Vol. 50.] PEKHLOT BRECCIAS OF THE MIDLANDS. 469 



Carboniferous beds has been made very brief, as the facts have 

 already been published l ; but it is sufficient to indicate the grounds 

 on which a glacial origin is ascribed to the beds. It is impossible 

 to bring any hand-specimens which will prove the case, for, as has 

 been remarked, they might individually be ascribed, with greater 

 or less plausibility, to other agencies. The most satisfactory proof, 

 however, lies in the fact that all the observers who have studied 

 these deposits in the field, whatever may have been their preposses- 

 sions, have, without exception, come away convinced that ice is the 

 only agent capable of producing the effects which they have seen. 



The nature of the Indian beds is so different from that of the 

 English Permian breccias, that it would seem at first sight as if the 

 establishment of the glacial origin of the one has no bearing on the 

 possibility of the presence of glacial debris in the other ; and this 

 notion might appear to be confirmed by the fact that the accepted age 

 of the Australian and Indian marine glacial beds and of the 

 Talchir group of the Indian Peninsula is Upper Carboniferous, 

 while the English beds are always called Permian. It must be 

 remembered, however, that the Upper Carboniferous of the former 

 is in reality uppermost Carboniferous, verging on the lower limit of 

 the Permo-Carboniferous of Russia, 2 while the Permian of the 

 latter is lowermost Permian ; their age, indeed, is so uncertain that 

 it seems not impossible that they should be regarded as uppermost 

 Carboniferous, and very probably contemporaneous with the Indian 

 beds. 



If this be the case, there would be a real connexion between the 

 two, in spite of their apparent differences. We have proof that at 

 the close of the Carboniferous period both India and Australia, 

 apparently also Africa, experienced a period of greater cold than 

 prevailed before or after : a period, in fact, analogous to the 

 Pleistocene Glacial period of the northern hemisphere. This 

 being so, it would not be very extraordinary if the effects were felt 

 in England and allowed of the production of local glaciers, a portion 



1 A complete bibliography of this subject would cover several pages. The 

 chief general accounts are those of H. F. Blanford, Quart Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. xxxi. (1875) pp. 519-540; K. D. Oldham, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. vol. liii. 

 pt. ii. (1884) pp. 187-198; Geol. Mag. 1886, pp. 293-300; and W. Waagen, 

 Jahrb. d. k.-k. geol. Eeichsanstalt, Wien, vol. xxxvii. (1887) pp. 143-192. 



For India, the original recognition of the glacial origin of the boulder-bed is 

 to be found in the report on the Talchir coalfield by Messrs. W. T. and H. F. 

 Blanford and W. Theobald, Mem. Geol. Surv. Ind. vol. i. (1856) pt. i. 

 pp. 49-51. Bef'erences to subsequent accounts of these beds and of the more 

 markedly glacial ones of the West and North-west of India will be found in the 

 papers already quoted and in the ' Manual of the Geology of India,' 2nd ed. 

 1893. 



For Australia, see R. D. Oldham, Records Geol. Surv. Ind. vol. xix. (1886) 

 pp. 39-47, and T. W. Edgworth David, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xliii. 

 (1887) pp. 190-195, and the general accounts already referred to. 



2 For India, see W. Waagen, ' Palgeont. Indica,' Salt Range Fossils, vol. iv. 

 (1891) pp. 146-156 : in the tabular statement opposite p. 238, these beds are 

 placed at the base of the Permian system. For Australia, see R. Etheridge, Proc. 

 Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin. vol. v. (1880) pp. 314-319, and 'Monograph of the 

 Carboniferous and Permo-Carboniferous Invertebrata of New South Wales,' 

 Mem. Geol. Surv. N.S.W., Sydney, 1891, p. 3. 



