2 
Records of ihe Geological Survey of India. 
[vOL. XII, 
pi’ogrcss, and tlio annual report is the apjirojirlate medium for bringing to notice 
such changes as have become necessary in the provisional interpiretations of that 
date. Already, almost cotemporanoously with the publication of the Manual, the 
balance of evidence on some points has been affected by the results of the last 
season’s work, as will be mentioned in the following remarks. 
Before alluding to this work of detail, I would make mention of some general 
observations on the geology of India published within the year, and based upon 
the work of the Survey. Our distinguished colleague. Dr. Waagon, whose services, 
1 am happy to say, arc still engaged in our behalf, so far as his health will permit, 
presented to the Academy of Vienna a sketch of the geology of India based ujiGn , 
a discussion of its jialajontology. Work of this kind is of the highest value and 
interest, as representing the results and the rationale of the details of pala3onto- n 
logical research. For the benefit of English students, in India or elsewhere, a ' ' 
translation of the paper is published in the Records for November. • 
So far as relates immediately to India, the fcatxu’es evolved are of pennanent 
importance. The only mi.sgiving that occurs to one in respect of the wider gener¬ 
alizations is, that the provisional condition of the biological principles upon which 
most of those deductions depend may not have boon sufficiently kept in view, i 
Several relations in the comparative paheogoography of very distant countries '■ 
arc confidently assigned, on the assumption of certain laws of distribution of life, >■ 
in time and space. Now, however confident we may feel regarding the general i 
jiinnciplo of the derivation of organic forms, the particular view of that principle | 
necessary to the validity of such speculations as those under notice is still under i 
discussion, and the familiar appheation of it, as if established, may (or even must) j 
seriously interfere with the verification and study of the great biological problem } 
Aihich is the highest object of geological pursuit, and as subsidiary to which | 
those geographical puzzles are principally of any interest. To those who are t 
aw’ake to the imjiortance of the vital question, even though they may not be I 
qualified to discuss it directly, such interfereuce is a subject of regret. .<| 
In the last presidential address to the Geological Society of London, Professor ' \ 
Martin Duncan gives a most instructive review of many complicated problems J 
in zoology and palaeontology. From his statement of the objections to accepting 1 
the relative classification of the tertiary rocks of India, as recently put forward | 
by the Survey, it might be thought that some decidedly unscientific prejudice j 
had had influence in the discussion. Objections are of more serffice to us than ’I 
approval, and some of those made by this high authority may not be so easily | 
remoAud as the one I have mentioned- With the gi’eatost respect for the Avork ’( 
of the illustrious Falconer, of Avdiom we are most justly proud as the local founder 
of pala'ontological research, it was not thought that his views could be final, or 
that they Avere compatible Avith a fuller knowledge of the formations. He had 
treated as one fauna the fossils from a prodigious scries of strata, in which those ^ 
fossils arc by no means promiscuously distributed. It did not seem eA'cn that f. 
Falconer himself had considered his opinion conclusive on those points of corrohi- » 
tion, more especially as regards the older gravels of the Indian river ralloys, ^ 
