Supposed to he Tertiary. 



Ill 



Mr. Prinsep appreciated Dr. Benza's merits as they deserved, and 

 in a letter to me, he lamented that the " Asiatic Society of Bengal 

 " had no Gold Medal to bestow, as none could doubt that Dr. B.'s 

 " paper on the Neilgherry Hills had a just claim to the distinction." 

 When I wrote, I was ignorant that he was already attacked by the 

 malady under which he soon after sank, without having published 

 any thing on the subject. 



I never visited the locality, yet with regard to the matrix of the 

 fossil wood, and of the true character of the wood itself, my opinion, 

 founded on specimens was correct, and I therefore could not but feel 

 regret at the turn the discussion on this subject had taken at Madras 

 in 1840. I had carefully examined, several years before, the fossil 

 wood from this locality, had sections made of various specimens, in 

 some of which the vegetable structure was even better seen than in 

 recent wood. I had also had an opportunity of shewing them to 

 Mr. Robert Brown, and of conversing regarding them with Adolphe 

 Brongniart. The structure of many specimens is exogenous, and may 

 be inferred to belong to the tertiary period. 



Knowing all this, it was a subject of regret to find these discus- 

 sions at Madras revive the olden times when Leonardi da Vinci had 

 to contend so zealously for the animal origin of the shells of the Sub- 

 Appenines, against those who asserted them to be the result of, I 

 know not what, mystic or plastic forces. But I had hoped that the 

 discovery of his error in this instance, would have rendered Captain 

 Campbell more cautious in plunging into controversies against opi- 

 nions adopted by all who have written or observed well. 



Note.— It may be worth while to notice some remarks of Captain Campbell, relative to an 

 error alleged to have been committed by myself, after Buchanan, Voysey and Benza, as to 

 the mineral composition of the pillars of the tomb of Hyder at Seringapatam. It is but a dis- 

 pute about the name of a specimen, of no real importance to a geologist, and although I have 

 much confidence in Captain Newboldt's opinion, adopted by Captain Campbell, I still do not 

 consider the point settled, as to these pillars being composed of a steatite, as I think is reported, 

 for I have not the paper to refer to at the moment. When one considers how constantly, and 

 easily the primary rocks, especially those composed of hornblende and steatitic minerals alter- 

 nate, or graduate into each other, a discordance on this point is not to be wondered at. As to 

 my own share of the error, it was only adding these pillars to other examples of the architec- 

 tural use of a particular rock, which I had elsewhere carefully examined, on the authority of 

 three of the best geologists who have ever been in India. It is twice that I had seen these pil- 

 lars, but during the few hours I spent there, I was too much occupied in the many objects of 

 historical and moral interest around me, to think of detecting a flaw in the observations of my 



