194 R. D. Oiaiiam— /Some rwiujh Notes for the [No. 3, 



of the sea, while the Petwar was certainly not less elevated during the 

 glacial period than it is now. Further, the glacial deposits in India are 

 far better developed, and, to judge from the descriptions, must be far 

 thicker and represent a much longer period of time during which the 

 climate was severe than those in Australia. Yet the glacial deposits of 

 New South Wales are 10° further from the Equator than the Indian, so 

 that, if we might shift the Equator some 10° further south between India 

 and Australia, observed facts would be more in accordance with what 

 one would expect than can be the case if we are compelled to assume 

 the Equator fixed throughout all time. 



But, if we try to compare the facts observed in Australia and Africa, 

 we are landed in a still greater difficulty, for, lying as they do on about the 

 same parallel of South Latitude, the glacial beds are more strongly de- 

 veloped in Africa even than in India ; and, as Ave can hardly suppose the 

 greater severity of climate to be due to altitude, it must have been due to 

 latitude, to obtain which we must suppose that that portion of the Earth's 

 crust which now forms South Africa then lay in a higher latitude than that 

 which is now Australia ; in other words, the comparison of the Permian (?) 

 glacial beds of Africa and Australia, as in the case of Australia and India, 

 points to the conclusion, either that there has been a change in the position 

 of the axis of revolution of the earth, or, what is more probable, that the 

 crust of the earth then occupied a position relative to the central nucleus 

 different from that which it now does. An experiment with a globe will 

 shew that the relations of India, Australia, and Africa indicated above, viz., 

 that Central India was in a higher latitude than New South Wales and 

 South Africa in a higher latitude than either, are best satisfied by taking 

 the Equator between India and Australia, but nearer the latter than is now 

 the case, and thence through a point lying between the Cape of Good Hope 

 and the South Pole in not less than 70° of South Latitude ; a disposition 

 which would bring some point in Central Africa over one of the poles. 



Turning now from these physical and climatic arguments to those 

 derivable from palaeontology, I hope to shew that they lead to the same 

 conclusions. 



I have already referred to the fact that the Damuda and Rajmahal 

 floras of India shew affinities with those of almost every division of the 

 Mezozoic era in Europe, and I would now draw attention to the fact that 

 those species which are related to upper Secondary forms in Europe 

 belong very largely to t3^pes which first appear in the Palaeozoic beds 

 of Australia. Foremost among these, of course, are Glossojpteris, Phyllo- 

 theca, and Verfehraria ; not known in Europe before Jurassic times, these 

 were certainly living in Australia at the commencement of the Carboni- 

 ferous epoch. Pecopteris, Thinnfeldiay Gangamoj>teris, Nceggerathiojpsis 



