6l2 



NA TURE 



[April 27, 1905 



lossibly, in a lew inst;inccs, the ridges on the 

 hill-siopes may be due to outcropping- strata and 

 others might suggest terrace-cultivation; but there 

 seems ample evidence for the view tal<en that 

 Neolithic cattle-tracks have survived to this dav 

 around certain of our most imposing " camps " 



1-ailing large-scale maps, a sketch-plan of the 

 earthworks noticed would have made the description 

 even more illuminating; but the onlv matters of com- 

 plaint are that the book is all too short, and that the 

 paper selected to throw up the detail of the photo- 

 graphs IS as chalky as (he Downs they illustrate so 

 pleasantly. 



HENRY BENEDICT MEDUCOTT, F.R.S. 

 QN April 6 there passed away one of the few 

 ^ survivors amongst the small body of men who 

 laid the foundations of Indian geology. Despite 



T'^uZ''''"' ''-''\^' ,^h'^«3- by non-professional S 

 very little was really known of the geology of India 

 and especially of Peninsular India, before the nM 

 of the nineteenth century, and as one instance 

 amongst many, the Vindhyans, now believed to be 



r^'rhnrf' ''■"■^ .'"" ^^'''""^ '"'"'^ Gondwana Permo- 



Carboniferous strata, and both were regarded as of 



Jurassic age. A comparison of Dr Carter's 



Summary of the Geology of India between the 



?8-Tw-/h^^H"1";/'"'' ^^'''P*^ Comorin," published n 

 1833 with the "Manual of the Geology of India " 

 issued in 1879, will show the great improvement hkt 

 countS^'' '" '' '"^•■''"'""•^ =" ""' knowledge of the 

 In this change none had a larger share than Henrv 

 Benedict Medlicott. Horn uT Loughrea? coun I 

 Galway, he was the second of three sons of the Rev 

 Samue Medlicott, rector of Loughrea and of Char 

 lotte the daughter of Colonel H^. B. 'Doljh^n, CB 



ai d or^'T'/'^""' "'"1^ "f *^"'*==" intellectual capacity 

 and of marked originalitv. The eldest, J G Medli- 

 cott, became a member of the Geolog ci Survev of 

 in the Id" ^''J"''"'^.'-- r"«d; he wts subseque'^t?.: 

 The th rd br ,^'^""''°"'-'' S^>-vice, and died in iSee" 

 Ihe hird brother, Samuel, was a clergyman who 

 has also been dead several vears. The subject of the 

 present memoir was educated at Trinitv CoHege 

 Dublin, and, after taking his degree, was for a sh?rt 

 nme on the stafT, first" of the Irish, then of the 

 English Geological Survey. In the spring of iS?^ 



hte'Z Thon °ofdr' ""T'y "f I"dia under the 

 late Dr. Thomas Oldham, but was almost immedi- 



Colee?'o?CV,''R"''-""' -"f ^^"'°^>- ^' '"^^ R-'-kee 

 he held Lf, %^"^'T""^' """ appointment which 

 ne held until KS62, when, on some additions beinp- 



o7'tdra''' T"' "^ '"■-r""' *h^ Geological' Sure? 

 Bengal " ''"'" '" '^"^''''^ superintendent for 



Daft"of^"hI"^' ''"' '"""■'• "^ l^"" '^""'■'^"^^ P"^f he spent 

 part of the year surveying for the Geological Survev 

 and m his first season's work he and his brothel 

 Tndi^n "" ^''"'^''y ^}^P to^-«'-ds the elucidation of 

 Vindhvnn?^^Tr' 'l'^'"''>- by separating the ancient 

 Vindhyans north of the Son and Nerbudda Rivers 

 from the Indian Coal-mea.sures and their allies to the 

 southward. In subsequent years, whilst his brother 

 mapped the last named strata, he surveyed the older 

 Vindhyans and their associates, and to "him we owe 

 our first recognition of the Bijawur and other ancient 

 rocks between the old gneissic formation and the 

 Vindhyans. In other years he explored the Hima- 

 ^yas. and the r.-mi,-es at their base, between the 

 Ganges and the Ravi, and he drew up the descrip- 

 tion of the older unfossiliferous beds of the moun- 

 tains, and of the Tertiary and other strata fringing 

 NO. '852. V 11,. 71] 



their base, which w^as published in the third volume 

 of the Indian Memoirs. This contains a sketch of 

 the history of the Himalayas which has been generally 

 accepted ever since. 



