52 Annals of the South African Museum. 



these aspects of the distribution as now known to us, because 

 Neumayr himself attached very great importance to the testimony 

 of the Uitenhage fauna in supporting both the above theories. But 

 at that time it was not known that the links connecting the bivalve- 

 faunas of the Uitenhage and Oomia strata were so numerous or 

 complete as they are now proved to be, while the existence of 

 a related molluscan assemblage in German East Africa was un- 

 suspected. 



Although Neumayr was led to the theory of a great equatorial 

 enclosed sea (" Ethiopian Mediterranean ") chiefly by a comparative 

 study of faunas of essentially Jurassic character, yet he felt justified 

 in utilising the Uitenhage fauna also as an aid in this palaeogeographic 

 reconstruction.* He believed that the radical differences between 

 the Mollusca of these beds and the more northerly East African 

 occurrences of Upper Jurassic age were an indication that the 

 faunas had for some time lived in distinct areas separated by a land 

 barrier, and from this he thought to derive support for a theory the 

 truth of which had seemed to be attested by evidence of a different 

 character.! In spite of weighty opposition,]: this theory of a land 

 connection extending from the Indian peninsula through Madagascar 

 to South Africa at the beginning of Cretaceous times has continued 

 to find favour, and it is only comparatively recently that the signifi- 

 cance of the palasontological evidence has again been called in 

 question. In view of the presence of some traces of the Uitenhage 

 fauna in the Godavari district and also in Cutch and Hazara, 

 Neumayr supposed that a connection between the equatorial and 

 southern waters must have existed in the form of a strait, the 

 situation of which he believed to be most probably about the present 

 Gangetic plain. The late Dr. W. T. Blanford held a similar view ; 

 he summarised the main arguments in favour of the theory, 

 suggesting that a shallow water connection near India, situated 

 very possibly to the eastwards, though not precisely as Neumayr 

 supposed, would account for the northerly dispersal, and that if this 

 were later converted into land, the "progressive diminution of 

 European species in the three stages of the S. Indian Cretaceous 

 beds would be explained by the increasing effect of isolation." 

 Professor Suess also speaks of these traces of the Uitenhage fauna 

 in Cutch and in the Salt Eange as possible indications of an 



* Neumayr (3) ; Neumayr (6), pp. 259, 261, 295, 296, 529. 



f Stow (1), p. 546; H. F. Blanford (1), pp. 534-540; Medlicott and Blanford 

 (1), pp. xxxix., Ixviii., Ixxii., 297. 



I Wallace (1), pp. 422-427. W. T. Blanford (3), pp. 98, 99. 



