414 REPORT — 1900. 



Geology. 



With regard to the progress made in dealing with the geological 

 specimens, Professor T. McKenny Hughes kindly sends me the following 

 notes : — 



The occurrence of fossils on some of the images of Buddha sug- 

 gested a search for the quarry from which the rock was obtained out 

 of which the images were carved, and it was at length found on the 

 western flank of the great central axis of the Peninsula. The finer rock 

 is in places highly fossiliferous ; the coarser has so far yielded only traces 

 and suggestions of organisms. The collectors very wisely brought back 

 large lumps of the portions which appeared to be fossiliferous, and by 

 breaking these up with greater care than could have been used in the 

 field, we have obtained a sufficiently large number of well preserved 

 species to enable us to determine the geological horizon of the deposit. 



There is a trilobite (Proetus), encrinite stems and arms ; several species 

 of lamellibranchs and of brachiopods, among which last there is at least 

 one species of Chonetes. There is a well preserved and highly ornamented 

 Pleurotomaria and a Cephalopod, which, by its horseshoe lobes, confirms 

 what is suggested by the general facies, namely, that the deposit belongs 

 to the highest beds of the Carboniferous, or rather, perhaps, to beds inter- 

 mediate between the Carboniferous and the overlying system to which 

 the compromise name of Permo- Carboniferous has been applied. 

 The rocks brought home fall into two divisions : (1) a grit of varying 

 coarseness, consisting almost entirely of siliceous grains with occasionally 

 larger included fragments of quartz and some foreign material ; and 

 (2) a very fine rock in which, however, the constituents appear to be the 

 same as those in the coarser rock, only more finely divided. Both rocks 

 are jointed, and the joints are often picked out by bright coloured oxides, 

 and in the case of the coarser rock by thin mineral veins in which limonite 

 is conspicuous. The microscopic examination of both finer and coarser 

 rocks confirms the views suggested by the macroscopic examination of the 

 coarser specimens. The chemical analysis shows that the rock is almost 

 entirely composed of silica, but it is evident that it has undergone much 

 mechanical and chemical alteration. There are evidences of strain 

 throughout ; the fossils are distorted, and some of the larger pebbles are 

 broken and the parts displaced by movements in the rock. It is clear 

 also from the character and condition of the fossils that there must have 

 been originally much carbonate of lime in the rock furnished by large 

 lamellibranchs and thick-shelled brachiopods. The cavity where the 

 shell was is sometimes found lined with silicates, whereas no trace of the 

 carbonate of lime remains in it. The absence of carbonate of lime was 

 suggested by the sharp and undecomposed appearance of the carved work 

 which, though it had evidently been exposed to the weather and the action 

 of A^egetation, nowhere showed the fretted surface of a calcareous rock. 



Anthropology. 

 Notes on 



I. A nthropomctry. 



There was so much heavy work to be done in other departments that 

 but little time could be devoted to this branch of science. 



Such statistics, however, as it was possible to compile should be of 



