PART 1.] Annual Beport for 1877.. 13 
must, of course, bo insisted on; but some freedom of speculation is necessary to 
the individual life. 
Several considerations of expediency support these principles of right. It 
would be absurd to accept and publish a man’s description of objects or pheno¬ 
mena and not allow him to expose his reasoning thereon. The elements of 
observation in geological researches are not sim 2 )lo, or to a,ny extent quantitative; 
they can only bo fairly exhibited when put together in argnment; and this 
test is also needed to discover the bias of the observer’s mind, the coh^m’ of his 
spectacles, and hence the value even of his plain record of facts. No less may 
this public exposure bo needful to bring the observer to his senses. Ignorance or 
conceit that would bo quite unmoved by individual opinion, may stand corrected 
before a competent public O23inion; and the want of a critical public in India is 
perhaps the most serious obstiicle to our lu’ogrcss. In the absence of local censors 
we must seek for them abroad, or even jiennit some mutual criticism in our own 
ranks. Unfortunately error itself, as ^’resented by a man of any 2 )rofessional 
education, is often under the protection of the majority ; but in this ca,so, too, 
ex 20 osure is the only remedy. On the other hand, coercion and su2)23ression 
are fatal to human energy of any kind, especially to the development of thought; 
and mutual encouragement to thought should be the ruling relation in a body 
of colleagues united in the bonds of a common study. 
These considerations are not intended to cover any shirking of the groat 
responsibility that undoubtedly attaches to ray post, but only to meet certain false 
views of what these duties are. There are very special dangers and difficulties 
in the course I would take; notably the encouragement offered to impostors 
by facility of publication. Men w'ho have nothing to say worth listening to are 
often the most anxious to come forward; they would fain measure their own 
worth by the number of papers or the amount of print having their name 
attached,—floods of inane descriptive matter without a suggestion of meaning (as 
if any man could extract positive knowledge fi-oni the observations of quacks), or 
else one-sided 2 iicturos from the point of view of some foregone conclusion. 
We must only recollect that there can be no wheat without chaff and straw, and 
that the human mind is not an annual that flowers only once, but a strong 2 ilant 
that can bear much 2 n‘uning and grafting. 
The foregoing remarks wdll explain how the Records of the Survey for the 
past year hnvo swelled to unusual pro 2 iortions, but I trust that, on the whole, the 
change has boon to the advantage of our 23 ublic and ourselves. 
I have to a 2 JologiBc for the non-fulfilmont of a 2 U‘omise made in the last annual 
re23ort. Inox 2 )eMenco of large undertakings and a too sanguine temperament 
led me to ho 2 )e that the Ma 2 ) and Manual of the Geology of India could be 
ready by the middle of the past year, whereas much still remains to be done on 
both, although, with duo regard to other necessary work, no time has been lost in 
their 2 n’e 2 )aration. We can, I think, with certaintj^ promise it for the middle of 
the current year. 
Volume XIII of the Memoirs was issued early in the present year, with 
coloured maps of two important areas—the Rajmahal hills and the Wardha valley 
coal-fields. 
