192°.] Age of Utatur Marine Transgression. SY 
Gault. We might, therefore take it thot this species had 
attained a great abunda:ce and is one of the most characteris- 
tic fossils of the middle and upper Gault in England corres- 
ponding to half-way in the Albian period in Europe. The 
lowermost sediments of the Utaturs with the abundance of this 
characteristic species, Ammonites inflatus, cannot, therefore, be 
far different from this age and it would be quite reasonable to 
assign to them an age approximately corresponding to the 
Middle Albian in Europe. 
If, therefore, the Utaturs which are always found along 
the western margin of the whole lrichinopoly coastal Cretaceous 
series are themselves Middle Albian in age, we find that the 
actual beginnings of the encroachment of the sea on Jand or of 
the marine transgression must lave been much earlier. 
If, further, we consider, as is usually done, the coral-reef lime- 
Stone underneath the Utaturs as continuous with this series, 
then we have to shift the age of the transgression still backward 
to allow time for the growth of all the extensive coral reefs, 
whose denuded remains alone we see at the present day. Thus 
we find that if we have to name the transgression after the 
period in which it commenced, the term ‘‘ Cenomanian trans- 
gression’”’ now generally employed for this encroachment 
of the sea in South India during Cretaceous times does not 
faithfully represent it in point of time and has to be modified 
8o as to accord with an older age. 
Though it is usual to believe that the Cenomanian period 
Was one of intense earth movements and consequent marine 
times. A recent paper! by Messrs. Kitchin and Pringle ‘on 
the most marked period of the transgressive movement was at 
the commencement of the upper Gault times’ The recent 
Investigations by Dr. L. F. Spath and Prof. J. W. Gregory * 
of the Cretaceous deposits of South Africa and their Ammonites 
led them to a similar conclusion that “a submergence of some 
Tansgression.”” The evidence of the co 
deposits of Southern India also lends additional support to 
the now growing belief ‘ that the so-called Cenomanian trans- 
gression commenced long before Cenomanian times.” 
! Geo. Mag., London, April-May. 1922. 
? Nature, 26th August, 1922. 
