part 1 proceedings of tILE geological society. lxxxiii 



who was on board H.M. Hospital Ship ' Glenart Castle,' torpedoed 

 in the Bristol Channel on February 26th, 1918. It was stated 

 that the Council had sent resolutions of condolence to the relatives 

 of both these Fellows. 



The President announced that the Council had awarded the 

 Proceeds of the Daniel-Pidgeon Fund for the present } r ear to 

 James Arthur Butteeeield, M.Sc, F.G.S., who proposes to 

 conduct researches in connexion with the Conglomerates and Sand- 

 stones underlying the Carboniferous Limestone Series in the 

 Xorth-West of England. 



Dr. William Frederick Smeeth delivered a lecture on the 

 Geology of Southern India, with particular reference 

 to the Archaean Rocks of the Mysore State. With the 

 aid of a map, prepared by the Geological Surve3 r of India, the 

 Lecturer pointed out the general character of the geological forma- 

 tions of Southern India, which consist, very largely, of a highly- 

 folded and foliated complex of Archaean gneisses and schists, 

 followed by some considerable patches of pre-Cambrian slates, 

 limestones, and quartzites ; with these arc associated basic lava- 

 Hows and ferruginous jaspers. The remaining formations consist 

 of remnants of the Gondwana Beds (coal-measures of Permo- 

 Carboniferous age), a few patches of Cretaceous rocks, some 

 Tertiary and Pleistocene deposits, and recent sands and alluvium, 

 all situated along the coastal margins of the Peninsula. He 

 contrasted the scanty post- Archaean record of Southern India, the 

 apparent non-submergence of the greater portion of the area, and 

 its freedom from great earth-movements since Archaean times, with 

 the widely-extended formations of Northern India which recorded 

 oft-repeated movements of depression and elevation, culminating 

 in the rise of the Himala} 7 a in Tertiary times, and accompanied by 

 igneous activity on a gigantic scale, as proved by the outpourings 

 of the Deccan Trap. 



In discussing the Archaean complex, the Lecturer traced the 

 history of the various views which had been held. Newbold 

 (1850) regarded the complex as formed of Protogene schists and 

 gneisses intruded into by granites. Bruce Foote (1880) separated 

 the schists (to which he gave the name ' Dharwar S}-stem ') from 

 the gneisses, and regarded them as laid down unconformably upon 

 the gneisses and granites which, for many years thereafter, were 

 embraced in the term ' Fundamental Gneissic Complex. 1 He 

 regarded the Dharwar System as transition-rocks between the 

 old gneisses and the older Palaeozoic rocks (Cuddapa, etc.). 

 Holland (1898) differentiated the Charnockites, showing that 

 they formed a distinct petrogra pineal province with intrusive 

 relations to the main members of the gneissic complex. In 

 1906 he proposed to regard the Cuddapa System as pre-Cambrian, 

 and separated by a great Eparchasan Interval from the Dharwar 

 System, which, together with the gneissic complex, he classed as 



