PLANT-BEARING SERIES OF INDIA. 527 



raise the Panchefc group to a Triassic horizon, in which case the 

 "Kamthi group might be supposed to represent the Permian forma- 

 tion. But the correlation of these groups inter se is too indeter- 

 minate to allow of any great weight being given even to this slender 

 evidence. 



The resemblance of the plants of the Indian and Australian (N.S. 

 Wales) Coal-fields has long been known and repeatedly noticed in 

 the pages of the Society's Journal and elsewhere. In both countries 

 Glossopteris, Phyllotheca, Vertehraria, and Zeugophyllites [or Schizo- 

 neura] are among the commonest and most characteristic forms, 

 the species being, in part at least, identical. Thus Glossopteris 

 Browniana is recognized as common to the two countries by all 

 describers; Phyllotheca indica, Bunbury, is apparently identical 

 with P. Hookeri, McCoy; and the Vertebraria also appears to be 

 the same, whatever may be nature of that remarkable fossil. Dr. 

 Oldham also mentions * that Pecopteris Laicllayana, Boyle, is iden- 

 tical with P. australis, Morris, and that one species of Sphenopteris 

 is certainly common to the two countries. How much further this 

 identity of the two floras may extend can only be known fully 

 when both shall have been worked out in detail ; but our present 

 knowledge justifies the conclusion that their coincidence is remark- 

 ably great f, seeing that the two localities are separated by a distance 

 of 5550 miles. "We must, I think, further conclude that the two 

 formations cannot be far separated in geological time, while their 

 geographical connexion and the similarity of their physical condi- 

 tions must at one time have been very close. 



Now the testimony of the Bev. W. B. Clarke, Mr. Jukes, and Mr. 

 Daintree, all of whom have examined in situ the U.S. Wales rocks 

 or their Queensland equivalents, is to the effect that the plant-bearing 

 beds belong to the same formation as the marine fossiliferous beds 

 of Stony Creek &c, the fossils of which, described by Morris and 

 McCoy, prove them to be of Carboniferous age. Perhaps the most 

 distinct evidence on this point is that furnished by the sections of 

 two coal-pits at Stony Creek, on the north side of Harper's Hill, 

 given by Mr. Clarke in the 6th volume of the s Transactions ' of the 

 Boyal Society of Victoria. These shafts were sunk through beds 

 full of Spirifer, Fenestella, Conularia, Orthoceras, &c, lying above 

 beds of coal and "blue clod" full of Glossopteris, Phyllotheca, and 

 leaves of Noeggerathia [Schizoneura ?]. Mr. Daintree, too, describes % 



* Mem. G. S. I. vol. ii. p. 328. 



t The following generic list of plants from the N. S. Wales field, compiled 

 from the lists of Morris, Dana, and McCoy, may be compared with Dr. Oldham's 

 list of the Damiida plants given in the text, p. 520 : — 



species. 



iSpnenophyllum .... 

 Vertebraria 



1 5 



1 



pecies. 



>> 



Otopteris 



Zeugophyllites . . 



Clastoria 



Aiiarthrocanna . . 



... 1 



Phyllotheca 



Cyclopteris , 



Pecopteris 



o 



G 



2 





Glossopteris 



Sphenopteris 



6 



6 



Austrella 



Confervites 



'.'.'. 1 



j: Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxviii. p. 286. 

 J. G. S. No. 124. 2 n 



