4 Eminent Living Geologists — 



geological classification and comparison of the rocks remained to 

 be done. The results added materially to the co-ordination of the 

 Gondwana system, the Panchets being separated and the Damudas 

 subdivided. The monsoon season of 1859 was spent in Southern 

 India, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Trichinopoly, where Henry 

 Blanford was engaged in mapping and classifying the Cretaceous 

 system. A visit was also paid to the Nilgiris. 



The report on the Kaniganj Coalfield was written during th© 

 monsoon of 1860 ; and so was that on ironworks in Birbhum, which 

 W. T. Blanford was instructed to examine for the Government. In 

 November, 1860, he went to Pegu in charge of a small party to 

 commence the survey of Burma, and the next two years were spent 

 in the examination of the districts of Henzada and Bassein, west 

 of the Irrawaddy. The geological results were small, the country 

 examined consisting of Tertiary rocks with intrusive masses of 

 serpentine in the Arrakan Hills. In 1861 a visit was paid tO' 

 Mandalay and Ava in Upper Burma, then independent, and an 

 extinct volcano, Puppa, not previously visited by any European, 

 was found near Pagan. In Burma more attention was paid ta 

 zoology, and collections were made of the mollusca, birds, fishes, etc. ;. 

 the land, fresh-water, and estuarine mollusca being subsequently 

 described by W. T. Blanford. 



In 1862 he went to England on leave, and returning to India in 

 November Mr. Blanford was promoted to the post of Deputy- 

 Superintendent and charged with the survey of the Bombay 

 Presidency, the geology of which was very imperfectly known -^ 

 the next four years being occupied with the survey of the Lower 

 Nerbudda and Tapti Valleys and some adjoining areas in that 

 Presidency and in the Central Provinces, in company with Mr. A. B. 

 Wynne and, for a short time, with Mr. C. Wilkinson. Visits were 

 also paid to Sind and Cutch, and to Mahableshwar, and in 1865 

 W. T. Blanford marched along the whole route from Poona to 

 Nagpur in order to examine the volcanic rocks known as the 

 Deccan traps. Amongst the principal results of the survey was 

 the determination of the age of the Deccan traps and their relation 

 to the Cretaceous series beneath them and the Nummulitic Series 

 overlying them, but many other questions, scientific and economic, 

 also received attention. The principal results of these surveys were 

 published in the sixth volume of the Memoirs of the Geological 

 Survey of India. 



The monsoon of 1866 was spent in Calcutta, and on taking the 

 field W. T. Blanford marched from Jubulpur to Nagpur, making 

 a rough survey of the counti-y from Nagpur to Sironcha on the 

 Godavari. Returning to Calcutta in September, he was attached 

 to the Abyssinian expedition, and left Bombay in a sailing-vessel 

 on December 4th in company with some officers of the Commissariat. 

 He arrived in Zoulla December 22nd, and accompanied the army 

 to Magdala and back, and later on spent two months in the Bogos 

 Province to the northward. For his services on the Abyssinian 

 expedition he was awarded a military medal. 



