'238 Ohitmrij — Lieut. -General C. A, McMahon. 



remembereil in India for the thirt}' years of excellent work as 

 a Commissioner and Civil Judge. The most exciting period of 

 his career was at the time of the Indian Mutiny, when, as a young 

 man under thirty, he was suddenly called upon to assume charge 

 of the Sialkot district, just at the moment (May, 1857) when the 

 native troops rose in revolt. Lieutenant McMahon managed to 

 send off a few lines to General John Nicholson, who was taking 

 a movable column to Delhi. This prompt action led to the 

 mutineers being met and destroyed by Nicholson at the action of 

 Trimmos Ghat. 



When Commissioner of Hissar, in 1871, General McMahon took 

 up the stud}' of geology and petrology ; and when on furlough to 

 England in 1879-80 he joined the Royal School of Mines, studying 

 Ideology under Professor Judd, mineralogy under Sir Warington 

 Smyth, and biology under Professor Huxley. Professor Judd 

 writes : — " On his return to India he took up a series of geological 

 studies of the granites and other rocks of the Himalayas, the result 

 of his labours being given to the world in a number of papers 

 jHiblished in the Records of the Geological Survey of India. 

 After his retirement he continued these researches with the same 

 enthusiasm as before, devoting special attention to petrological 

 and raineralogical investigations. Even after the failure of his 

 health, and when afflicted with almost complete blindness, he not 

 only maintained an interest in his favourite pursuit, but dictated 

 a paper which appeared quite recently in the Geological Magazine."' 

 He became a Fellow of tlie Geological Society in 1878, and received 

 the Lyell Medal in 1899 " in recognition of the value of his services 

 to petrology, and more particularly of the work done by him in 

 India." He served on the Council, was a Vice-President of the 

 Geological Society ; and President of the Geological Section of 

 the British Association at Belfast in 1902. He was elected President 

 of the Geologists' Association in 1894-95. Dr. W. T. Blanford, 

 a valued friend of General McMahon's, and for 30 years connected 

 with the Geological Survey of India, says: — "In the exploration 

 of the principal rock groups in the Western Himalayas he was 

 a pioneer, and his discoveries were of great scientific importance. 

 From 1877 to 1887 General McMahon contributed 24 papers 

 to the Records of the Geological Survey of India, for the most 

 part descriptive of the geology and petrology of districts in the 

 Simla area, thence northward to Spiti, and around Dalhousie and 

 Charaba, and in a few other localities. The so-called Himalayan 

 Central Gneiss he showed to be an intrusive granitic formation." 

 The death of General McMahon closes a strenuous life of recognized 

 service to Government in his administrative career in India, and of 

 fruitful scientific research in geology, a combination testifying to 

 intellectual equipment unusually varied and to uncommon mental 

 energy maintained until the very last. 



General McMahon married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel 

 C. F. Head, late Queen's Royal Regiment, and secondly, Charlotte 

 1 Xovember, 1903, p. 492, 



