i84 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



acteristic of the Southern hemisphere. Feistmantel ^ has 

 objected to the use of the term Glossopteris flora on the 

 ground that the genus Glossopteris extends to the Rhaetic 

 and Jurassic beds, and is not confined to the Permo-Car- 

 boniferous rocks which are usually the strata to which 

 Neumayr's term is applied. With the exception of a 

 species of Glossopteris, G. Browniaiia, van Aii^stralasica, 

 described by Zeiller from the Rhsetic beds of Tongking,^ 

 no typical example of the genus appears to have been 

 recorded from any locality north of Northern India. A 

 very imperfectly preserved impression figured by Traut- 

 schold from Russian Lower Cretaceous beds under the name 

 of Glossopteris solitaria ^ affords no proof whatever of the 

 occurrence of that genus. The Tertiary plant referred to 

 this genus by Visiani and Massalongo in 1858^ cannot be 

 accepted as an undoubted example of this Southern hemi- 

 sphere fern. 



Having given some account of the typical member of 

 the Glossopteris flora, we may pass on to describe very 

 briefly the most important districts in which this assemblage 

 of plants occurs. 



India. — Occupying a vast area in Bengal and Central 

 India, there is a series of beds of fluviatile origin, containing 

 few animal remains, but fossil plants in abundance. This 

 enormous mass of river sediments constitutes what Medli- 

 cott has termed the Gondwana series, the name being 

 chosen from the occurrence of the rocks in a district south 

 of the Narbada Valley, which it is supposed was formerly 

 inhabited by the aboriginal Gond tribes.^ In speaking of 

 this series in his presidential address at the Montreal 

 meeting of the British Association, Blanford ^ draws atten- 

 tion to the unusual interest of the Gondwana beds "on 

 account of the extraordinary conflict of palaeontological 

 evidence " afforded by the fossil plants and animals. The 

 Gondwana beds are divided into two groups, the Lower 

 and Upper, distinguished from one another by well-marked 



^ P'eistmantel (5), p. 13. ^ Zeiller (i). ^ Trautschold, pi. xix., fig. i. 

 * Visiani and Massalongo, p. 206, pi. i., fig. i. ^ Oldham. 



•^Blanford (i), p. 696. 



