TRANSACTIONS OK SECTION C. 



705 



On tlie other hand there are remarkable points of agreement with the faunas and 

 tlorns of the Indian and Australian rocks, 



Awiiy from the typical Karoo area on the coast south of Natal there is found a 

 forie.^ of bed.", partly marine, sometimes called the Uitenha^'o ' series. A few 

 ivcail3 (Otiiz/oiiifrs, I'oduzumitvs, I'tcnip/ii/llum), a conifer, and ferns ( Pea >p ten's or 

 Alct/ioptcn's, Sp/ie>iojifcrii>, Ci/c/opfcn's) are quoted from them, and three or four of 

 tlit> forms are closely allied or identical with species found in the lliijmahul beds 

 of India. 



It was at first supposed that the plant-bearinpr beds v,-rYo lower in position than 

 those contfiininp marine fossils, and the whole of the Uitenhaf^e series was con- 

 ^i(ler('d as of later apfc than the Karoo beds. The marine beds were considered 

 Middle Jurassic. Subsequently, however. Stow - showed conclusively that a por- 

 tion (if tlie marine beds, judginjj: by tlieir fossils, are of uppermost Jurassic or even 

 Xt'oroiniiin a^'e, and also tliat the lelation of the plant-beariufj^ beds to the marine 

 strata are far less simple tlian was supposed.'' Indeed, ti judge from Stow's account, 

 it is by no means clear that a portion of the wood-lied series or saliferous series, to 

 which the plant-beds belong, is not higher in position than the marine Jurassic 

 strata. 



There is a very extraordinary similarity between the geology of the southern 

 part of Africa and that of the peninsula of India. In both countries a thick fresh- 

 water formation, without any marine bt'ds intercalated, occu])ies a large area of the 

 interior of the country, whilst on the coast some marine Jurassic and cretaceous 

 rocks are found, the former in association with beds containing plants. The co- 

 incidence is not even confined to sedimentary beds. As in India so in South 

 Africa, the uppermost inland iMesozoic fresh-water beds are capped by volcanic 

 rock^<. 



It has been assumed, but not apparently on any clear evidence, that the ranrino 

 coast-beds and the associated plant-beds are in Africa much newer than the inland 

 sandstone formation, but it is not impossible that the relations may really be the 

 same as in India, and that the Stormberg beds of the inland formation may be the 

 ofliiivak'nts of the Upper Jurassic or even the Cretaceous nnirine beds on the coast. 

 Tlic discovery of plants identical with those of the Jurassic (jirobably Upper Jurassic) 

 LftJs of Queensland in the Stormberg series may of course be taken for what it is 

 worth ; it is of quite as much importance in indicating the nge of the rocks as the 

 occurrence of dicynodont reptiles in the Permian of Kussia and in the lower 

 Gondwiluasof India. 



Altogether there is quite suflicient probability that the upper Karoo or Storm- 

 berg lx>ds are of later age than Triassic to justify the protest which I made last year 

 against a skull being described from these beds as that of a ' Triassic ' mammal.' The 

 practice, so common amongst paleontologists, of positively asserting as a known 

 fact the geological age of organisms from beds of which the geological position is 

 not clearly determined is very much to be deprecated. 



I have called attention to the occurrence of boulders in the Talchir beds in India, 

 the Ecca beds of South Africa, and the Bacchus Marsh sandstones and Ilawkesbury 

 beds of Australia. The idea has occurred quite independently to several different 

 observers that each of these remarkable formations ailbrds evidence of glacial 

 action; and although, in the case of India especially, the geographical position of the 

 boiilder-bed within the tropics seemed for a long time to render the notion of ice 

 action too improbable to be accepted, further evidence has so far confirmed the 

 view as to cause it to be generally received. Even before the Australian boulder- 

 deposits had been observed it was suggested that the Tiilohir beds and Ecca 

 congbimerate might be contemporaneous,* and that the evidence in favour of a 

 Glacial epoch having left its traces in the Permian beds of England " might 

 possibly indicate that the Indian and So-.th African boulder-beds art; of the 

 tame geological epoch. The discovery of t^^o similar deposits in Australi.i 



1884 



' Q. J. G. S. xxvii. p. 144. 

 • Z.c. p. 50r), 511.613, &c. 

 ' (>. J. G. S. xxxi. p. 5i:. 



« Q. J. G. S. xxvii. p. 479, 

 « r/./. G. S. xl. p. 110. 

 • (J. J. O. S. xi. p 185. 



Z Z 



