xxviii Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



Coalfield, and in visiting the Trichinopoly district and the Mlgiri Hills, 

 but in the cold season of the latter year he was sent to commence a 

 geological survey in Burma, where he visited Mandelay, not then in British 

 territory, and made zoological collections which added much to the knowledge 

 of the Burmese fauna. 



Promoted after a furlough in England in 1862 to be Deputy Superintendent, 

 Blanford had charge of the survey of the Bombay Presidency, where he was 

 engaged for the next four years, also visiting Sind and Cutch. The position 

 of the Deccan traps in regard to the underlying Cretaceous and the over- 

 lying Nummulitic series was determined, as is described in the sixth volume 

 of the ' Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India.' 



In September, 1867, Blanford was attached to the Abyssinian Expedition 

 to study the geology and zoology of the country. Landing at Zeila shortly 

 before Christmas, he accompanied the army to Magdala, afterwards remaining 

 for some time in the Bogos province. On his return to India in the autumn of 

 1868 he was released from field duties in order to work out his collections, 

 and then spent six months in England to complete his ' Observations on the 

 Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia.' After returning to India in the late 

 autumn of 1869, he visited Sikkim next year with Captain Elwes, getting as 

 far as the Tibetan frontier, and was then engaged in the Godavari Valley and 

 the border of the Madras Presidency, chiefly in the coalfields, returning to 

 Calcutta when the hot weather began. By this time he had traversed the 

 whole peninsula on foot or on horseback, with the exception of some 

 20 or 30 miles, from the Arabian Sea near Surat to the Bay of Bengal at 

 Coconada. 



In the autumn of 1871 he was ordered to join the Persian Boundary 

 Commission, and after a preliminary voyage to Basra and back started from 

 Gwadar, about 300 miles west of Karachi, marched to Shiraz with Major 

 St. John's party, and then travelled alone through Ispahan to Teran to join 

 the other one under Sir Eichard Pollock. After a short visit to the Elburz 

 Mountains, he returned to England from Enzeli on the Caspian, by 

 Astrakan, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Berlin to England, arriving at home 

 in September, 1872. Here he was obliged to remain on a two years' leave, 

 for his health had suffered from the hardships of his work in Persia, but 

 he was fully occupied in preparing the volume on the ' Zoology and Geology 

 of Persia ' for the Eeports of the Boundary Commission. 



After his return to India at the end of 1874, he was engaged during 

 the next three years on the geology of Sind, except for a three months* 

 exploration of the desert between the Indus and Jodhpur, which he crossed 

 in two directions ; in the former region a continuous series was found to 

 extend from the Cretaceous (covered by representatives of the Deccan traps) 

 to the Pliocene. From 1877 to 1879, Blanford w 7 as chiefly engaged on 

 office work in Calcutta, one part of it being co-operating with Mr, 

 H. B. Medlicott, the Superintendent, in preparing the ' Manual of the Geology 

 of India.' Then he returned to England on furlough, which was extended 



