1840.] 



On the Advancement of Geological Science in India. 



79 



The peninsula of India presents a vast field for the study in question, 

 where the formations, of enormous magnitude, extend sometimes for 50 

 miles, presenting to view the same kind of rock, until its peculiarities 

 and varieties can no longer be overlooked. Compared v^'ith this vast 

 field, the primary formations of Great Britain and even of Europe sirjk 

 into insignificance, and we require nothing but energy and application, 

 to collect the necessary knowledge, and possibly to unravel the lav^r 

 by which the formation has been aggregated. Towards the point of ihe 

 peninsula, it appears that granite is the prevailing ro( k, without any 

 kind of schist or stratified rock to conceal it from our view. As we ad- 

 vance northward, we find (he surface clothed with schists, limestones, 

 and trappean rocks ; and, possibly, to the extreme north, the secondary 

 rocks may prevail, indeed we know them to be fossiliferous. But of 

 this vast continent, we know comparatively little. With the exception 

 of a very few, but excellent, papers, giving minute descriptions of small 

 patches, we have no data to turn to. We hear of mines of the common 

 metals, and of diamond mines, &c. but generally the mineralogy has 

 been entirely neglected. We know nothing of the probable metallic re- 

 sources of the country ; and of the metals rare and scarce in Europe, we 

 have not once any mention, though I have reason to believe that tita- 

 nium exists in great profusion, and possibly many others of the same 

 kind. Because these minerals are almost unknown in Europe, it is no 

 reason that the> may not be brought into use in the economy of the 

 arts, if we can produce them in sufficient quantities ; but to do this, we 

 must attend to the aids which chemistry affords us. 



The complaint of want of geological description, is not, however, con- 

 fined to India alone. Dr. Boase remarks, " In most of the lately pub- 

 *' lished geological accounts of countries, we look in vain for details con- 

 *' cerning primary rocks : we sometimes, indeed, hear that such, and such, 

 « a district consists of granite, but cannot collect any information con- 



cerning its composition, or the manner in which its varieties are asso- 

 *' ciated together. We are left quite in the dark as to the nature of this 

 *' kind of rock : for the various kinds which may come under the desig- 

 " nation of granite are not only exceedingly numerous, but have very 

 " frequently no resemblance whatever to the common variety so uni- 



versally known by the name granite." 



For want of the necessary details alluded to by Dr. Boase, much of 

 the information which has been published, descriptive of India, is of 

 little use. We are told that gneiss abounds in Ceylon, but I believe, 

 it will be found that gneiss is as rare there, as in South India. Dr. 

 Benzahas asserted that hornblende slate is common in Salem; he pro- 



