IXTlfODFL'TlOX. 



3. AGE AND DISTRIBUTION IN TIME. 



The precise age of the Glossopteris flora has heen the subject of 

 much discussion in past times. During the latter half of the last 

 century, a prolonged controversy arose as to whether its affinities 

 should be regarded as Mesozoic or Palaeozoic. Owing to the fact 

 that the flora of Gondwanaland differs so remarkably from the Upper 

 Palaeozoic vegetation of Europe, most of the earlier authorities, with 

 a few noteworthy exceptions, decided that it flourished during the 

 Mesozoic period, in all probability in Jurassic times. Among those 

 who held this view were McCoy, 1 de Zigno,* Schimper, 8 and, to 

 some extent, Bunbury. 4 Feistmantel 5 especially was the great 

 exponent of this doctrine, and lie endeavoured to prove its 

 correctness on many occasions. It is to the work of the Rev. 

 W. B. Clarke, 6 the "Father of Australian Geology," and to the 

 researches of T. 7 and R. D. Oldham 8 and the brothers H. F. 9 and 

 "W. T. Blanford l0 in India, that the merit of exposing the fallacy 

 of this conclusion is due. It is now almost universally accepted 

 that the Glossopteris flora flourished at a period homotaxial with 

 the deposition of the Upper Carboniferous and Permian deposits of 

 Europe and North America. Even Feistmantel, 11 in his last great 

 work on this flora, published in 1890, accepted this conclusion, at 

 least so far as the age of the Australian beds was concerned, though 

 he still adhered to his former opinion with regard to the Damuda 

 Series of India. 



It has so far proved to be impossible to distinguish clearly 

 between the flora of the lower and upper series of Glossopteris- 

 bearing beds in India and other countries (see Table, p. xxxvii) ; 

 consequently this epoch is spoken of as Permo- Carboniferous. 

 There can be no doubt, in the light of our present knowledge, 



1 McCoy (47). - Zigno (60). 



3 Schimper (69). 4 Bunbury (61). 



5 Feistmantel (76 1 ), (79 2 ), and other papers. 



6 Clarke (48), (61), (78). 7 T. Oldham (60), (65). 

 8 R. D. Oldham (86 . s H. F. Blanford (75). 



111 W. T. Blanford (76), (84), (86). " Feistmantel (90), pp. 182-3. 



