98 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



have sufficed, and if this was subsequently converted into land, 

 the progressive diminution of European species in the three stages 

 of the S. Indian Cretaceous beds would be explained by the 

 increasing effect of isolation. 



Since the above was written another and very noteworthy piece 

 of evidence has been pointed out, again by Neumayr, in one of the 

 last papers that he wrote *. In our Quarterly Journal of last year, 

 as an appendix to Mr. Baron's paper " On the Geology of parts of 

 Madagascar," a list of fossils identified by Mr. E. B. ISTewton was 

 added f. Four of these fossils, all species of Belemnites, were Neo- 

 comian, and consequently of similar age to the Uitenhage beds of 

 Cape Colony, formerly supposed to be Jurassic. In the Uitenhage 

 beds a single Belemnite (B. africanus) occurs. Not only have none 

 of the species recorded from Madagascar been found in the Uiten- 

 hage beds, but three of them belong to a group of Belemnites called 

 Notocceli, and one to the Ilastati ; whilst B. africanus is referred to 

 the Ahsoluti. Now the Notocceli are typically equatorial forms, 

 whilst the Ahsoluti are as typical, in the northern hemisphere, of 

 boreal regions. B. pistilliformis, the Madagascar representative of 

 the Hastati, is also a distinctly southern form in Europe. The in- 

 ference that the sea to the north-west of Madagascar in Neocomian 

 times was part of the warm equatorial ocean, whilst the sea of the 

 extreme south of Africa was part of a cold southern ocean with a 

 distinct fauna, is inevitable, and agrees with the other points cited 

 in showing that a belt of land probably extended from South Africa 

 across the Indian Ocean in Cretaceous times. 



The evidence relating to the old land-connexion between India and 

 South Africa has been given at greater length than would otherwise 

 have been necessary because of its importance, and because this is a 

 crucial case. So far as I am able to judge, every circumstance as to 

 the distribution of life is consistent with the view that the connexion 

 between India and South Africa included the Archaean masses of 

 the Seychelles and Madagascar, that it continued throughout Upper 

 Cretaceous times, and was broken up into islands at an early Ter- 

 tiary date. Great depression must have taken place, and the last 

 remnants of the islands are now doubtless marked by the coral atolls 

 of the Laccadives, Maldives, and Chagos, and by the Saya do 

 Malha bank. It is immaterial whether Bourbon, Mauritius, and 

 llodriguez ever formed part of the Mascarene land or not. 



* Neues Jahrb. f. Mineral. &c. 1890, p. 1. 

 t Quart. Jouru. Greol. Soc. xlv. p. 331. 



