OF CENTRAL INDIA AND BENGAL. 199 



having given more than cursory attention to such investigations, I at 

 once despatched the whole collection to my friend, Professor T. H. 

 Huxley, London, and at the same time made arrangements for the 

 further and more complete examination of the beds in which they 

 occurred. This was accomplished by Mr. Tween, (who was origi- 

 nally with Mr. Blanford when these remains were first found,) and 

 the second collection was also subsequently sent to Professor Huxley. 

 Meanwhile I had the pleasure of hearing from him (as he also 

 announced to the Geological Society of London, on the 20th March 

 1861,) that " the bones belonged to Labyrinthodont Amphibia, and 

 Dicynodont reptiles." 



Hitherto no traces of Dicynodont reptiles had been found, excepting 

 in South Africa, and this discovery of similar remains in these Indian 

 beds was of peculiar interest, inasmuch as from considerations based 

 on the evidence of the fossil plants alone, I had been led to refer to 

 these same fossiliferous beds of South Africa, and to indicate the 

 importance of a comparison of their organic remains with those of the 

 Indian rocks. 



I was then discussing only the vegetable remains found in the 

 Indian rocks, and said, — " Another district, which will hereafter, when 

 " its fossil plants shall have been worked out, afford many and valu- 

 " able points of comparison, is that richly fossiliferous series of rocks 

 " in South Africa, described by Mr. Bain and others. A cursory 

 " inspection of a few of the fossil plants from that district satisfied me 

 "of the marked resemblance which many of them offered to our 

 " Indian plants." * 



Now these are the very beds, the " Karoo beds," or, as they have 

 often been called, the " Dicynodont beds," in which those remarkable 

 remains were found, which, under the skilful interpretation of Owen 

 and Huxley, have added so much to our knowledge of the reptiles of 



* Mem. Geological Survey of India, vol. ii. p. 327 — 333. 



