Obituary— Dr. Thomas Oldham, F.E.8. 



383 



Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, which he held until 14 Nov., 

 1850, when he was nominated to the charge of the Geological Survey 

 of India by the Hon. the Directors of the East India Company, ar- 

 riving in Calcutta early in 1851. 



Those of our readers who are acquainted with the climate, the 

 physical features, and the vast territorial extent of our Indian 

 Empire, will more readily appreciate the onerous responsibility un- 

 dertaken by Dr. Oldham to inaugurate and set in motion the ma- 

 chinery for so large and important a department of the Indian Civil 

 Service. 



With only a small staff of about twelve assistants he set resolutely 

 to work, and at the end of ten years from the commencement of the 

 Survey he was able to show an area, carefully mapped and coloured 

 geologically, more than twice the extent of the whole of Great Britain, 

 principally in Bengal and Central India. 



One of the chief objects of the Director was to ascertain, by care- 

 ful examination and mapping, the extent of the Indian Coal-measures 

 and the quality of the Coal. The best appears to be the Assam 

 Coal, which lies near the river Brahmapootra ; but extensive fields 

 of coal exist, though by no means distributed generally over the 

 Indian Empire, but almost entirely concentrated in a double band of 

 coal-yielding deposits, which, with large interruptions, extend more 

 than half-way across India, from near Calcutta towards Bombay. 



In 1867 Dr. Oldham presented an elaborate Eeport to the Secre- 

 tary of State for India, " On the Coal Eesources of India," but no 

 fewer than sixteen separate memoirs on the various Coal-fields have 

 been published in the " Memoirs," with Maps, viz. : — 



1. On the Coal and Iron of Cuttack. 



2. On the Structure and Eelations of the 

 Talcheer Coal-field. 



3. On the R§,nigunj Coal-field. 



4. On the Coal of Assam. 

 6. The Jherria Coal-field. 



6. On the Bokaro Coal-field. 



7. On the Eamgurh Coal-field. 



8. Kurhurb&,ri Coal-field, 



9. Deoffhur Coal-field. 



10. Karanpdrl Coal-fields. 



11. The rtkhuri Coal-field. 



12. The Daltonganj Coal-field. 



13. The Chope Coal-field. 



14. The Satpura Coal-basin. 



15. The Coal-fields of the JST&ga Fills, 

 bordering Lakhimpur and Sibsagar 

 Districts, Assam. 



16. The Wardha Valley Coal-field. 



In 1862-64: he published, in conjunction with Prof. John Morris, 

 M.A., a memoir, " On the Fossil Flora of the Eajmahal Series " 

 (Memoirs Geol. Surv. India), illustrated by numerous plates of the 

 Zamia-like plants occurring in these Plant-bearing beds. 



In 1863 he communicated a paper to the Geological Society of 

 London, " On the Occurrence of Kocks of Upper Cretaceous Age in 

 Eastern Bengal." 



A grand feature of the Geological Survey of India is its publi- 

 cations, which, under Dr. Oldham's administration, had attained to an 

 extent and importance unsurpassed even by the magnificent volumes 

 issued by the United States Surveys, and distributed with the same 

 liberality. 



These publications are of four kinds, viz. : — 



