Xlviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The Carboniferous fossils brought home by Col. Strachey are 

 neither abundant nor well preserved ; nor are the collections of 

 M. Gerard and Prof. Oldham much better. These, as well as those 

 collected by Dr. Pleming in the Punjab, have already been described. 

 Mr. Davidson enumerates no less than twenty-eight species of Bra- 

 chiopoda, of which thirteen are identical with British fossils. Only 

 two new species are here described by Mr. Salter, Chonetes Vishnu 

 and Aviculo'pecten hyemalis. 



The fossils of the Triassic series are particularly interesting ; they 

 are chiefly Cephalopoda, representing the Upper Triassic group so 

 well developed in the Austrian Alps. The extended study of these 

 beds by continental geologists has, as Mr. Salter shows, only con- 

 firmed the impression they first gave, that their fossils were an in- 

 termediate group between the primary and secondary systems of 

 life. The Himalayan fossils of this age are but few ; but the most 

 striking and common forms among them are the species most charac- 

 teristic of the same strata in the Alps. This opinion of Mr. Salter 

 has been confirmed by Prof. Siiss of Vienna, who says that the Hall- 

 stadt beds of the Carinthian Alps have a peculiar band of dark shale, 

 tenanted almost exclusively by two fossils, viz. Halohia {Avicula) 

 Lommeli, Miinst., and Ammonites Jloridus, Wiilfen. It is singular 

 to find that these are the two most conspicuous fossil species in the 

 Himalayan series, mixed with several other decidedly European 

 forms, such as Ammonites Aon, A. Ausseeanus, A. coancjiistatus , and 

 A. cliffisus, Hauer ; and in all these cases the Tyrol and Himalayan 

 specimens have the minutest points of structure identical. The 

 Natica suhglohulosa and the two species of Orthoceras are also identical. 



In the case of the Brachiopoda, probably the inhabitants of deeper 

 water, it is shown that the characteristic shells Athi/ris Deslong- 

 chamj)sii, A. Strohmei/eri,Rhi/nchoneIla retrocita, and WaldheimiaStop- 

 pani are all identifiable, and were easily recognized by Prof. Siiss, 

 who has described them. The same forms occur in the Spiti Pass, 

 and Prof. Oldham has found in that region a gTcat distinction be- 

 tween the lower mass of strata inclosing the Triassic fauna and that 

 above it, which is loaded with Oolitic and Triassic types. 



Mr. Salter here figures a remarkable fossil brought home in abun- 

 dance by Dr. Gerard from the same locality, closely allied to, if not 

 identical with, Spirifera Keilhavii, Yon Buch, a shell characteristic of 

 the Mountain-limestone in Arctic regions. 



Thus we find the Triassic rocks of India not only forming, as it 

 were, a link between the Palaeozoic and Secondary rocks, but con- 

 taining many species identical with those of the more northern 

 regions of Europe. Undoubtedly there is much in this to confirm 

 the opinion so often entertained by palaeontologists, although it may 

 sometimes have been carried too far and maintained too dogmati- 

 cally, namely, that in the earlier stages of organic life the same species 

 were more widely distributed than at present, and that over wide- 

 spread areas there was less variety of form, both of species and of 

 genera, than we meet with now. ISTor is it a sufficient answer to 

 this theory to say that the older formations are difficult to explore, 



