OP CENTRAL INDIA AND BENGAL. 333 



palaeozoic, and any oolitic formation." Such was also the view of all 

 those who had the opportunity of studying these rocks in situ. While 

 therefore, there is no question that the coal-beds of the Australian fields, 

 are newer than the group of rocks containing fossils identical with 

 species known only in other countries as of the lowermost portion of the 

 great Carboniferous system, or of the Devonian, there seems to be equally 

 little question, that there is no physical evidence of there having elapsed 

 between the formation of the two groups (the Sydney sandstone and 

 shales, and the Wollongong sandstone) any such interval as would 

 warrant our referring the upper series to a period so widely, so immensely 

 separated from the lower carboniferous period, as that of the lower 

 oolite must have been. On the contrary, all the probabilities of the 

 case would suggest that this upper group represented the upper portion 

 of the same great palaeozoic epoch, to the lower or more ancient portion 

 of which same epoch, the underlying beds containing marine remains 

 in abundance unquestionably belong. 



And if this be admitted, it will follow that our <( Damuda" series 

 equally represent an upper Palaeozoic era. 



Another district which will hereafter, when its fossil plants shall have' 

 been worked out, afford many and valuable 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. 



The probability therefore would seem to be that our " Damuda" 

 system belongs to some portion of the upper Palmozoic division of Euro- 

 pean geological sequence, or to the lowermost portion of the Mesozoic 

 division. In fact, we may possibly hereafter find that it will represent 

 that great interval indicated by the marked separation and great break 

 between the two series in other countries. 



