1887.] Address. 75 



The Dictionary of Indian Economic products which, it is understood, 

 our fellow-member, Dr. George Watt, has for some time been engaged 

 upon has, I believe, advanced in progress during the year. By the 

 addition to the Empire of the province of Upper Burma, a most 

 important botanic region was rescued from the dominion of misrule ; 

 let us hope that it may before long be also wrested from the realms 

 of ignorance. In Upper Burma, the Indo-Malayan and Chinese Floras 

 are known to interosculate, and a rich botanic harvest awaits the 

 explorer of those regions when order shall have been sufficiently restored 

 to make the pursuit of knowledge moderately safe. I trust it may be 

 the pleasant duty of a very early successor to me in this chair to chro- 

 nicle to you the return of a scientific explorer from the hitherto unknown 

 China-Burmese frontier. 



Geological Survey. — In reviewing the progress for the year in 

 Geological work in India, we may give the first place to economic results ; 

 and these unfortunately do not fulfil expectations. Coal is about the 

 only mineral that need be mentioned, for, besides it (with the excep- 

 tion of iron), India has not proved rich in metals. The explorations 

 in the Rampur coal-field in Chhatisgarh have proved disappointing, 

 notwithstanding the abundance of carbonaceous outcrops, nor has the 

 Umariya coal-field in the Rewa basin been a complete success. In the Sat- 

 pura basin, the Mohpani field on the north seems, for the present, to have 

 failed ; the thick seam in which mining has been carried on for 

 years has stopped out on all sides, and has not yet been recovered. 

 On the south side of the same basin, the Chhindwara coal-fields have 

 been surveyed this year, and, though there is a fair show of out-crops 

 of coal, it would be premature to express an opinion as to its resources, 

 until trial borings have been made. There remains the hope that the 

 Singareni coal-fields, to which the Nizam's State railway is expected 

 to be open about the middle of this year, will remove the impression 

 that there is no good coal in India outside of Bengal, for, though the 

 tertiary coal of the Salt Range in the Panjab has been opened out this 

 year, the coal can only be used where no better is procurable. 



Mr. Oldham holds out the hope that in Rajptitana, perhaps, a better 

 coal may be discovered. For many years, the rocks about Jaisalmer 

 have been known to be of Jurassic age, and therefore the marine equi- 

 valents of some of the Gondwana series of the Peninsula. From obser- 

 vations made early in 1886, Mr. Oldham concluded that the glacial 

 boulder conglomerate at Pokaran, some fifty miles east of Jaisalmer, 

 represents the Talchhir boulder bed at the base of the Gondwana system. 

 and almost always found below the coal measures, and he suggested that 

 these might also be represented in Rajputana in the covered ground 



