838 



Proceedings of {he- Asiatic Society. 



[No. 3, 





or possibly the Lias, but no great stress could be laid on such a degree 

 of difference in range, the remains of such animals being everywhere 

 rare. Both groups are characteristic of the great transition fauna 

 intervening between that of the Silurian and Devonian systems and 

 that of M 9Sozoic times. So far as one can predicate the geological 

 age of such remains from our present knowledge, we may refer the 

 fossil either to the Carboniferous, Permian or Triassic period, with 

 a preponderant probability in favour of the former. 



" Until the geology of that part of the Mahadeva hills in which the 

 fossil occurs has been re-examined by some one acquainted with the 

 ocal peculiarities of the rocks, it will be premature to offer any 

 opinion as to the age of the Mahadeva sandstones. The belief I have 

 entertained for some years past is, that they are cretaceous, a belief 

 partly founded on Mr. Theobald's inference of their relation to the 

 Baug beds, partly on their geological relations to the trap rocks 

 already mentioned, and which rest conformably upon them; but if 

 the specimen on the table be really from the Mahadevas, this formation 

 must go back to a very much more ancient period. It should be 

 mentioned as bearing on this point, that the mineral character of the 

 matrix of the fossil is a hard gray micaceous sandstone such as is very 

 characteristic of the coal-bearing rocks of India, but is very different 

 from the typical sandstones of the Mahadevas, which are soft coarse 

 grits with little specks of Kaolin, and frequently ferruginous. 



" Labyrinthodont remains have twice before been discovered in India, 

 viz. at Mangali about 120 miles south of Nagpore and in the form- 

 ation which overlies the upper coal-bearing rocks of the Kanigunge 

 coal field, and which has been termed by Mr. W. T. Blanford, the 

 Lower Panchit Group. " 



In conclusion Mr, Blanford expressed the indebtedness of the Society 

 to those gentlemen to whose exertions the Society owes this highly 

 interesting fossil, and proposed that the special thanks of the Society be 

 voted to Major Gowan the original discoverer, to Mr. EL Eivett Carnac, 

 who had throughout taken an active part in procuring the fossil, and 

 in getting it photographed, and finally in transmitting it to Calcutta ; to 

 Lieutenant Sim, E. E., who had gone to its site, expressly to obtain 

 it, and to Mr. Crommelin, who had photographed it and presented the 

 negative plates and several prints thereof to the Society, 



This proposition was unanimously acceded to by the meeting. 



