THE PERMIAN PERIOD 667 



beds, suggesting that the glacial conditions were over before the 

 end of the Permian. The testimony of the plant fossils is therefore 

 that the period of glaciation was late Permian or early Triassic; 

 that of the marine fossils that it was late Carboniferous or early 

 Permian. 



In India, too, there are glacial formations (Talchir conglomerate) 

 of about the same age, with fossil plants like those of Australia, in 

 associated beds. The bed on which the glacial formations rest is 

 in some places striated and roche-moutonneed, as beneath modern 

 glacial deposits. These formations are in some respects even more 

 remarkable than those of Australia, for they reach below latitude 

 18, and are, therefore, several degrees within the Tropic of Cancer; 

 not only this, but they occur at low levels, descending in places 

 nearly to the level of the sea. Similar formations, believed to be 

 of the same age, appear in the Salt Range of India (Lat. 32), in 

 the central Himalayas, in Cashmere, and Afghanistan. In the 

 Salt Range, a marine Permian formation overlies the glacial series. 



In South Africa many of the bowlders of the glacial beds (Dwyka 

 conglomerate) are striated, and the bed on which the glacial con- 

 glomerate rests shows indisputable marks of ice action in many 

 places. The glacial beds are believed to have extended as far 

 north as 26 40' in the Transvaal. Glacial conglomerates are also 

 present in South America in the southern part of Brazil. The 

 associated coal formations carry the same flora (glossopteris flora) 

 as in the other continents. 



The known Permo-Carboniferous glaciation of Australia, India, 

 Africa, and South America, is found in two zones, the one north 

 and the other south of the equator. In neither zone have the 

 limits of glaciation been accurately determined; but in the former 

 it is known to have extended from latitude 18 to about 35, and 

 probably still farther north, while in the latter it is known to have 

 extended from latitude 21 to 35. In an equatorial zone about 

 40 in width, glaciation has not been discovered. The glaciation 

 can hardly be said to be limited in longitude. Glacial conditions 

 must, therefore, have prevailed about the borders of an area many 

 times as large as that covered by ice in the northern hemisphere 

 during the Pleistocene glacial period. 



