XIX 



HENEY BENEDICT MEDLICOTT, 1829—1905. 



Half a century ago, our knowledge of the Geology of India was very small 

 Some traverses of the Himalayas had been made, and notes had been 

 published of portions of the Peninsula of India ; fossils had been recorded 

 and described from Spiti, the Salt Eange, Sind, Cutch, Trichinopoly, and a 

 few other localities ; coal had been found and to some extent worked, but 

 very little was really known of the different formations or of their relations 

 to each other. A comparison of Dr. Carter's 'Summary of the Geology 

 of India between the Ganges, the Indus, and Cape Comorin,' published 

 in 1853, or of Greenough's geological map (1854), with the Manual of the 

 Geology of India issued in 1879, and with the map accompanying it, will 

 show the great difference between the knowledge of Indian Geology at the 

 two periods. 



Amongst the men who originated the Geological Survey of India and by 

 whom the great improvement in our acquaintance with the geology of the 

 country was secured, a leading position was taken by Henry Medlicott. 

 More of the numerous errors which had become almost stereotyped amongst 

 Indian geologists were corrected by him than by any other surveyor. To 

 take one example only. In the Peninsula of India there are, in the 

 classification adopted in the Manual, the following groups of formations below 

 the great Deccan basaltic series (Upper Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary) : — 

 (1) Metamorphic or Gneissic ; (2) Transition ; (3) Vindhyan ; (4) Gond- 

 wana ; the (5) Marine Jurassic and (6) Cretaceous beds being confined with 

 one unimportant exception to coastal fringes. The Vindhyan and all below 

 it are now believed to be pre-Cambrian ; the Gondwana ranges from Upper 

 Palaeozoic to Lower Cretaceous. Now in the 1854 ' Summary of the 

 Geology,' all the Vindhyan and Gondwana, various portions of the Transi- 

 tion Eocks and most of the known limestones from Metamorphic to 

 Cretaceous were assigned to the " Oolitic Series." In his first season's work 

 with his brother, J. G. Medlicott, Henry Medlicott distinguished the pre- 

 Cambrian Vindhyan from the Gondwana, thus at once clearing the way for 

 further progress. In his first published Memoir he arranged in sequence 

 the Vindhyan, Sub-Kymore or Lower Vindhyan and Bijawar or Transition 

 of Bundelkhand, and distinguished all from the Gneissic Series. In his 

 next Memoir he classified the rocks of the Himalayas, both the Siwaliks 

 and Nahuns, resting on the Nummulitic Subathu group, and the ancient 

 hill rocks, Krol and Blaini, associated with the older formations of the 

 mountains. 



Henry Benedict Medlicott was born in Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland, 

 on August 3, 1829. He was the second of three sons of the Eev. Samuel 



c 2 



