11 
experience must settle, or regarding which no statement could have any value excepting 
so far as it were justified by our experience limited to a certain date. But to determine 
a priori that a genus does not occur below the Tertiary formation, and to start with the 
idea that rocks must be Kainozoic because they contain a few fossil types not as yet met 
below these strata, is simply to impede the progress of science. Field Geology has yet a 
great task to solve.” 
Such a statement as to the inter-dependence of Zoology, Palaeontology, and Field Geology, 
and the necessity of their co-operation, though admitted now, was perhaps never before 
enunciated so clearly by any authority so competent as Stoliczka. The spectacle of geologists 
on the one hand and palaeontologists on the other striving for the undue pre-eminence of 
the authority of their own subjects respectively has been too often witnessed. 
la the year 1867 Dr. Oldham visited Europe for a few months, taking with him Dr. 
Stoliczka, for the purpose of affording him an opportunity of visiting various collections of 
lossils similar to those on which he was at work in India, and also for the purpose of 
obtaining his assistance in reference to the purchase of specimens which he had been autho- 
rised by the Government of India to procure for the Calcutta Museum. They returned to 
Calcutta in December after this, the only visit paid by Stoliczka to Europe during the 12 
years of his Indian service. 
A letter by Stoliczka to Hofrath Ritter v. Haidinger (28), descriptive of the return 
journey, consists of an account of his doings en route , and concludes with some remarks on 
meteorology and the proposal to establish a meteorological department in Calcutta, which 
were evoked by the observations which he made on the disastrous effects of the cyclone of 
1867. 
The next year was a busy one for Stoliczka. In May he was appointed, together with the 
piesent writer, joint Curator of the Indian Museum during the absence of Dr. John Anderson. 
As we both had duties at the Geological Survey Office to perform, we attended at the 
Museum on alternate days, and. each took special portions of the collection of what had 
been the Asiatic Society’s Museum, in order to prepare an inventory of the specimens which 
a d been taken over by Government. Our joint work consisted mainly in the preparation 
°f monthly reports for the trustees of the Museum. During the five months in which this 
woik lasted the whole of the very extensive collections were overhauled and checked with 
the aid of Blyth’s Catalogues, and such others as had previously been prepared. 
I 11 July 1868 Dr. Stoliczka was appointed N atural History Secretary of the Asiatic Society 
M Bengal, an honorary post involving much labour and personal sacrifice, owing to the 
severe editorial duties which belonged to it. In spite of all these duties, over and above the 
major claim on his time, preferred by his palaeontological work for the Survey, he proved 
himself not only equal to them, but found time to write long letters to correspondents at 
home, and to prepare for publication various papers on widely different subjects, as will be seen 
from the following titles : “On the Jurassic deposits in the North-west Himalayas” (25); 
“ On the Andaman Islands ” (27) ; “ On Pangshura tecta and other species of Ohelonia from 
the newer Tertiary deposits of the Nerbudda Valley ” (30) ; “ On Nanina pollux and Helix 
P r opinq Ua ” . « Q n ^agartia schilleriana and Membranipora bengalemis ” (32). At this 
time he commenced, also, a valuable series of papers on the anatomical characters of Indian 
Mollusca, a subject which had previously been much neglected, although Conchology had 
received so much attention from numerous writers. The first of this series of papers was 
entitled “Malacology of Lower Bengal, No. 1, On the genus Onchidium ” (35). 
b 2 
