86 Address. [Feb, 



into Wakkan and by the Darkot Pass into Chinese territory, and on to 

 Kan] Tit and Khunsa, penetrating as far as Raskun, but was unable to carry 

 out bis intention of visiting the Karakorum Pass and returned to 

 Ferghana. 



The Russian Geographical Society has published a new map of the 

 present Russo- Afghan frontier, on the scale of ■g- 40 l 000 , with an accom- 

 panying pamphlet by M. Kuhlberg, the Russian Commissioner, narrating 

 the progress of the delimitation. 



We have accounts of other explorers in these regions, but space does 

 not allow me to refer to them in detail. 



The opening Address, delivered by Col. Sir C. W. Wilson, R. E., as 

 President of the Geographical Section of the British Association at Bath, 

 is especially deserving of notice here in India, because in it he discusses 

 the question of ancient and modern trade routes to the East, and shows 

 how the construction of the Suez Canal, by making India immediately 

 accessible from the Mediterrean, is causing a remarkable redistribution 

 of the channels and trade centres of commerce between India and 

 other eastern countries and the Western European nations, and that 

 Gi^eat Britain is, in fact, losing the monopoly of the carrying trade from 

 India which is being diverted to the ports of Southern Europe. 



Geology. 



The general classification of the Indian formations has received 

 its latest modification at the hands of Dr. W. T. Blanford, President 

 of the Geological Society of London, in a note prepared for the late 

 meeting in September last, in London, of the International Geologi- 

 cal Congress ; on the basis of classification given in the "Manual of the 

 Geology of India," published in 1879, the most important alterations or 

 corrections being the placing of the Vindhyans as lower Palaeozoic, and 

 a re-arrangement of the Transition series. The very obvious physico- 

 geological division of India into Peninsular and Extra-Peninsular 

 regions, with the great intervening one of the Indo-Gangetic-Brahmaputra 

 plain, still necessitates the keeping up of two tables of classification, so 

 long as the fact remains that no marine fossilif erous beds of palaeozoic age 

 have yet been discovered in the peninsular region. For the purposes of 

 this Address it will suffice to give these two tables in condensed form, 

 and homotaxially with the European Series. 