After returning to the survey in 1862 (he always 

 protested that he really had remained a member of 

 the staff throughout), he examined in successive years 

 the greater part of northern India. Various tracts 

 of the Himalayas from the Punjab to .Assam, the 

 .\ssam valley and the hill ranges south of it, and, in 

 the Peninsula, Rajputana, Nimar, the Nerbudda 

 valley and Satpura ranges, Bundelkhand, South 

 Rewah, Chhatisgarh and Sambalpur, Chota Nagpore, 

 Hazaribagh, and Behar w-ere visited and reported 

 upon in turn. 



Dr. Oldham retired in 1876, and Mr. Medlicott 

 succeeded him as superintendent, a title subsequently 

 changed to director of the survey. The first work 

 undertaken by him as superintendent was a general 

 account of Indian geology. This had long been 

 urgent, and would probably have been written bv Dr. 

 Oldham but for failing health. The " Manual of the 

 Geology of India " was published in 1879, and a very 

 large portion, including the account of the .\zoic 

 rocks from gneiss to \'indhyans (which between 

 them cover the greater part of the Indian peninsula), 

 and of the geology of the Himalayas and sub-Hima- 

 layas, in fact, nearly half the entire work, was 

 written by Mr. Medlicott himself. In many ways a 

 great impulse was given to survey work bv the new 

 superintendent. As regards publication alone, the 

 volumes of the Records from 1877 are doubled in 

 bulk when compared with previous issues, and these 

 volumes, containing accounts of recent geological 

 observations, both economical and scientific, represent 

 the actual field work of the survey to a larger extent 

 than the longer memoirs and palaeontologia. 



Throughout his career as head of the survey Mr. 

 Medlicott adopted a most liberal policy of publication. 

 He allowed his staff to report on their own work 

 freely, and whilst assisting them in every way, both 

 in the field and in the study, he never took any of 

 the credit of their work. Not only did he welcome 

 reports from the geologists of the survey, but he 

 published, whenever possible, contributions from in- 

 dependent observers. In this manner he secured the 

 valuable assistance of the late General McMahon, the 

 whole of whose most important observations on the 

 physical history of the Himalayas appeared in the 

 Records of the Geological Survey of India. 



Modest and retiring, he was nevertheless a man of 

 high courage and independence. One trait of this 

 was shown in the Indian Mutiny, when, with one 

 companion, despite the mutiny of the guard that 

 should have accompanied them, he saved the lives of 

 a Christian family who had fallen into the hands of 

 the rebels, a most gallant action, the account of which 

 is due to Colonel Baird Smith, the head of Roorkee 

 College and the commanding officer, .\fter retiring 

 from the Indian Survey in iS,S7, he lived very quietly 

 at Clifton, devoting himself lo philosophical problems. 

 He published a couple of short pamphlets on 

 " .Agnosticism and Faith " in 1888, and on " The 

 Evolution of Mind in Man," but a larger work on 

 which he was engaged is, it must be feared, incom- 

 plete. .A strain caused by bicycling led to serious 

 heart symptoms some years ago, and although a par- 

 tial recovery was made, a relapse about a vear since 

 reduced him so much that it was not surprising to 

 hear that he passed quietly aw.-iy on April 6, whilst 

 sealed in his study. 



Mr. Medlicott became a Fellow of the Geological 

 Society as long since as 1856, and in iSS.S, on his 

 retirement from India, he received the Wollaston 



