Reviews—Prof. P. M. Duncan’s Indian Fossil Corals. 527 
According to Prof. Duncan these corals form five very natural 
faunas, and that of each geological series is separable from the 
others, community of species being exceptional, only one species is 
found to be common to more than one series. These five faunas 
are: the Cretaceous (below the Trap), the Nummulitic (Ranikot), 
the Upper Nummulitic (Khirthar), the Oligocene (Nari), and the 
Miocene (Gaj) series. 
The general geology, paleontology, and stratigraphical relations 
of the Coralliferous series of Sind (pp. 8-14), are chiefly abstracted 
from the “ Manual of the Geology of India,” by Messrs. Medlicott 
and W. T. Blanford, and other memoirs of the latter author. 
With regard to the distribution of the 136 species of corals in the 
above five divisions, Prof. Duncan records 9 from the Cretaceous, 
50 from the Ranikot, 16 from the Khirthar, 20 from the Nari, and 
41 from the Gj series. 
Of the Cretaceous corals the most numerous are the Litharee, 
next the Caryophylliz, and then the Smilotrochi; the facies of the 
fauna is more Eocene than Cretaceous. ‘Taken as a fauna, this 
assemblage of species does not indicate the conditions sufficient to 
form a coral-limestone. A shallow-sea formation, where the corals 
lived under not very favourable conditions, occurred.” Of the 50 
corals from the Ranikot series, T species are identical with those 
from European Eocene deposits containing Num. planulatus and 
Cerithium giganteum, and 5 are closely allied to those from the 
same deposits or on slightly higher horizons. 
Three of the 16 species found in the Khirthar series are common 
to it and the European and West Indian Hocene, and three are allied 
to others in Enrope. Of the 20 species from the Nari series, five are 
found in the Upper Nummulitic and Oligocene of Europe, and one 
occurs at a higher horizon. 
The 41 species from the Gaj series belong both to ancient and 
modern genera, but there are no recent species. ‘“ ‘The absence of so 
many of the modern genera of the Pacific and Red Sea, considered 
with the evident antiquity of many of the genera, indicates a Miocene 
age. Many of the forms are representatives of the West Indian 
Miocene.” 
Prof. Duncan remarks, “Not only has the examination of the fossil 
corals lately obtained by the Geological Survey of India from Sind 
added to the number of the Eocene species, but it also indicates that 
there is an upper series of coralliferous strata which merits the title 
of Oligocene. Again, other species clearly prove, what was formerly 
suggested was probably the case, that an important Miocene coral- 
fauna lived on the same area as that which had been previously 
occupied by the earlier Tertiary forms.” 5 
This monograph will therefore form a valuable addition to the 
“ Paleontologia Indica,” and enable the zoophytologist to study the 
species from the successive coralliferous series of Sind and their re- 
lation to the coral-faunas from presumed similar geological horizons 
in Kurope, Java, Australia, and the West Indies. J. M. 
