exc Proceedings of the Astatic Soc. of Bengal. [N.S., XVII, 
ledge can take birth and thrive ; the tendency would rather be 
to atrophy any curiosity or spirit of inquiry. : 
But the stride of investigation in other parts of the world 
_ and the great progress achieved in every 
Remedy for ees department of geology during the last twenty 
ies Pac oe OF aes “ae 
to swell the volume of field and laboratory investigation ; to 
further areal and regional geology by the exploration of new 
or unknown tracts; and to supplement generally the efforts ot 
the official surveyors in elucidating whatever new problems 
arise. Also it wi ome increasingly necessary and profit- 
able to utilize the university-trained students who have 
specialised in a post-graduate course after giving them suitable 
training in field-methods. Hitherto this class has furnished no 
recruits either to the official corps or, to any material extent, 
to the body of prospectors, miners, or other professional 
geologists. 
It is when this co-operation is forthcoming in some consi- 
i erable measure that the labours of the offi- 
Paki Great Pre ial geologists of the Geological Survey of 
; an__forma- India can be liberated igraphi 
tions. | Cuddapah e liberated from the stratigraphic 
and Vindhyan. and areal survey to which they have to be 
still largely restricted, for employment in the 
more specialised branches of the science. The time will then 
come for organising such special branches of the Survey as have 
not received consistent systematic attention hitherto such as 
glacial geology, physiographic geology, the geology of mineral 
eposits, of water supply, drainage, etc. Other fields of research 
await the specialist ; and among them none is more promising of 
results than the great pre-cambrian formations of the Peninsula. © 
Till now these great groups of th Se ‘ eee’ 
have been given up as hopeless in respect of furnishing any 
noteworthy data of pre-cambrian geology. Yet in the extreme 
+". est 
euLavuc 
organic barrenness of such wide sedimentary tracts which repre- 
sent the coast-line of the primitive ocean at a period in the 
