1802 
PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
In tlie paper by Dr. Waagen mentioned above (Geolog. Jour. 
Ind. Rec., Vol. xxi., pt. 3), he discusses the upper carboniferous 
and overlying formations in the Gondwana system of India, the 
Karoo beds in South Africa, and the Australian coal measures 
and Hawkesbury-Wianamatta series. The paper was published 
in German and has been translated for the Records. Dr. W. 
commences with large extracts from Dr. Blanford’s address, 
Geolog. Sect. Brit. Ass., Montreal, 1884, as giving a satisfactory 
account of the Indian portion, continues with an account of the 
African, drawn from the published Memoirs by Wyley, Q.J.G.S., 
XXIII ; Griesbach, ib., xxvii ; Sutherland, ih., xxvi ; Dunn, ib,, 
XXV, and proceeds to the supposed Australian equivalents, 
depending here mainly upon the authority of W. B. Clarke. There 
is nothing very new in this portion of this paper, but it may be 
as well to summarise it here. 
He commences by stating that there are no marine beds of any 
importance in the peninsula of India, but that in Bengal and 
Central India a great sequence of freshwater beds is found, known 
as the Gondwana system. 
The uppermost portion in Cutch and about the mouth of the 
Godavari contains mai’ine beds of uppermost Jurassic or lower 
Cretaceous age, interstratified with beds containing plants corres- 
ponding to the middle Oolites of England. Below these there 
are no marine fossils, so that no exact determination of period can 
be made. t 
The lowest or Talchir beds are shales and sandstones undoubtedly 
of Glacial origin, being full of huge ice-marked boulders, and 
resting on ice-grooved surfaces of the Vindhya (Devonian ?) lime- 
stones. The Karharbaris, which succeed without any break, are 
coal measures, with Vertebraria, Glossopteris, Ganyamopteris, 
Kceggerathiopsis, etc. The next, or Damuda.s, are also coal 
measures with a better preserved flora, which bears very close 
relationship to the preceding. Here also Estheria occurs with 
Bracliyops and Gondwanosaurus (Labyrinthodonts). The Pan- 
chets complete the Lower Division of the Gondwanas, being 
