THE PERMIAN PERIOD. 635 



as four meters in diameter. Locally, the glacial series (the glacial 

 beds and the formations inter stratified with them) has a thickness 

 of about 2000 feet. 1 The few plant fossils associated with this con- 

 glomerate are like those associated with the coal-seams of the glacial 

 series in Australia. The age of these conglomerates is further indi- 

 cated by the fact that they are overlain by the Fusulina limestone 

 (late Carboniferous or Permian) comparable to that of Europe. Coal" 

 beds, regarded as Middle Permian (the important coal-beds of India), 

 also occur above the Talchir conglomerates in the Gondwana system, 

 thus seeming to make them either late Carboniferous or early Permian. 



The character of the Talchir conglomerates, especially when studied 

 in connection with the bed on which they lie, may fairly be regarded 

 as demonstrating their glacial origin; for not only are the bowlders 

 glacially striated, but the surface beneath the conglomerate, like the 

 bed of the similar deposits in Australia, is also polished and striated. 2 



The glacial Paleozoic formations in India are in some respects even 

 more remarkable than those of Australia, for they reach below the 

 latitude of 18°, and are, therefore, several degrees within the Tropic 

 of Cancer; not only this, but they occur at low levels, descending 

 in places nearly to the level of the sea. 



Conglomerates which appear to be of glacial origin are not limited 

 to the Talchir formation of the peninsula. Similar formations, believed 

 to be of the same age, appear in the Salt Range of India (Lat. 32°), 

 in the central Himalayas, in Cashmere, and Afghanistan. 



In the Salt Range, a marine Permian formation overlies the glacial 

 series. Marine Permian is also known in northern Persia, Armenia, 

 the central Himalayas, Tibet, central India, Timor, Yunnan, Nanking, 

 and elsewhere. 



South Africa. 3 — In South Africa there is a series of beds found 

 in various parts of Cape Colony, Natal, Zululand, the Orange River 

 State, and the Transvaal, which possess the same general characteristics 

 as those of Australia and India. Here there are conglomerate beds 

 (the Dwyka formation) some of which are glacial, and some of which 



1 Kayser, op. cit., p. 262. 



2 Oldham, Geology of India, 2d ed., 1893. 



3 For an excellent account of the Paleozoic glacial phenomena of these several 

 regions, see C. D. White, Carboniferous Glaciation in the Southern and Eastern Hemi- 

 spheres, Am. Geol., 1889, Vol. XIII, pp. 299-332. For a later account of the glacial 

 beds, see footnote, p. 636. See also Geol. Cape Colony, Rogers, 1905, pp. 147-179. 



