170 The Irish Naturalist. 



most trj^ng climates, and always surrounded b}' many social 

 and domestic drawbacks. Amidst such, however, his love of 

 nature sustained him, and he pathetically alludes to this in 

 the dedication of his "Journeys and Journals of an Indian 

 Geologist," " To ni}^ father, to whose early training and guid- 

 ance I owe a love for Natural History, which has afforded me 

 solace in many a lonely hour." 



While his chief work in India was among the rocks and 

 coal-measures of Western Bengal and the Central Provinces, 

 no object of nature met with, seems to have been left un- 

 recorded, and we find contributions from his pen on the 

 stone implements, on the various races of men, on the 

 mammals and birds, and even on some of the local floras 

 of India. The Geological Survey of India had its origin in 

 the desire of the Government to have the coal-fields of the 

 country systematically investigated, and the work of the 

 Survey for some time was wholly devoted to this object ; most 

 of V. Ball's Reports and Memoirs published by the Survey 

 relate to various coal-fields. After the principal coal-fields 

 had been mapped and described, the general examination of 

 the Geolog}^ of India w^as attempted, and in 1879 a general 

 geological sketch-map of nearlj^ the whole of India, with two 

 volumes of descriptive matter, forming Parts i and 2 of the 

 ** Manual of the Geology of India " were published. Towards 

 this great work all the staff contributed, more or less, but the 

 third part, relating to the Economic Geology, which appeared 

 in 1 88 1, was compiled by V. Ball ; to whom the then 

 Superintendent of the Survey wrote "the vStudent as well 

 as the man of enterprise will long owe gratitude for the great 

 store of facts thus brought within easy reference." 



In 1881 V. Ball resigned the position of Officiating Deputy 

 Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India on his being 

 appointed to succeed the Rev. Dr. Haughton as Professor of 

 Geology and Mineralogy in Trinity College, Dublin. Some 

 of his friends would have had him remain in his professorial 

 chair, where, if the teaching was somewhat monotonous, 

 the opportunities for original work were great ; the long vaca- 

 tion too afforded time for geological work in Europe, and 

 there was the custod}^ of a collection, which had been once 

 partly under his father's care, and which Dr. Haughton had 

 left well stocked, for an University Museum, with minerals, 



