264 Forbes on Cretaceous Fossils from Southern India, 



The results of their examination may he briefly stated as follows : — 



1st. The three deposits, viz. Pondicherry, Verdachellum, and 

 Trinconopoly, described by Mr. Kaye, are Cretaceous, inasmuch as 

 there are characteristic known cretaceous fossils in the collections 

 from all of them, whilst no fossils of any other system occur. The 

 nearest allies of the majority of the new species are cretaceous ; 

 and among the genera and subgenera are many which, as far as we 

 know, are confined to or have their chief development in the creta- 

 ceous system. The three deposits are connected with each other 

 zoologically by the associations of certain species common to two of 

 them, with others found in the third. 



2nd. Two of the three deposits, viz. Verdachellum and Trinco- 

 nopoly, are of a different epoch of the Cretaceous era from the third, 

 Pondicherry. The two former have several species in common (and 

 those species among the most prolific in individuals), which are not 

 found in the third. In them are found almost all the species identi- 

 cal with European forms. In several of the genera, of which there are 

 many species, the forms are altogether distinct ; although, judging 

 from the evidence afforded by mineral character and association of 

 species, the conditions of depth and sea-bottom at the time of the 

 deposition of the strata seem to have been the same. The difference 

 therefore must have depended on a representation of species by 

 species in time and not in depth. 



3rd. The beds, apparently contemporaneous, viz. Trinconopoly and 

 Verdachellum, may be regarded as equivalent to the upper green 

 sand and gault ; the European species they include being either cha- 

 racteristic upper green sand and gault forms, or else such as occur 

 in those strata. The new species they contain are either closely al- 

 lied to known upper green sand or gault species, or peculiar to the 

 Indian beds. 



4th. The Pondicherry deposit may be regarded as belonging to the 

 lowest part of the Cretaceous system. In it almost all the fossils 

 are new. Such as are analogous to known species are allied to fos- 

 sils of the lower green sand of English geologists and Neocomien 

 of the French. In the genus most developed in this deposit, viz. 

 Ammonites, three- fourths of the species belong to those subgenera 

 especially characteristic of the " Lower Neocomen" of the Mediter- 

 ranean basin; whilst, of the remainder, as many representatives of 



