Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vol. VII. 
services of Dr. Waagen for this work, as he had already achieved a sound reputation by his 
researches in formations of corresponding age in Europe. We have to lament that the tidings 
of his health are very unfavorable. As already noticed, Dr. Oldham had to go on sick-leave 
early in April. We may, perhaps, hope that improved health, and relief from the interrup¬ 
tions and preoccupation inseparable from the duty of directing widely scattered operations 
and correspondence, may give him leisure to mature the long expected introduction to the 
geology of India. The absence of Dr. Stoliozka, although depriving us for a time of our 
palaeontological oracle, is not to be regretted when we consider the service ho is engaged on. 
Every arrangement had been made for him to attend the gathering at Vienna as the rightful 
exhibitor of the most interesting part of our collections, and where there was so much to 
attract him, but he eagerly gave it all up to seize the opportunity of visiting a new field 
of research as naturalist with the Mission to Yarkand. In spite of the great suffering he 
endured in crossing the Korakornm range at so lato a season, he has already contributed an 
interesting sketch of his observations of that ground. Before leaving, Dr. Stoliczka had 
just completed the publication in the Palscontologia Indica of his highly valued work on the 
Cretaceous Fauna of Southern India. The remaining absentee is unfortunately to be recorded 
as permanent: Mr. J, Willson, after his brief connection with the Survey, finding that the 
duties were more than his health was able for, transferred his services to the Educational 
Department, in March. The loss thus sustained by the Survey of an officer whose thorough 
training in science gave promise of high efficiency, is not to be made good; the Govern¬ 
ment having decided that the pay of this appointment is to be devoted to the experimental 
institution of native apprentices. 
Although the staff of the Survey is nominally divided into three parties, under Deputy 
Superintendents corresponding with the three chief Presidencies, it has never been found 
convenient to adhere closely to this arrangement. Those who have studied certain forma¬ 
tions must follow them out irrespectively of fiscal boundaries; and in so large a country, 
where communication is often difficult, it is commonly most convenient that each geologist 
should communicate independently with bead-quarters in Calcutta. The work may there¬ 
fore be most intelligibly noticed with some attempt at natural order, commencing with 
the formations to which our coal-measures belong. 
In the south, Mr. King accomplished a very satisfactory season’s work in the regiou of 
the lower Godavari. He revisited the Singareui coal-field, which he had discovered and 
described in the preceding season. Numerous trial borings had meanwhile been put down 
by the Nizam’s officers, and a considerable amount of coal proved, although the seam was 
not found to be continuous throughout. The Beddadanole coal-field was fully examined ; 
and although no outcrop was discovered, there is considerable hope tha coal exists. Mr. 
King gave full directions for prosecuting the search by borings, and orders have been given 
by the Madras Government for their being carried out. This field is not, like the Siugareni 
field, circumscribed within very narrow limits by the older rooks. The actual area of measures 
exposed is not larger than that of Siugareni; but the rocks are seeu to pass beneath an 
extensive spread of a younger formation, and there is at least a chance of there being a con¬ 
siderable field, much of it in British territory. In this region we had hitherto only 
discriminated three members of this great rock-series; namely, the Takhirs, the Barakars, 
and the Ivamthi sandstones, which Mr. Blanford had followed down the Godavari and 
Pranhita valleys from Chanda and Nagptir, where he had, from the evidence of the fossil 
plants, ranked them in the Damuda horizon. From other fossil evidence, found in this con¬ 
fused upper sandstone series of the Godavari basin, it has long been considered that in 
part at least it represents formations younger than the reputed age of the Damudas. The 
obscurity regarding the correlation of this whole series of rocks with established formations 
has been owing to the failure hitherto to link any importaut portion of it with beds 
