698 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



Eramsay attributes the transportation of the blocks to floating ice. Bowklers 

 in beds of great thickness and coarseness, glacial-like, with many of the 

 bowlders scratched, occur toward the bottom of the Talchir group of India, 

 regarded as Lower Permian ; in equivalent beds of tlie Salt Range of 

 northern India ; in the related Ecca beds of South Africa, below the Karoo 

 beds ; in beds beneath the Glossopteris Coal-measures of eastern Australia, 

 and also other beds overlying the same, called the Hawkesbury sandstone ; 

 and also in Victoria and Queensland. In New Zealand similar bowlder beds 

 are referred by Dr. Hector to the Trias. 



The above facts have led some geologists to the conclusion that over 

 India, Australia, and South Africa, there were glacial conditions in the course 

 of the Permian era — a time when Europe and America were under luxuriant 

 vegetation. 



The Permian has much extent also in Bohemia and Moravia. On both sides of the 

 Alps are red sandstones underneath Triassic beds, which are referred to the Permian. In 

 France, its beds lie at the base of the Vosges, whence they extend into the Black 

 Forest ; at Autun, the thickness is 3000'; the rocks are, as usual elsewhere, sandstone, 

 marlytes, and conglomerates. 



In the Indian peninsula, according to the report of W. T. Blanford, Director of the 

 Geological Survey, the Damuda series in western Bengal, with its valuable coal-beds, and 

 also the underlying Talchir beds, — called together the Lower Gondwana series, — cor- 

 respond to the upper part of the Carboniferous and the Permian, excepting the Panchet 

 group at the top, which is Triassic. The beds have a thickness of 6000' to 11,000', 

 and the coal-beds an aggregate thickness of 175' or more. A 6-inch bed of coal occurs in 

 the Talchir group. The Coal-measures of Karharbari overlie the Talchir beds. The 

 Damuda beds contain species of Glossopteris {Glossopteris Broivniana most abundant), 

 Alethopteris, Tceniopteris, Sphenopteris, Sphenophyllum, Gangamopteris, Sagenopteris, 

 besides Pterophyllum and other Cycads, Voltzia heterophylla, Vertebraria, etc. The 

 Eajmahal group, of the Upper Gondwana series, is supposed from its fossil plants to 

 be Lower Jurassic, Cycads being the prevailing species, as much so as Glossopteris and 

 Vertebraria are in the Damiidas. 



In Australia, the coal formation, with excellent coal, occurs in Ulawarra, also on 

 Hunter's River, and elsewhere ; and, from the fossil plants, the absence of Lepidodendrids 

 and Sigillarids, and the abundance of Glossopteris, with species of Sphenopteris^ Verte- 

 braria^ etc. (the range of species much resembling that of the Damuda beds), together 

 •with the occurrence, immediately below, of shales containing Carboniferous Brachiopods, 

 Conularise, etc., and a heterocercal Ganoid, Urosthenes australis D., the series was referred 

 by the author (in his Wilkes Exped. Geol. Bep., 1849) to the "Upper Carboniferous or 

 partly Lower Permian." It is made the equivalent of the Damuda series by Blanford. 

 "W. B. Clarke mentions the occurrence of leaves of Glossopteris in the Coal-measures, 

 having a length of about 2', and of the frond of a Sphenopteris, which when entire must have 

 measured 5' in length. The Coal-measures are about 480' thick, and contain 11 seams of 

 coal. D. Stur has shown that in Germany and Austria the Permian is characterized by 

 related species of Tceniopteris, Pterophyllum and Sagenopteris, closely representing those 

 of India and Australia. 



The Lower coal-beds occur in Australia also, below the above-mentioned beds, in 

 the Hunter's River region, and westward through Durham, Brisbane, etc., which 

 contain species of Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, Knorria, Cyclopteris, etc. Above the Upper 

 Coal-measures in Australia comes the wide-spread Hawkesbury sandstone and the 



