1844.] 325 



3. Eeport on the Collection of Fossils from Southern India, 

 presented by C. J. Kaye, Esq., F.G.S., and the Rev. W. H. 

 Egerton, F.G.S. By Professor Edward Forbes, F.L.S. 



In the descriptive catalogue accompanying this report, and re- 

 ferring to the remains of invertebrate animals in the valuable 

 collection of fossils from the South of India, presented to the 

 Society by Mx. Kaye, and increased by an extensive seines of 

 specimens collected in the same localities by Mr. Egerton, 168 

 species of MoUusca are enumerated, 156 of v^hich, as far as can be 

 ascertained, are undescribed forms. There are also a number of 

 species of Radiata. 



The results of their examination may be briefly stated as fol- 

 lows : — 



1st. The three deposits, viz. Pondicherry, Verdachellum, and 

 Trinconopoly, described by Mr. Kaye, are Cretaceous, inasmuch as 

 there are characteristic known cretaceous fossils in the collections 

 from all of them, whilst no fossils of any other system occur. The 

 nearest allies of the majority of the new species are cretaceous ; 

 and among the genera and subgenera are many which, as far as 

 we know, are confined to or have their chief development in the Cre- 

 taceous system. The three deposits are connected with each other 

 zoologically by the associations of certain species common to two 

 of them, with others found in the third. 



2d. Two of the three deposits, viz. Verdachellum and Trinco- 

 nopoly, are of a different epoch of the Cretaceous era from the 

 third, Pondicherry. The two former have several species in com- 

 mon (and those species among the most prolific in individuals), 

 which are not found in the third. In them are found almost all 

 the species identical with European forms. In several of the 

 ' genera, of which there are many species, the forms are altogether 

 distinct ; although, judging from the evidence afforded by mineral 

 character and association of species, the conditions of depth and 

 sea-bottom at the time of the deposition of the strata seem to have 

 I been the same. The difference therefore must have depended on 

 a representation of species by species in time and not in depth. 



3d. The beds, apparently contemporaneous, viz. Trinconopoly 

 and Verdachellum, may be regarded as equivalent to the upper 

 ] green sand and gault ; the European species they include being 

 ; either characteristic upper green sand and gault forms, or else 

 I such as occur in those strata. The new species they contain are 

 i either closely allied to known upper green sand or gault species, 



or peculiar to the Indian beds. 

 j 4th. The Pondicherry deposit may be regarded as belonging 

 i to the lowest part of the Cretaceous system. In it almost aU 

 the fossils are new. Such as are analogous to known species 

 are allied to fossils of the lower green sand of English geolo- 

 gists and Neocomien of the French. In the genus most developed 

 in this deposit, viz. Ammonites, three fourths of the species be- 



