RECORDS 
OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
Part 1.] ^ 1879. [February. 
Annual Report op the Geological Sueyey op India, and op the Geological 
Museum, Calcutta, for the year 1878. 
• 
In the report for a year that has hceii comparatively unproductive of fresh 
work, I have to record, as compensation, the completion of the Manual of the 
Geology of India. The two facts are, indeed, closely connected: The Manual is 
principally—readers will often find cause to regret that it is not all—the work of 
Mr. Blanford, who was thereby prevented from taking the field in the open 
season of 1877-78. When results are to bo measured by the knowledge gained 
from the study of obscure facts, many circumstances affect the tale of progress, 
which depends more upon the study than upon the accumulation of what are 
called observations. Geology has suffered much from the delusion that the two 
offices can be separated. 
The Manual itself is a jirogrcss report in extenso —a full summary both of what 
is known and of what we fancy to be known regarding the geology of India, i.e.; 
of supposed (partial) facts, and of the apparent conclusions therefrom. Desjnto 
explanation and cautions given, students are likely to forget the very scanty and 
crude state of the information upon which much of the work is based, and 
therefore how liable to overthrow are the inferences suggested from that infoi’m- 
ation. Such inferences have been freely offered in the Manual, in order to give 
point to the description, and to incite other observers with the agreeable en¬ 
couragement of discovering error. Row that a more intelligent understanding 
is gaining ground regardbig scientific method, the rational use of hypothesis 
as opposed to dogma, it is possible to be instructive without misleading others or 
stultifying one’s self. Unfortunately, our work in India still suffers fi’om the 
impunity vdth which either blunder might be committed ; as the business of 
correction and exposui-e is almost entirely in our own hands. The duty of self¬ 
correction will not, howoY-er, be lost sight of, or evaded. The Manual affords an 
excellent datum-lino, available to all, from which to mark the phases of our 
A 
