Geol.— Vol. I.] SMITH— COMPARATIVE STRATIGRAPHY. 335 



named from northern Siberia, where its typical fauna was 

 first described. Diener and Waagen further proposed to 

 divide the Brahmanic stage into two substages, an older, 

 or Gangetic, and a younger, or Gandaric. The Gangetic 

 substage was supposed to be represented only by the 

 Otoceras beds of the Himalayas, and the Gandaric found its 

 prototype in the Lower Ceratite limestone and the Ceratite 

 marls of the Salt Range. This was on the supposition that 

 the two faunas were distinct, and that the Otoceras beds 

 represented the very base of the Trias, while the Salt 

 Range beds were supposed to begin higher up in the 

 series, with an unconformity separating them from the 

 Permian Prodiictus limestone. But very recently F. Noet- 

 ling (28 and 29) has shown that there is no unconformity 

 in the Salt Range, separating the Productus limestone from 

 the Lower Ceratite limestone, and that the Otoceras fauna is 

 very probably the equivalent of the uppermost fauna of the 

 Productus limestone. There is therefore no reason for a 

 subdivision into the Gangetic and Gandaric substages. 

 Noetling even went so far as to assert that because of the 

 continuity of the sedimentation and the faunas with the 

 Permian beds, the entire Ceratite formation should be 

 grouped with the Paleozoic and not with the Trias. That 

 this view is untenable is shown by the discovery of a Lower 

 Triassic, Werfen, fauna of pelecypods, gastropods, and 

 brachiopods in the lower part of the Ceratite formation of 

 the Salt Range (39). It is therefore evident that in the 

 Oriental region the chasm between the Paleozoic and the 

 Mesozoic is bridged over, but we must draw an arbitrary 

 line below the equivalents of the Werfen beds (6). 



The Brahmanic stage is best represented in the Hima- 

 layas and Salt Range of the Oriental region, in the Prop- 

 tychites beds of Ussuri Bay in eastern Siberia, and in the 

 Meekoceras beds of the Aspen Mountains of Idaho and the 

 Inyo Range of Cahfornia. Cephalopod faunas of this stage 

 are not known in the Mediterranean region. This stage is 

 characterized by the occurrence of Dinarites, Daniihites, 

 Nannites, Proptychites, Prosphingites, Pseudosageceras, 



