225 

 REVIEW. 



THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE 

 MINING AND GEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF INDIA. 



Somehow the Bombay Natural History Society has always had verv few 

 geologists among its members or, at any rate, among its literary contributors, 

 and very few references to Indian geology can be found in the pages of our 

 Journal except as concerns its indirect relation to extant organisms. This is 

 to be regretted, as a great deal of our space — some members, we fear, think a 

 disproportionate amount of our space — is devoted to the accumulation of data 

 for the study of distribution, and the full value of the facts ascertained can 

 only be properly appreciated when they are studied in connection with th ■ 

 geology of the localities concerned. 



For this reason we welcome the foundation of the Mining and Geological 

 Institute, as though at present principally a Bengal Association where we have 

 not many members, it will doubtless become more representative in time, and 

 by linking up science with commerce should have the effect of inducing many 

 people who have no particular scientific bent to take an interest in a fascinating 

 study which is badly in need of amateur assistance in this country. 



Mr. Holland, the first President, is always worth hearing or reading, and we 

 call special attention to his address here because in it he proposes for general 

 acceptance a new nomenclature of the principal epochs in Indian geological 

 history. 



As regards the names themselves they all possess the merit of carrying with 

 them no reference to any particular theory, and therefore contain one of the 

 most essential elements of permanence. We think it rather a pity that the name 

 " Dravidian " should be applied to purely extra-Peninsular series. This, how- 

 ever, is a minor point. 



With all that Mr. Holland says as to the impossibility of classifying Indian 

 rocks on the European system, of course we cordially agree, but as regards the 

 task of discovering the approximate equivalents in the two systems we would 

 have liked a little more emphasis laid on the fact that the existence of the 

 same fossils in different parts of the world is no sort of evidence by itself that 

 the rocks in which they occur are even approximately contemporaneous, any 

 more than the remains of a kangaroo in an Australian kutchra heap are 

 contemporaneous with early tertiary marsupial fossils in Europe. Indeed, 

 it is doubtful whether we can speak at all positively of the relative age of any 

 fresh water beds without a complete knowledge of the marine beds which 

 may lie between them and a rough idea of the distribution of land and water 

 throughout the globe at any particular epoch, and this, of course, we are a very 

 long way from possessing at present. 



Also we cannot help expressing our regret that Mr. Holland appears to hare 

 fallen into a habit rather common among geologists of speaking of theoretical 

 hypotheses as if they were proven facts. 

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