﻿1861.] 



HISLOP NAGPTTB SAMDSTONE AND COAL. 



351 



cular genera of these Ferns. The most common is Glossopteris. This 

 is not at present looked on as a European genus ; but having had 

 an opportunity, through the kindness of Professor Allman, of in- 

 specting the plants collected by the late Hugh Miller at Helmsdale, 

 and now deposited in the Museum of Edinburgh University, I see 

 no reason to doubt its occurrence in the Oolite of Sutheiiandshire. 

 Most of the specimens that I examined, I am aware, are probably 

 only detached portions of the compound frond of Sagenopteris ; but 

 there are others, such as those marked " 48" and " 104," which seem 

 too large to be so regarded. Besides, some (e. g. No. 54) are furnished 

 with one or two specks that bear a striking resemblance to the 

 punctiform sori of a true Glossopteris. At Bayreuth also there are 

 single fronds, which differ in size and form from Sagenopteris, and 

 agree much more in these respects with our Indian genus. If, 

 therefore, the Lower Jura of Bayreuth and the Oolitic beds of Helms- 

 dale do indeed yield Glossopteris, then the presumption is that, 

 seeing this genus, like its nearest ally among the compound-fronded 

 Ferns, is confined in Europe to the Jura, our eastern rocks contain- 

 ing it belong also to that formation. 



A similar conclusion may be deduced from the abundance in India 

 of the genus Tamiopteris. If all the specimens found in the blocks 

 at Kampti are from the inferior beds, there would seem to be three 

 species from these rocks in our province, one of them being from 

 the carbonaceous strata at Barkoi in situ. Now this genus, with 

 the exception of two or three species, is never found at a lower level 

 than the Trias, and it even ranges as high as the Wealden. It 

 reached its maocimum, however, as is well known, in the Jura. One 

 of the species common in the Kampti boulders bears the closest affi- 

 nity in shape, size, and venation to Tceniopteris magnifolia of Prof. 

 W. B. Rogers, from the lower Jurassic strata of Eastern Virginia. 



The same relation to European Ferns of Jurassic age is borne by 

 our compound-fronded genera. One species of Pecopteris from 

 Kampti seems to me to resemble P. Haiburnensis from the Lower 

 Oolite of Scarborough, more than any older form. Again, we have 

 from Kampti a tripinnate frond with bifurcate venation, but without 

 a central midrib, which differs from any genus, so far as I know, 

 that has yet been described. A similar Fern, however, without a 

 name, has been figured by Baron de Zigno from the Lower Jurassic 

 beds of Northern Italy. 



In the province of Nagpur we have hitherto met with no decided 

 Cycadacece. But the contemporaneous coal-basin of Rani-ganj, ac- 

 cording to M c Clelland, presents us with a species which he has 

 named Zamia Burdwanensis. Few members of this family have 

 yet been discovered under the Jurassic formation. At Kampti there 

 has been found a portion of a leaf, apparently lanceolate, with fifteen 

 somewhat parallel veins, which in a preceding part of this paper I 

 have identified with the Zeugophyllites of New South Wales. This 

 name has been changed by Schimper and Mougeot for Schizoneura ; 

 but in my opinion the Schizoneura of these authors is not the same as 

 the leaves of New South Wales and Kampti. The plant figured from 



VOL. XVII. PART I. 2 B 



