INDIAN GEOLOGY. 131 



arises from the fact that the Gondwana flora and fauna con- 

 sist almost entirely of land and freshwater forms, very few 

 of which have ever lived in Europe ; and it is only in- 

 directly that it has been possible to compare the Indian 

 with the European sequence. Fortunately, in Australia, 

 beds with plant-remains closely resembling those of India 

 are associated with others which contain a marine fauna ; 

 and these marine beds can be correlated with the Carbon- 

 iferous of Europe. 



But this is not all. The Talchir group at the base of 

 the Gondwana system in India, consists largely of a fine 

 silt or clay ; and scattered irregularly through the clay lie 

 numbers of boulders of all sizes. In many cases the 

 boulders must have been brought from a distance ; for the 

 rock of which they are made, is unknown in the neighbour- 

 hood. Occasionally too they are scratched and striated ; J 

 and the deposit was evidently ice-borne. 



Similarly in New South Wales the marine Carboniferous 

 beds consist of fine sand or shale in which are embedded 

 subangular blocks of all sizes, some of which are striated. 

 Intercalated among these beds are the Lower Coal Measures 

 of Stony Creek, which contain Glossopteris and other Lower 

 Gondwana forms ; and above them come the Newcastle 

 Coal Measures, the plants of which are for the most part 

 identical with those of the Damudas, which in India succeed 

 the boulder-bearino- beds. 



In the face of such evidence as this, it is impossible to 

 doubt that the Indian and Australian beds were contem- 

 poraneous. The Australian beds can be correlated by their 

 marine fauna with the Carboniferous of Europe ; and the 

 conclusion is irresistible that the deposition of the Gondwana 

 beds of India began at about that period, and this conclusion 

 is in harmony, as will appear presently, with observations 

 which have been made in the Salt Range. 



With regard to the upper limit of the Gondwana period, 

 the evidence is not so clear. In the Umia group of Cutch, 



1 Fedden. " On the evidences of ' ground-ice' in tropical India, during 

 the Talchir period." Rec. Geo/. Surv. India, viii. (1875), p. 16. 



