ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. CXXUl 



brownstone beds in the South of Ireland which have produced Silurian 

 fossils; but this identification requires further investigation. Now, as 

 these conglomerate-beds, without fossils, of very considerable thick- 

 ness, follow immediately upon the Silurian rocks, whilst those of 

 the Hook underlie conformably the Carboniferous rocks without 

 producing any of their fossils, excepting indeed in the upper member 

 or the yellow sandstone, which, at least in the limestone-beds alter- 

 nating with it, does contain such fossils, ought we not to suppose 

 that there is a large gap between them unoccupied probably in 

 Ireland, but in other countries filled up by those shaly and limestone 

 deposits which have yielded fossils characteristic of an intermediate 

 epoch between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods ? 



The Dublin Geological Journal contains also a paper by Mr. C. H. 

 Kinahan, in which he describes the igneous rocks of the Berehaven 

 district, dividing them into contemporaneous and eruptive traps, and 

 showing their connexion with the old red sandstone and carboniferous 

 formations. I have noticed these papers, forming part only of the 

 labours of the Geological Society of Dublin, in order to show that 

 our sister society is not relaxing in its exertions to promote our 

 science, the estabUshment of the Government Survey in Ireland 

 having, as in England, in no respect tended to relax or to discourage 

 the zeal of independent observers, but, on the contrary, having 

 excited in them an additional vigour. 



I shall now notice the new series of Memoirs of the Geological 

 Survey of India, principally relating to the Talcheer Coal Field, in 

 the province of Cuttack. It is remarkable, as Mr. Oldham states, 

 that for fifteen years the attention of the government in India had 

 been called to the supposed valuable coal-deposits of this district, and 

 specimens were from time to time sent for examination and found 

 worthless, when at length Messrs. W. T. and H. F. Blanford, and 

 Wm. Theobald, jun., of the Geological Survey, were sent to examine 

 the district, determine the limits of the coal-basin, and estimate its 

 value. The district is described as an allu\-ial plain, extending from 

 the coast to the hills of the district of Cuttack, which are stated to 

 be small and isolated, and so rounded in form as to suggest the idea 

 that the whole of this district had been at no remote period below 

 the sea-level, and raised gradually from the coast inwards. The 

 metamorphic rocks are gneiss and hornblende, and quartz and schists ; 

 and the sedimentary rocks are sandstones, conglomerates, and shales, 

 in part carbonaceous, which form two basins, the Talcheer and the 

 Atgurh basins, of which the former is the larger. In descending 

 order they form three groups : 1, Mahadewa group or upper grit 

 series, about 1500 to 2000 feet thick, consisting of unfossiliferous 

 quartzose grits and conglomerates, and coarse sandstones, the con- 

 glomerates predominating towards the base of the series ; 2, the Da- 

 moodah group or carboniferous shales, 1800 feet thick, consisting of 

 blue and black shales, carbonaceous shales, and interstratified sand- 

 stones, the group being fossiliferous ; 3, the Talcheer group or 

 lower sandstone series, about 550 feet thick and slightly fossiliferous, 

 consisting of blue nodular shale, fine sandstone, and a very remark- 

 able boulder-bed. The boulders in this bed are essentially granitic 



