226 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



For instance, he speaks of that " peculiar tropical weather product known 

 as laterite." We do not know on what evidence this theory is given — the pre- 

 ference among the many which have been advanced to account for laterite — 

 indeed, it seems to us to be in the nature of things a theory for which there 

 can be no evidence. And, moreover, it should be borne in mind with regard to 

 the bauxite occurring in the laterite that all the other known deposits of 

 bauxite lie in the temperate regions. Many people with an equal show of 

 reason maintain that laterite is not a rock altered in sike at all, but a volcanic 

 deposit only differing in chemical composition from the basalt on which so 

 much of it lies. 



But where we must join issue with Mr. Holland most strenuously is with 

 regard to his statement. 



" the old Gondwana Continent of which India, Australia and South 



Africa are relics " 



This is one of the many references to allusions which have occurred in recent 

 years in the publications of the Geological Department to a vast Southern 

 continent sometimes, we believe, extended to include Patagonia also, and which 

 is little more than old " Lemur ia " writ large. 



In this as in several other references this continent is written of as though 

 its existence had been proved and was undisputed, and yet, so far as we know, 

 the only attempt at a detailed statement of the theory yet made is an article 

 called " The Carboniferous Glacial Period " by Professor Dr. Waagen, a trans- 

 lation of which was published in Vol. XXI of the Records of the Geological 

 Survey. 



We cannot enter into a detailed discussion of it here, but to those who have 

 not read it we can confidently recommend it as containing some of the most 

 illogical and preposterous reasoning that has ever appeared in a scientific 

 Journal. 



The Professor starts with the fact that bolder beds occur in South Africa, 

 India and Australia and that all these contain a number of fossils of common 

 species or at least common genera. 



The number of these fossils is altogether less than a hundred. Yet from 

 this evidence he concludes that these deposits must have been contemporary 

 and that these at present isolated land areas must have been connected by 

 land now submerged — apparently because if they were not connected by land if. 

 is unlikely that the same fossils could have occurred contemporaneously in the 

 three areas. Yet he does not see that he is arguing in a circle, and he does not 

 see that the chance survival of an odd hundred forms as fossils out of a 

 probable Mesozoic fauna and flora of several hundred thousand species cannot 

 prove anything at all. The very utmost we can expect of them is a suggestion. 



The Professor concludes absolutely iuconsequently, " The chief point is 

 always the proof of a glacial period which appeared on the Southern continent 

 during the coal-measure epoch, for all the other conclusions are based on this 

 one fundamental fact. " 



