PREFACE. 



This, the second volume of The Memoirs of the Geological 

 Survey of India, is devoted to papers relating to the geological 

 structure of Central India. 



It will be seen, on perusal of these reports, how much information 

 has been added to the previously existing knowledge regarding this 

 important section of the Indian territories ; and, further, how materially 

 it has been necessary to modify, and even how totally to alter, the 

 conclusions arrived at by earlier observers. Yet there are few portions 

 of India, (as will be seen by a reference to the following pages,) which 

 have received more frequent, or more careful illustration, than that 

 herein described. 



Only those who have been individually obliged to wade through 

 such a series of detached papers, as will be found enumerated in this 

 volume, can realize the feeling of utter disappointment, which grows 

 in intensity as they turn from one to the other, and seek in vain for 

 some common clue to guide them through the maze, some connecting 

 link to bind these isolated facts into some general grouping. And this 

 feeling is only deepened by the thorough conviction, with which they 

 must be impressed, that each and all of these enquirers had honestly and 

 fairly noted down their observations : that there had been no de- 

 sire to uphold some favorite theory, which might have* warped their 

 judgment ; no anxiety to disprove the assertions of others, which might 

 have prejudiced their testimony. It is simply this, each was isolated ; 

 each detached ; there is not even a community of language, such as 

 to enable the student to see that different things have not been described 

 under the same names, or the same things under different words. 



