276 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 



Mr. R. A. Townsend, superintendent of petroleum -works in 

 Baluchistan, was deputed during the rains to look up the oil 

 indications in the neighbourhood of the Naga hills, the geo- 

 logical relations of which had already been dealt Avith in the 

 papers of Messrs. Medlicott and Mallet. Mr. Townsend's report 

 on Makum was very encouraging. The oil fields of Yenaug-gyung, 

 Thayetmyo, and other places in Burma were examined by 

 Dr. Noetling, though this involved of course the temporary stoppage 

 of his proper work as palaeontologist of the Survey. He also 

 recognised Silurian rocks in the Shan hills, with the limestones of 

 which is associated a very important and extensive band of iron 

 ore, and his expedition to the ruby limestone tracts of Madya and 

 Kya-whyat yielded some satisfactory information. Mr. Hughes on 

 rejoining the Survey was also posted to Burma. In connexion with 

 his researches there he made a special visit to the mines of Perak, 

 after which he investigated the tin ores of Tenasserim. 



The publications of the year comprised 16 papers (five of which 

 were of considerable economic interest) in the " Records," a very 

 useful bibliography of Indian geology compiled by Mr. Oldham, 

 and the concluding part of the " Productus Limestone Fossils of the 

 Salt Range," by Dr. Waagen. 



At the International Geological Congress held in London in' 

 September 1888, the Indian Survey was represented by Mr. Medlicott 

 and Mr. W. T. Blanford, while Mr. Oldham also availed himself 

 of a brief term of privilege leave to exhibit there specimens of 

 interest from India. Mr. Blanford had also been officially deputed 

 by the Government of India to represent the Indian Survey at the 

 Congress in Bologna in 1881 (sec page 255), and at Berlin in 1885. 



In 1SS9 Mr. Foote examined the auriferous tract around 

 Chiggateri, and considered it well worthy of being systematically 

 prospected. He also investigated the economic geology of the 

 Sandur State, where are great beds of haematitic iron ore, affording 

 a practically inexhaustible supply of iron. The only difficulty in 

 the way appears to be the scarcity of fuel in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood. On the southward slope of the western range of the 

 Sandur hills, Mr. Foote discovered an important argillite formation 

 very rich in nodular oxide of manganese or pyrolusite, capable of 

 being easily mined by open workings on a large scale. Mr. Lake 

 surveyed a considerable tract extending over some 1,000 square 

 miles in South Malabar, but was unable to complete the blank still 

 existing here in the sreological map. as he was then transferred to 



