Henry Benedict Medlicott. xxv 



maximum of conglomerates in the Siwaliks, are amongst the observations 

 that connect our first clear ideas of Himalayan elevation with Henry 

 Medlicott's work. 



It has been already noticed that not unfrequently Henry Medlicott was 

 occupied in clearing up difficulties that had been too great for his pre- 

 decessors in the Survey. An illustration may be taken from the geology of 

 the Khasi Hills. A comparison of his observations as recorded in the 

 seventh volume of the Memoirs should be made with the earlier account of 

 the same area by Dr. Oldham in the first volume. In the first account, 

 amongst other differences, the bedded Sylhet traps (Mesozoic) are not 

 distinguished from the ancient greenstone rocks of the inner hills, and 

 the occurrence of fossiliferous Cretaceous rocks was not recognized ; their 

 fossils, then supposed to have been Nummulitic, having been lost. The 

 alterations made in the geology by Henry Medlicott may be seen by 

 comparing the map and section, Plate 8, in Vol. 1, with the map and 

 section at p. 154 in Vol. 7. The earlier observations, it is true, were made 

 in the monsoon, when of course the ground was not as well exposed. Again, 

 the sketch map of the Satpura or Nerbudda coal area as corrected by 

 him in Vol. 10 of the Memoirs may be compared with the earlier 

 map published in Vol. 2. It is quite true that the principal discrepancy 

 in this case is easily explained. J. G. Medlicott, who not merely geo- 

 logically examined the country but who also to a considerable extent 

 surveyed the map, had practically completed the western portion containing 

 the typical Mahadevas without separating them from the underlying 

 Damudas. In the early part of 1856, Dr. T. Oldham, the head of the 

 Survey, went over the field, and almost at the end of the season discovered 

 that the Mahadeva was a separate series. He desired that this separation 

 should be recorded on the map. The result is, what may be supposed under 

 the circumstances, complete chaos, from which Henry Medlicott first rescued 

 the mapping of the Gondwanas. It is scarcely necessary to say that portions 

 of his Eeport were omitted by the then Superintendent of the Survey 

 from the printed copy, as he has mentioned in the Annual Eeport for 

 1880.* 



In fact, throughout his life Medlicott had been the champion of whatever 

 he believed to be founded on scientific truth. Almost his only important 

 geological paper, outside of the Survey Publications, was that on " The Alps and 

 the Himalayas, a Geological Comparison," issued in the ' Quarterly Journal of 

 the Geological Society ' for 1868, Vol. 24. This Paper narrowly escaped 

 rejection ; it was postponed for a time, but was finally published. ISTor was 

 this hesitation wonderful, for the paper attacks, and in no doubtful way, 

 the conclusions of all the great Alpine geologists, v. Hauer, G umbel, Studer, 

 Desor, and others, and there is no question that in the main Medlicott was 

 right. Some of the views expressed by him required and have since received 

 revision, but as an original description of mountain-building from a uniformi- 

 * 'Kec. Geol. Surv. Ind.,' 1881, p.- 1. 



