| 496 ] 
LVIL.—ON THE COAL FIELDS AND COAL PRODUCTION 
OF INDIA, sy V. BALL, ™.a., F.¢.s., GEOLOSICAL SURVEY OF 
Inp1a, Hon. Sec. Royan Gronocican Society, IRELAND. WITH 
A Map. 
(Read 2Ist April, 1879.] 
[This Paper was in substance also read at the meeting of the British Association held 
at Sheffield, 1879. ] 
ALTHOUGH a paper on the coal fields of India by the-late Colonel 
Meadows Taylor, has been published in the Journal of this 
Society,* I venture to think that an account of them by one who 
has had an opportunity of examining many of them will not 
prove unacceptable at the present time. 
Colonel Taylor’s compilation was made from the publications of 
the Geological Survey of India in 1875, since which time there 
has been considerable and most important progress, both in field 
work and in the determination of the homotaxy of the fossil 
floras, which have been obtained in the Indian coal-measure and 
associated rocks. 
At the last meeting of the British Association which was held 
heret in Dublin, I exhibited and described an early issue of the 
new Geological Map of India, which had been prepared to illustrate 
a Manual of the Geology of that country, written conjointly by 
the Superintendent of the Survey, Mr. H. B. Medlicott, F-R.S., 
and the Senior Deputy-Superintendent. Mr. W. T. Blanford, 
F.R.S. This manual, though it has been printed, has not yet 
come to hand.t From the small scale of this map, 64 miles to 
the inch, it is necessarily but little more than an index, merely 
indicating the limits of the principal formations. 
For large tracts of India, however, maps on larger scales 
* ‘(On the Coal Fields of Central India, from the Reports of the Geological Survey of 
India, and other official sources.” By Meadows Taylor, v.p.R.s.1., Jour. Roy. Geol Soc., 
Ireland. New series, Vol. III. Exception must be taken to the use in this title of the 
term Central India, since there are no coal fields in Central India proper, though there are 
in the Central Provinces. 
+ Vide “ British Association Reports,” Dublin, 1878, p. 532. 
j It has been received since the above was written, and has been freely used in the 
final preparation of this paper for press. 
