142 Journ. of the Asiat. Soc. of Bengal. (May & June, 1916. 
. 
world and in India, north of the Peninsula. Of these great 
in a state of flux, being alternately depressed below the sea and 
raised again into dry land many times in succession. a 
Towards the close of the Carboniferous period there * 
evidence, derived from the distribution of land fauna and flora, 
great continental are ) 
extending to Africa and on to South America on the one side 
extending from Asia across Northern India, where the Himalayas 
now stand, into Europe and of which the Mediterranea 18 
r 
: 
. 
the débris of the luxurious vegetation of the coal meas’. 
The result was the accumulation of a considerable thickness | 
sediments, known as the Gondwana formation, from Perm 
carboniferous to Jurassic times, of which various small patches 
have been preserved along the eastern side of the Peninsula. bs 
lower portion of this formation constitutes the coal measill” ; 
of India, and in the south the most important patches at thos 
of the Godavari valley, which include the Singareni coala®™ 
At the close of the Gondwana epoch slight alterations | 
level permitted encroachments of the sea, of which records 
preserved in small, ‘but extremely interesting, de es 
Trichinopoly, Cuddalore and Pondicherry containing 7° 
