just completed volume of the Records. HEAD QUARTERS, CALCUTTA.—Mr. Griesbach was in office until the end of October, preparing his long delayed Memoir on the Geology of the Central Himalayas, in connection with which he did all the remaining plates and text illustrations himself. This Memoir is now passed for press, and will be issued shortly. In the absence of the Director, on tour, from the 1st March to 19th May, and from the 4th August to 4th October, Mr. Griesbach was in charge of the office. He also prepared a paper (Confidential) for the Foreign Department. He left Calcutta, early in November, for the N. W. Frontier, with a view to extending our knowledge of coal and oil; but has since been attached as Geologist to the Miranzai Expedition. Mr. La Touche reached Rangoon after his leaving the Lushai column of the Chin-Lushai Expedition, too late in the recess to take up any special investigation in Burma proper. He therefore returned to Head Quarters to close up arrears prior to taking privilege leave. On his return from the latter, in which he was allowed a short extension for visiting tin mines in Cornwall, he was deputed to the boring and pit exploitation of the Daltongunge coal field. Mr. P. N. Datta was fully, and very advantageously, engaged in compilation at Calcutta during the recess; he has now been placed in Assam for coal exploration in the Tura district, Garo Hills. MUSEUM AND LABORATORY.-The efficiency of these sections of the Department was well kept up by Mr. Lake, who took over charge of the Officiating Curatorship on the death of Mr. Jones. He was succeeded in October last by Mr. T. H. Holland, who had been selected by Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India, for appointment to the Survey, and who seems eminently and specially fitted for the post by his career in the Royal College of Science, London, and as Berkeley Fellow of Owen's College, Manchester. SURVEY PUBLICATIONS.-During the year the usual volume of the "Records," consisting of 23 papers, has been issued: of these twelve bear on industrial or economic subjects. Vol. XXIII also contains the second part (Madras and the North-West Provinces) of the Provisional Index of the Local Distribution of Important Minerals, Miscellaneous Minerals, Gem Stones, and Quarry Stones in the Indian Empire, which has been much sought after. A complete and detailed Index to all the papers published in the first 20 volumes of the Records has been prepared during the past year; this is now in the hands of the printer and will shortly be issued. One memoir was published, forming part 2 of Volume XXIV. In this, Mr. Middlemiss has contributed much new and valuable research on the Physical Geology of the Sub-Himalaya of Garhwal and Kumaun, which, as evidenced by its reception among geologists in Europe, has proved a welcome addition to the literature of Himalayan geology. Owing to the continued deputation of our Palæontologist in Burma, only one part (Series XIII, Vol. IV, pt. 1) of the Palæontologia Indica has been published during the year, and that by Dr. Waagen. Part 2 of the same volume will be issued almost immediately. The remarkable and intense phase of speculation arising out of a sudden development of interest in the auriferous conditions of the Chota Nagpore province, has not proved without its effect on those publications of the Survey which contain even the least reference to the geology of that region. As a consequence; Vol. XVIII, Part 2 of the Memoirs, and several parts of the volumes of the Records are now out of print. LIBRARY.-The additions to the Library during the past year amounted to 1,593 volumes, or parts of volumes, of which 1,074 were acquired by presentation, and 519 by purchase. Several Geological Maps of portions of Europe were also presented. The Library is in good order, but the want of more accommodation is much felt: it bas been more largely utilized this year by visitors and borrowers than at any previous period. WILL. KING, Director, Geological Survey of India. January 31st, 1891. List of Societies and other Institutions from which publications have been received in donation or exchange for the Library of the Geological Survey of India, during the year 1890. ADELAIDE.-Royal Society of South Australia. ALLAHABAD.-North-Western Provinces and Oudh Provincial Museum. BALLARAT.-School of Mines. BALTIMORE.-John Hopkins University. BASEL.-Natural History Society. BATAVIA.-Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences. Königlich Preussische Geologische Landesanstalt. BOLOGNA.-Royal Academy of Sciences. BOMBAY.-Marine Survey of India. Meteorological Department. BORDEAUX.-Linnean Society of Bordeaux. BOSTON.-American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Society of Natural History. BRESLAU.-Silesian Society. BRISBANE.-Queensland Branch, Royal Geographical Society of Austra lasia. BRISTOL.-Bristol Naturalists' Society. BRUSSELS.-Royal Geographical Society cf Belgium. BUCAREST.-Bureau Géologique Roumain. Royal Hungarian Geological Institute. CHRISTIANIA.-Editorial Committee, Norwegian North Atlantic Expedition WELLINGTON.-Colonial Museum and Geological Survey of New Zealand. Department of Mines, New Zealand. German Naturalists' Society. Seismological Society of Japan. YORK.-Yorkshire Philosophical Society. The Governments of Bengal, Bombay, India, Madras, Mysore, and Punjab. |