Calcutta, Geological Survey Office, [1861]-1865. Folio (33.1 x 25.0 cm). Title page with printed wrapper mounted on blank verso. vii, 216, xiii pp.; 95 lithographed plates (numbered I-XCIV, LXVIa; including several larger, folded) with explanatory text leaves. Near contemporary half calf with blind-tooled borders over pebbled boards. Spine with gilt lines, and two red morocco labels with gilt title. Printed errata leaf tipped in.

A very early and very uncommon work on the rich ammonite faunas of India, published in the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India with the descriptions and fine illustrations of many new and poorly known species, usually quite well preserved. The author of the first section is the British palaeontologist and malacologist Henry Francis Blanford (1834-1893). The author of the second section is the Moravian zoologist and palaeontologist Ferdinand Stoliczka (Czech: Stolička (1838-1874). "Stoliczka studied geology and palaeontology at Prague and the University of Vienna under Professor Eduard Suess and Dr Rudolf Hoernes. ... In 1862 Stoliczka joined the Geological Survey of India (GSI) under the British Government in India after being recruited by Dr Thomas Oldham (1816-1878). In Calcutta he was assigned the job of documenting the Cretaceous fossils of southern India and published them in the Palaeontologia Indica, along with William Thomas Blanford. By May 1873 this work was completed with four volumes totalling nearly 1500 quarto size pages with 178 plates" (Wikipedia). For some peculiar reason, Wikipedia refers to H. F. Blanford's brother William Thomas (1832-1905), also active as a zoologist in India. This work was published as part of a series on fossil cephalopods, but also as stand alone, hence it contains a double pagination. Provenance: inscribed in light pencil by the palaeontologist and malacologist Jeffrey D. Stilwell. Some wear to the board and spine extremities; front hinge starting. Occasional light spotting; a few plates slightly more affected, but generally quite clean and in all a good, complete copy. Complete copies are rare. Not in Nissen ZBI, who only listed the later parts on gastropods and bivalves.