( 698 ) 
[October, 
NOTICE S OF BOOKS. 
A Manual of the Geology of India. Chiefly compiled from the 
Observations of the Geological Survey. By H. B. Medli- 
cott and W. T. Blanford. Calcutta : Geological Survey 
Office. London : Triibner and Co. 
We have had, from time to time, the pleasure of drawing the 
attention of our readers to the important results worked out by 
the Geological Survey of India. The memoirs and reports of 
the Survey have become too numerous and bulky for general 
consultation. Much information on the Geology of India is 
scattered in various learned journals, both Indian and European. 
Hence a digest or compendium, showing at least the more im- 
portant facfts observed and the chief conclusions arrived at, has 
become imperatively requisite, and we are glad to learn that the 
Government has seen this necessity, and has directed the present 
Manual to be drawn up. 
The first volume is devoted to , peninsular India, whilst the 
second treats of the extra-peninsular portions, such as Sind, the 
Punjab, the Himalayan and Sub-Himalayan regions, and British 
Burma. Concerning this extra-peninsular area it is remarked 
that it is “ geologically an intrinsic portion of the Asiatic conti- 
nent, whilst peninsular India is not.” 
The authors find ample evidence that India was affedled by 
the cold of the Glacial epoch. The poverty of the living fauna 
as compared with the fossil fauna of the Siwaliks, as Mr. 
Wallace happily suggests, is best explained by a secular decrease 
of temperature. The eleven extinct elephants and mastodons 
are now represented by a solitary living form. Against fifty 
known fossil species of ungulates the same area affords only 
eighteen recent forms. The Talchir formation displays the 
same kind of evidence by which the existence of a Glacial epoch 
is recognised in more northern regions. 
As regards the former distribution of land and water, the 
authors conclude that in Eocene times peninsular India was 
part of a tradl of land, perhaps even of a great continent con- 
nected with Africa. To the east and north-east was a sea, 
where now rise the Assam hills, whilst on the north-west another 
sea covered great part, if not the whole, of Persia, Baluchistan, 
the Indus plain, and part of the plain of the Upper Ganges. 
The recent fauna, they believe, speaks in favour of the connec- 
tion of Southern India with the Malay Islands and Africa in the 
early Tertiary times. 
The authors do not entirely agree with the system of anima 
