﻿190 Correspondence — The Planet 'Mars. 



Dr. Feistmantel's criticisms. Dr. Feistmantel suffers from tlie great 

 disadvantage of writing in a foreign language, and I think he ex- 

 presses himself sometimes more forcibly than he intends. 



The object of my paper was to point out that Dr. Feistmantel had 

 overlooked some of the arguments which had mainly influenced the 

 opinions of those of his colleagues who had written upon the age of 

 certain portions of the Gondwana series. I may have been in error 

 on certain points, as on the question of the occurrence of Cycads in 

 the Damudas, but I still think that Dr. Feistmantel's enthusiasm has 

 led him to overestimate the arguments in favour of his own views, 

 and to undervalue those which are opposed to his conclusions. I 

 have no wish to insist upon an Upper Oolitic or Post-Oolitic horizon 

 for the plant-beds of Cutch, and I am far from considering the 

 Palceozoic age of the Damuda beds as proved ; but I think that Dr. 

 Feistmantel has argued, however ably, on one side of the case only, 

 and that it was a mere act of justice to his predecessors to explain 

 why they had come to a different conclusion. 



My mistake about the occurrence of the Cycadacece requires a few 

 words of explanation, the more so that Dr. Feistmantel evidently 

 considers it of the greatest importance, for he calls attention to it in 

 a marked manner no less than three times in two pages, so as to 

 produce the impression that I had committed a most absurd blunder. 

 I wrote, "Cycads have not hitherto been found in the latter," i.e. the 

 Lower Gondwana rocks. Dr. Feistmantel replies, " Cycadaceous 

 plants are not absent at all " ; and he proceeds to enumerate three 

 species, and he adds in a footnote referring especially to me, " they 

 {i.e. Cycads) were indeed known long ago." Now what are the 

 facts ? Two of the three species enumerated by Dr. Feistmantel, 

 viz. Noggerathia Vosgesiaca and the Glossozamites, were, to the best 

 of my knowledge, not even detected by Dr. Feistmantel himself 

 till after my paper was written ; certainly no notice of them was 

 published, nor had Dr. Feistmantel called my attention to them. 

 The third species, described by Sir C. Bunbury as Noggerathia 

 Hislopi, was, if I am not mistaken (1 am writing at a distance from 

 all books of reference), referred with doubt to the genus; and 

 Noggerathia certainly was not formerly classed as a Cycad ; still 

 Dr. Feistmantel may be right in referring it without any doubt to 

 the Cycadacece, and all I have to say in apology is that I was not 

 aware that the Cycadaceous nature of the genus had been ascertained. 

 I think this explanation is necessary, and it is to be regretted that 

 Dr. Feistmantel, by omitting to state all the facts, has compelled me 

 to make it. W. T. Blanford. 



Camp, Sind, February 1st, 1877. 



MR. CARPENTER ON THE PLANET MARS.^ 



SiE, — In the first paragraph of the first article of your last issue, 



Mr. Carpenter has exactly inverted the proper descriptions of Mr. Croll's 



and Mr. Murphy's theories. This no doubt was a slip of the pen. 



But when he goes on to say that it has occurred to him that he has 



^ See the March Number, p. 97. 



