1876.] Knowledge of tlie Fossil Flora in India. 333 



from unequivocal, and such as it is, might be outweighed by the discovery 

 of a single well marked and thoroughly characteristic fish, shell or 

 coral." 



But nothing of this kind has as yet been found, while on the contrary 

 many more plants have been discovered corroborating Sir Charles Bunbury's 

 views as to the mezozoic age of the Damudas generally and particularly 

 claiming a Triassic age for them. 



But still the plant remains remained undescribed and unexamined, and 

 although since 1871 there have been many unmistakeable proofs of the 

 mezozoic age of this series, more than at the time when Mr. Oldham and 

 Sir Charles Bunbury wrote on this subject, yet Mr. H. F. Blanford, in his 

 recent paper on the age and correlation of the Plant-bearing Series in 

 India, &c.,* could make no use of all the evidence the plants afforded 

 and had of course to content himself with repeating all that had been 

 previously said. 



Of the plant -remains, which generally speaking form the principal por- 

 tion of the fossils in the Gondwanas, Mr. H. F. Blanford repeats all the 

 provisional names which Mr. Oldham had given, f and which were mostly 

 only generic determinations : conclusions drawn from fossils not determined 

 with certainty cannot, of course, be correct : they are mere suppositions 

 and bear more a speculative character. 



After having been engaged to the Survey of India, I examined the 

 greatest portion of our Damuda fossils, as far as I thougbt it necessary to 

 enable me to publish preliminary notes % on their relations and probable a^e. 



I will not here repeat all the discussions and results, I will only say 

 shortly that from the fossils, which are only plant-reniains, I endeavoured 

 to show that the flora of our Damuda Series has its analogies mostly in the 

 mezozoic epoch of Europe, and especially in the Trias, although it contains 

 richly represented the genus Glossopteris, which also occurs in Australia 

 rarely in the lower, but more numerously in the upper coal-measures 

 which latter are certainly also mezozoic. Considering these notes only 

 as preliminary I gave them only very briefly, postponing all detail for a 

 futiue time. 



But Mr. W. T. Blanford has endeavoured to illustrate the relations 

 from his own point of view, and we find his paper in the same number of 

 the Records as that in which my paper on the lower portion of the 

 Damudas was published. I need not here repeat what I had to remark 



* Q. J. Geol. Soc. November 1875. 



t Mem. Geol. Surv. Ind. II. 



% Notes on several fossil floras in India. I. and II. Flora of Kach, and from the 

 Eajmahal Hills in Eecords G-. S. Ind. IX. 2. III. IV. V. The flora of the Panehet 

 group, Damuda Series and Talchir group, Bee. Gr. S. Ind. IX. 3. 



