— 385 — 
has quite indepentently been established by the students of vertebrate 
paleontology. To meet the migrational necessities of faunas and floras 
a continent, to which Suess (1) gave the name «Gondwana-land», 
was proposed, to include portions of southern Asia, Australia and 
South Africa. This continent is now extended to include a large 
portion of South America. It is probable that the land masses now 
existing in the Antarctic include remnats of this ancient continent, 
of which they may once have been the nucleus. Whether or not all 
the regions of the true Gangamopteris flora were parts of a single 
continent, it is certain they were land areas of large size sufficiently 
close to permit interchanges of life with the greatest freedom. 
The great Gondwana system of India is a fresh water system in- 
cluded ‘in several basins ; the Lower Karroo series embraces a series of 
epicontinental sediments many thousands of square miles in area ; and 
the basal conglomerates of the Brazilian coal measures lie on the old 
granites of an eroded land surface. The name «Gondwana-land» is 
most appropriate ; for by this route many of the Mesozoic Gondwana 
species also were able to extend their domain from India and Tonquin 
to Australia, South Africa, and Argentina, where Professor Kurtz 
has recognized many of the Rajmahal plants and where Professor 
Amigheno has discovered corresponding relations between the Mesozoic 
vertebrate faunas. 
Te paleontolegical proof of the existence of a great Gondwana- 
land is supported, further, by the great magnitude of the glacia- 
tion which it sustained. In India, Australia, Tasmania, and South 
Africa, the Gangamopteris flora seems to have made its appearance 
at about the time of a period of great glaciation. In the Greta series 
(2) in New South Wales, it is found accompanying a group of coals 
which are said to lie between glacial boulder beds; but in the 
other regions cited it is preceded by boulder deposits in the formation 
of which glaciers or floating ice have played an unmistakable part. (3) 
(1) Antlitz d, Erd., vol. 1, 1885, p. 768. 
(2) See the table, p. 381. 
(3) The proofs of palaeozoic glacition aresummired by Frech, Lethaea Palacozoica, 
Bd. If, Lief. 4, 1902, pp. 572-627; and Geikie, Textbook of Geology, vol. I, 1903, pp. 1058, 
et seq. In the Indian peninsula the Talchir conglomerate, of gr-at extent, includes boulders 
nearly 5 meters in diameter and weighing as much as 45 tons, dropped in fine grained 
sandstones and shal’s. Some of the transported boulders are smooth, facetted and striated, 
while the underlying limestone is locally smoothed, polished, scratched and grooved. 
For data relating to Gondwana ice work in India see: Noctling, N. Jahrb. f. Min., 1896 
Bd. IL. p. 61; Waagen, Jahrb. d. k.—k. geol, Reichsanst., vol. XXXVI, 1887, p. 143; 
