440 



Note on Dr. Benza 



[Oct. 



Note to p. 271. 



The necessity of noticing some remarks by Lieut. Campbell on Dr. 

 Benza's nomenclature of Indian minerals, reminds the Editor, who en- 

 joyed the pleasure and advantage of an intimate personal friendship 

 with that lamented individual, that no record has been entered in this 

 journal, which his contributions have given an imperishable value to, 

 of the untimely death which put an end to his labours in the cause of 

 geological science. Dr. Benza returned to Europe labouring under some 

 not well defined paralytic symptoms; the result of a fall from his horse 

 on the Neilgherry Hills, which caused some obscure in jury at the base 

 of the skull. It is understood that he never recovered from the effects 

 of this accident, and that the catastrophe of his death was caused by 

 his sufferings therefrom, the functions of the brain becoming implica- 

 ted, leading to that degree of mental alienation which induced him to 

 perpetrate suicide. 



Pasqtjal Maria Benza was a native of Italy, and was in the 

 British Medical Service under the Lord High Commissioner of the 

 Ionian Islands, Sir Frederick Adam, whom he accompanied to 

 his Government at Madras, having obtained a commission in the Medi- 

 cal Service of the East India Company. Former numbers of this 

 journal afford the history of his movements in this country. In profes- 

 sional attendance on the Governor, he visited the Neilgherry Hills 

 twice, and in the 12th number of this journal will be found a geological 

 itinerary of his route thither on these two occasions. The 13th num- 

 ber contains his able and interesting Memoir on the Geology of the 

 Neilgherry and Koondah Mountains, one ©f the most valuable contributi- 

 ons to Indian geology that has been given to the world. Notes, chiefly 

 geological, of a journey through the Northern Circars, is the only other 

 contribution to this journal. All these productions were transcripts from 

 his note books, which contained more extended observations, particu- 

 larly of his route from the Neilgherry Hills down the Cauvery to Per- 

 mutty, where he observed the geognostic position of the rock contain- 

 ing corundum, a most interesting point, which was in need of elucida- 

 tion, very valuable observations on which must have been found amono- 



o 



the papers of th^ deceased. Dr. Benza took to Europe with him a very 

 extensive collection of geological specimens, and it was his declared 

 intention to publish a volume on Indian geology, when leisure and the 

 facilities which a residence in Europe afforded, enabled* him to do so. 

 Such a work would have contained his mature views on the subject, 

 and the opportunity of careful analysis, would have ensured exactitude 



