Miscellaneous. 



169 



and proceeded through a country fit for settlement. After only forty- six 

 hours' march, he found himself at Qaeenstown, on Lake Wakitepu. 

 Martin's Bay will now be the nearest port to Melbourne and Sydney. 

 The future town in Martin's Bay may entirely eclipse Dunedin. — Times' 

 Correspondent. 



OBITUAEIES. 



The late Rev. Stephen Hislop of Nagpore* — The newspapers of 

 the day have recently recorded the death, in melancholy circumstances, 

 of this gentleman, whose geological researches in Central India will 

 doubtless render an obituary notice of him interesting to many. 



Stephen Hislop was born at Dunse, in Berwickshire, on the 8th of Sep- 

 tember I8I7. He received his education first in the schools of his native 

 village, and subsequently at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. 

 On the " Disruption" of the Scottish Establishment in 1843, Mr Hislop, 

 then a student, cast in his lot with the seceding party, and was sent out 

 next year to found a mission at Nagpore, in Central India. Schools were 

 in process of time established at the three stations of Nagpore, Seetabul- 

 dee, and Kamptee. These ultimately acquired great influence, being 

 attended by no fewer than 700 pupils During extensive tours, under- 

 taken for missionary purposes, Mr Hislop paid keen attention to the phy- 

 sical character of the districts traversed, and various geological discoveries 

 of a remarkable character were the result. Several officers, after a time, 

 joined in the inquiry, and rendered effective assistance. A brief notice 

 of the Nagpore discoveries was sent by Mr Hislop, in April 1853, to the 

 Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society ; and a more detailed paper, 

 in our joint names, was read before the Geological Society of London on 

 the 21st July 1854, and printed in their " Quarterly Journal" for August 

 1855. Various supplemental papers were subsequently drawn out by Mr 

 Hislop, which also appeared in the journal. When afterwards at home 

 on sick leave, he obtained aid from the British Museum and other sources, 

 and described the fossil shells from Central India, a large number of 

 which were new to science. Professor Owen had already nam.ed and 

 pointed out the characters of one remarkable fossil, a new labyrinthodont 

 reptile. Professor T. Rupert Jones, from whose kind assistance and 

 sympathy much advantage had all along been derived, added a memoir on 

 the Cyprides. Mr A. Murray, F.R.S.E., took up the subject of the insect 

 remains. Sir Charles Bunbury appended a paper on the more antique 

 series of the fossil plants. The more modern series of plant-relics, 

 chiefly beautiful fruits, believed to be of Eocene age, has not yet been 

 figured. 



Though geology was the chief, yet it was not the only subject of inquiry 

 at Nagpore ; and it was in connection with another department of research 

 that the lamented missionary met his death. In December 1847, as Mr 

 Hislop, with his colleague, was passing the village of Takulghat, twenty 

 miles south of Nagpore, he observed a circle of large unhewn stones. 

 Further examination revealed, that there were no fewer than ninety such 

 circles, some single, others double — all close together, and spreading over 

 an area of about four square miles. Permission was subsequently sought 

 and obtained from the late Rajah of Nagpore to make excavations among 

 the circles; and in the centre of one of them, at the depth of three feet from 

 the surface, was found an iron vessel like a frying-pan, with a handle on 

 either side, which had rusted off and was now lying detached. The bot- 



* This obituary is from the pen of the Eev. Robert Hunter, late of Nagpore, 

 and is inserted in " The Reader." 



NEW SERIES.— VOL. XTX. NO. I. JANUARY 1864. Y 



