24G Mr. R. Billion Newton on some 



that ie,i;ii>n, l»iit subsequently omitted its occurrence when 

 writing his inenioir on the geology of the Fayiiin *. That 

 rock contains no other fossils in association, although ac- 

 cording to the MS. list tho nioUuscan genera Mclania, Phin- 

 orbisy and Um'o were found in the same series of beds which 

 were imiizoMcd as Lower Oliffocene or Bartonian. The 

 Egyptian truirs are rather rounder than those of the Central 

 African rock, being probably more closely related to those of 

 the Oligocene deposits of Britain and Europe. A somewhat 

 similar association of organisms occurs in fche rocks of tiie 

 Sichel Hills and Nagpur regions of Central India, which are 

 recognized as of Uppermost Cretaceous age. Those deposits, 

 often highly siliceous or chalcedonic^ contain Chara {C. mal- 

 culmsoni) and freshwater moUusca, and were first noticed by 

 Malcolmson f, his fossils being described by J. de C. Sowerby, 

 while tlie mateiial more ])articularly from the Nagpur country 

 was later monographed by Uislop and Hunter J. The 

 smaller Gastropod-;, referred to by these authors under the 

 familiar name of Pahidina, but belonging to the genera 

 Viviparus and PuludiStrina, may claim some resemblance to 

 the present African specimens, es[)ecially to J. de C. Sowerby's 

 Vivipai'iis {PahidiiKi) deccanensis, and the so-called ]\felani'a 

 Imnteri of Hi-lop which is here considered to belong to 

 I'uludestrina §. These Indian rock.", known as the Inter- 

 trappean beds of the Deocan Trap series, are likewise full of 

 a laiga P/ii/sa i^P. prinsej}ii), besides Unioniform and other 

 shells, as well as numcruus Ostracodiform Crustaceans, all of 

 which are entirely absent in the new African material, 

 ilalcolmson and Sowerby relerred such beds to tho Tertiary 

 perio<l, while llislop and Hunter recogn z^m] them as L')Wer 

 Eocene. Neumayerjl subsequently studied the same Mollusca 

 from the writings of the English authors, and pointed out 

 their close relationship to forms characteiizing the Laramie 

 Beds of Nortli Aui' riea btdonging to the topmost Cretaceous; 

 lience to that age he ascribed this extensive formation of 

 India, a result which has long been acce|;ted by the Geolo- 



* ' Tlie Topography aud Geology of the Fa} um rrovince of Egypt,' 

 Survey Department, Cairo, VJOft. 



t Tnius. Geul. Soc. Loudon, 1840, ser. 2, vol. v. ])h. xlvi., xlvii. 

 ])p. 537-675. 



i Quart. Journ. Ueol. Soc. London, 1860, vol. xvi. pp. 166-176, 

 pis. v.-vii. 



§ Quite recently Col. II. II. Godwin- Austen, F.R.S., has urpred the 

 neces.sity of a generic revision of tlieso l)eccan Trap Mollu3ca : ' liecords 

 Indian Mua.' iDi'J (October), vul. xvi. part vi. 



i; 'Records Geol. Surv. India,' 1884, vol. xvii. pp. 87, 88 [ = a trans- 

 lation from NeuL'S Jahrb. 1834, vol. i. I3rietl. Mitt. pp. 74-76]. 



