NOTICE. 



The collections of the Museum of the Geological Survey of India are 

 useful to two distinct classes of enquirers. They have been in the first 

 instance brought together essentially for the purposes of reference and 

 comparison in illustration of the investigations of the officers of the Survey 

 in India, and thus they constitute a necessary part of the working appliances 

 of the Geological Survey. But they are also intended for the instruction of 

 the public and to aid and facilitate the studies of others who may be en- 

 gaged in special enquiries of a similar nature. For the purposes of our 

 own special studies, seeing that means of reference are always at hand, a 

 mere list of genera and species would have sufficed as a Catalogue; and the 

 preparation of this would have been comparatively a trifling task. But if 

 a Catalogue were to be useful to others, it became necessary to do more than 

 merely give a list of names and localities. ' It was essential that references 

 to the authors who had described and figured the species catalogued should 

 be given, and that at least the principal synonyms under which several had 

 been at different times referred to, should be recorded. In doing this, I have 

 generally given not only a reference to the author who first described the 

 species, but also, wherever practicable, a reference to some well known or 

 generally accessible work in which the species could be found described. 



The present, however, does not pretend to be a descriptive Catalogue^ 

 nor even a critical one. It is simply a list for convenience of reference, in 

 which all detail has been avoided, so far as this was practicable without 

 sacrificing its general utility. 



The present state of our knowledge of Indian Palaeontology appears 

 to me to justify our keeping separate from the general series the collection 

 of Indian fossils belonging to the same class. A complete list of all the 

 varieties of these, up to this time recorded as occurring in British India, is 

 given. All the species of which specimens exist in our collection are indi- 

 cated by a special mark. Our materials are as yet insufficient to justify 

 any attempt at a critical catalogue of the Indian Fossil Echinodermata. 

 This general list will, however, be useful to students of Indian Palaeontology. 

 These are arranged in the same natural-history order of Genera, and strati- 



