OF CENTRAL INDIA AND BENGAL. 205 



times. A Pecopteris is undistinguishable from P. concinna of Stern- 

 berg, (PI. XLI. fig. 3,) a Triassic (Keuper) form. And the curious 

 fossils which we have assigned to Preissleria are very similar, if not 

 identical with the P. antiqua (PI. XXXIII., fig. 10, of Sternberg,) 

 also a Triassic (Keuper) fossil. But this flora, although its testimony 

 seems clear enough, would, taken alone, be altogether insufficient on 

 which to base any conclusion. Still it becomes useful inasmuch as the 

 whole amount of its evidence tends to the same result as all the other 

 facts, and thus it gives a cumulative force to all. 



Admitting then all this evidence ; Dicynodont and Labyrinthodont 

 remains among the vertebrata, Estheria minuta in abundance; and 

 peculiar forms of plants identical with some known in European Triassic 

 rocks, I feel no hesitation in expressing my belief that the Panchet 

 group of the present report represents the earliest portion of the 

 great Mesozoic division* in the general geological scale, or, in other 

 words, is of about the same age as the Bunter sandstein and Keuper of 

 Europe. We have in this country, as yet at least, met with no repre- 

 sentative of the Muschelkalk, but, as we know from the report of 

 Dr. Fleming, that in all probability it does exist in the Salt Range, 

 Punjab,f it is not impossible that future researches may make known its 

 existence in Bengal or Central India, in neither of which have any 

 marine beds, associated with these sandstones, been as yet met with. 



If this be the case, and that the Panchet group does belong to this 

 age, as we conceive has been conclusively established, it remains 

 to consider what are its relations with the beds above and below it. 



typographical errors crept in, which were not noticed ; among others (page 320) ' Liassic 

 Lettenkohlen gruppe of Thuringia' should have been Triassic. 



* I use this term in the sense in which the majority of English Geologists would use it 

 the line between the Palaeozoic and the Mesozoic being supposed to be at the base of the 

 Triassic and above the Permian : but I do not wish to be understood as adopting or rejecting 

 this view, the accuracy of which must be tested by far wider researches than those we are 

 now dealing with. 



t Jour. Asiat. Soc, Bengal, vol. xxii. 1853. 



