198 GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE ROCK SYSTEMS 



(first figured and described by Goldfuss, as Posidonia minuta, Petre- 

 facta Germanias, PI. cxiii., fig. 5) a widely spread and abundant species 

 in the Triassic rocks of Europe and (?) America. Although this fact 

 was of slight importance in itself, it nevertheless tended to confirm all 

 the other evidence, in leading to the conviction that the beds in which 

 it occurred in this country were also of, or nearly of, the same Triassic 

 epoch. 



But the discovery of many remains of reptiles in the same group of 

 beds promised to go far towards settling definitely this long agitated 

 question. These had not been carefully examined when Mr. Blanford 

 wrote, and he very justly remarks, that " until these had been examined, 

 it is premature to enter into any further speculations." 



When in February 1860, Mr. Blanford first announced to me that 

 he had met with these fossils, and briefly alluded to their character, I 

 at once replied, " are the teeth like Dicynodon ? I almost suspect from 

 your brief description of them, that they will prove something of this 

 kind" — remarking also, that I was led to think that these beds would 

 be found to represent the Mangali beds of Nagptir, an opinion which 

 it will be seen was fully borne out by subsequent examination. I had 

 no opportunity of examining these fossils at that time. I saw a few of 

 them very hastily before leaving Calcutta in March, and certainly saw, 

 amono- those few, nothing to confirm my suspicion of the occurrence 

 of Dicvnodon remains. There were a few teeth, which were apparently 

 true labyrinthodonts, and some vertebra?, which I was more inclined 

 to consider fish vertebras than reptilian. I left Calcutta almost im- 

 mediately, and did not return until the end of the year (December.) 

 Meanwhile all these fossils had been brought together and cleared out, 

 and on again going over them with a little more care, I felt quite satis- 

 fied that my original conjecture was correct, and that there were 

 Dicynodont remains among them. Knowing, however, how totally 

 incompetent I was to' form a critical opinion on such matters, never 



