272 REPORTS ON THE STATE OP SCIENCE. — 1915* 



and which is apparently statigraphically just above the Narragansett 

 Bay Coalfields, is homotaxial with the Bacchus Marsh and Wynyard 

 Glacial beds. 



(3) The Narragansett Bay Coalfields are of Pennsylvanian age, 

 which extends to about the top of Carboniferous time. 



(4) Though unfortunately tTie stratigraphy of the Squantum 

 tillite is yet somewhat in doubt, it is very improbable that it can belong 

 to the Mississippian (Lower Carboniferous). The number (288 species) 

 of Sharks, and their geographical distribution, as well as the geo- 

 graphical range of the reef-forming coral isotherms show that a warm 

 climate prevailed universally at that time. The sharks are still numer- 

 ous (65 species) in Pennsylvanian (Middle and Upper Carboniferous 

 time) and the great size and abundance of insects in the Pennsylvanian 

 Coalfields confirms the evidence of the sharks as to the Upper Carboni- 

 ferous climate in North America having been mild. 



(5) The minerals found in rocks of Zechstein age at Stassfurt such 

 as Langbeinite, Loweite, Vantho£&te, Kieserite and Sylvine also 

 imply a warm or at least a mild climate for the Neo-Permian,^ the 

 evidence of reef -forming corals being also in accord. 



(6) Unless the Squantum tillite is of Cambrian or Pre-Cambrian 

 age (an unlikely hypothesis), it must, as it is certainly not newer than 

 Paleeozoic, belong probably to a cold epoch intervening between the 

 close of Pennsylvanian time and the commencement of Zechstein time. 



(7) According to Amalitzky, the whole of the Dwina system of 

 Eussia, which contains an abundance of Glossopteris and Gangamo- 

 pteris, is wholly of Zechstein age, marine strata with Schizodus and 

 Bakewellia underlying the whole system, so that even Gangamopteris 

 in Russia ascends into the Upper Permian, but no higher as far as is 

 known, for these GZossopieris-Gan^amopferfs beds are capped by marine 

 strata containing the characteristic Zechstein fossils, Syncladia and 

 Acanthocladia. Thus in Eussia Gangamopteris, so much associated 

 m the Southern Hemisphere with the Greta Coal Measures, is by no 

 means associated with a European Carboniferous marine fauna, but on 

 the other hand with an Upper Permian fauna. (Time, of course, must 

 be allowed for the migration of the Glossopteris-Gangamopteris flora 

 north-westwards from India to where the Dwina system is developed 

 in the Muscovian area of Eussia, but a whole period of geological time 

 would scarcely be needed for such a migration.) 



(8) "While unfortunately no development of the so-called Permo- 

 CarBoniferous Glacial horizon has been found beneath the Dwina 

 system, it has been stated that in Westphalia the upper surface of the 

 Westphalian Coal-measure rocks is striated and capped by a typical 

 ground-moraine. Van Waterschoot Van der Gracht has republished 

 G. Muller's original figures of some of these striated pebbles, which 

 he states cannot be confounded with pebbles showing pseudo-striae due 



1 Neuea Jahr. 5 Feb. 1910, fiir Min. Qeol. und Pal. XXIX. Beilage Band, Eistes 

 Heft. E. Philippi, Veber eine palaeoMimatische Prolleme. 



