PART l.j 
AhhhuI Kejjort fur 1879. 
9 
the trans-Indus Salt-range. These had to he cleaned out and arranged with the 
previous collections before the work of description could proceed. I have already 
received plates and text in continuation of the Avork, including some of the 
specimens sent during the year. 
I have great satisfaction in announcing that the description of the Sind fossil 
corals so generously undertaken for the Paleeontologia Indica by Professor Martin 
Duncan, F.K.S., is very nearly completed. This is the fourth instance of dis¬ 
tinguished j)alajontologists in England giving valuable assistance to the Geological 
Survey of India by the description of important groups of fossils. 
I took an early opiportunity, in the annual report for 1877 (Records, Vol. XI, 
p. 12, 1878), to state the princiide of liberty and distributed rcsjponsibility under 
which I proposed to conduct the publications of the Geological Survey, and to 
explain hoAv the conditions of our work in this country—the great distances to be 
accounted for and the peculiar difficulties of locomotion—made some such nile 
necessary to the full perfoi-mance of our duties to the public. The evident draw¬ 
back to such practice is the pubbcation of crude work, in which even the com¬ 
petent reader (Avithout any knowledge of the ground) can perceive that more 
intelligent obseiwation might have given a A'ery different account of the sections. 
To obviate this objection, the only alternative would be to Avithhold Avork from 
publication until it could be revised in the field by a more thorough obscrA'cr. 
Unfortunately, OAving to the great scarcity of really accomplished observers, and 
under the circumstances already noted, this would mean a quite indefinite post¬ 
ponement, and a stoppage of other work. Such had foi’merly been the practice : 
in view of further corrections the description of the Rajmahal hills had been 
withheld for fifteen years, and is at last in quite an unimjjortant degree better 
than it would hav'e been at the first; and this is by no means an isolated case. 
Now, our principal duty is to the greater public, to furnish an intelligible map 
and description of areas hitherto geologically blank; and our least finished woik 
does that, however imperfectly. The claim of the very select public of competent 
geologists—that all our work should be up to the best standard of the day— 
is incompatible with that prior claim, and Avith the conditions of the situation, 
subjective, and objectiAm. The points where vre fail in this respect do not much 
affect the value of the work as a guide to the ground. Of course every advice and 
suggestion is given in each case, so far as can be made from careful perusal of the 
work in manuscript, but the least intelligent workman is often the last to take 
advice, and the compelling reasons are mostly such as could only be Avorkedout on 
the ground. I see no compromise but the one I adopted, and to which I adhere. 
The risk it obviously implies—the exposure of faulty AVork—falls ujDon our own 
heads. The minor evils it iuA'olves are no greater than those it removes, and the 
smart of public criticism is more wholesome than the heart-burning of official 
suppression. Correction is, hoAV'ever, seldom more convincing than advice, and 
in the endeavour to avoid it over-sensitive or under-ballasted Avriters even run into 
a worse predicament than that they Avould escape from. Thus the bail is kept 
up; the question of official suppression comes round again; as it is impossible 
that our publications can be made the vehicle of querulous rejoinders. Appeal is 
then made to non-official censors. Kindly editors of independent journals, quite 
ignorant of the merits of the case, and too busy to examine it very critically, act 
B 
