5S President's Address. [Feb. 



which he has established to be viewed as one of our very best friends and 

 advisers, as well our ablest colleague. We have been making great efforts 

 to complete the entire series of these cretaceous fossils which will form 

 four very large volumes, convinced that they will be the very best proof of 

 the ability of the author that can be submitted to the world of science at 

 Vienna, as well as the noblest monument of his zeal and power. 



As speaking of the labour of the Geological survey I may here notice 

 that we have been rewarded during the past year by one of the most impor- 

 tant discoveries which stratigraphical palaeontology has made for several 

 years. Dr. Waagen, whom ill-health has, I am sorry to say, driven to Europe 

 again, has found true Ammonites in beds which from their other fossil contents 

 will be unhesitatingly admitted as palaeozoic. There may be some slight 

 question as to the exact horizon in the carboniferous series which these beds 

 hold, or whether they may not to some extent represent the border land be- 

 tween the carboniferous and permian, but Athyris Roissyri, A. suhtilita, Pro- 

 ducta costata, &c. are species which will be at once admitted as carboniferous 

 and these are the associates of the Ammonites. I had taken advantage of Dr. 

 Waagen's wide knowledge of fossils and of their distribution in establishing a 

 careful research into the stratigraphical relationships of the curiously dis- 

 torted, and faulted rocks of the Salt-Range in the Panjab, from which some 

 very interesting fossils had already been described by Koninck, Davidson, &c. 

 and it was while so engaged that he was rewarded by this most important 

 discovery. It would be passing into discussions rather too technical perhaps 

 to enter here upon any consideration of how far this discovery is consistent 

 with views based on the developmental theories now generally admitted 

 in the explanation of the several homologies in such series as those acknow- 

 ledged in the Cephalopoda. It will suffice to state that the fact of the occur- 

 rence of a true Ammonite in unquestionably palaeozoic rocks is one calculated 

 to excite as much surprise as did the announcement many years since of th e 

 beautiful Ammonites (with Orthoceratites) found in the Triassic beds of 

 Europe. The curious fossil, with some other of its associates, has been figured 

 in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India. 



Viewed therefore as a whole, the year 1872 has not been unfruitful in 

 natural history progress and a fair general activity in such pursuits has 

 marked our Indian labours. 



Among the questions of cosmical interest which have excited the at- 

 tention of the scientific world lately, none is of higher or wider importance 

 than the transit of the Planet Venus across the disc of the sun, which is to 

 take place in 187-1. For five years past, the attention of astronomers has 

 been earnestly directed to preparation for the observations required. And 

 every Government and people, deserving to be called enlightened, has aided in 

 these combined operations. 



