﻿'Cii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May I908, 



that of Dr. Hatch ^ on the geology of the Transvaal, Mr. Molyneux's 

 geological account of Southern Ehodesia,^ and Mr. Lamplugh's paper 

 on the Zambesi Basin. ^ The intimate relations of Great Britain 

 with Egypt, and the establishment of a geological survey in that 

 country under British direction, have brought us some interesting 

 communications from Capt. Lyons on the Libyan and Nubian 

 Deserts,* and an excellent paper by Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell on the 

 Eocene and Cretaceous systems in the Nile Yalley." 



The geology of many parts of Asia has been described for the first 

 time in the pages of the Quarterly Journal. The institution of 

 the Geological Survey of India having provided a staff of trained 

 'Observers and ample facilities for publication, it is not now necessary 

 or desirable that at least local descriptive papers should any longer 

 be sent to us from that great dependency. But we can look back 

 on not a few important memoirs which have come thence to our 

 Journal. Thus the papers of S. Hislop, from their beginning in 

 1854 to his death in 1864, contain information of more than merely 

 local significance. They include, for example, the earliest descrip- 

 tion of the shells, insects, and cyprids which indicate that the lavas 

 of the vast Indian volcanic plateau were poured out on the land, and 

 not under the sea. The geology of portions of the Himalayas and 

 of Tibet was elucidated as far back as 1851 by the late Sir Eichard 

 Strachey, while nine years later further light was thrown upon the 

 rocks of that vast mountain-chain and of those of Cashmere by 

 Col. Godwin- Austen, who is happily still with us. 



During the progress of a Demarcation-Commission on the Turco- 

 Persian frontier from 1849 to 1852, a large amount of information, 

 obtained by W. K. Loftus, was communicated by him in a long and 

 valuable paper which appeared in the Quarterly Journal in 1855. 

 Another important contribution was made by our late lamented 

 colleague W. T. Blanford in 1873, in which he described the 

 valleys and deserts of Central Persia.® The same volume in w^hich 

 that paper was printed contains also Erederick Drew's suggestive 

 account of the alluvial deposits of the Upper Indus. The results of 

 Dr. Blanford's long years of work in Indian geology were properly 

 reserved for the official publications of the Survey to which he 

 belonged, but the Geological Society was privileged to enjoy the 

 benefit of his ripe knowledge of the subject. The work of his 



' Q. J. liv (1898) 73. =^ Q. J. lix (1899) 266. 



■^ Q. J. Ixiii (1907) 162. * Q. J. 1 (1894) 531 & liii (1897) 360. 



•> Q. J. Ixi (191)5) 667. ^ Q. J. xxix, 493. 



