TIIF, PF.liMO-TRIASSlC BOUNDARY. 
47 
zones and draws tlie boundary between tlie Permian and Triassic 
systems below the Meekoceras beds.' 
This study, which was based on a personal examination of the 
Shalshal cliff in 1900, was answered by Diener, who declared that 
neither lithological nor palaeontological nor historical reasons were 
valid for a decision in favour of Noethng's opinion.'^ In a subsequent 
paper on the genus Episageceras Noetling himself admitted the 
incorrectness of A. v. Krafft's identification of Episageceras Dalailamoe 
Dien. with E. Wynnei Waag., thus acknowledging his mistake in 
having accepted this identification as a proven fact. 
The conclusions reached in those papers by Noetling have been 
maintained in his synopsis of the stratigraphy of the Trias in Asia.'^ 
The only result which this history of correlation emphasizes, 
is the fact that all attempts to assign the Otoceras stage definitely 
to one system or the other, have hitherto failed. The present state 
of the discussion may be summed up as follows : — ■ 
From a palaeontological point of view the classification of the 
beds included between the Ruling, or Productus, shales, of undoubtedly 
Permian age, and the Hedenstroemia stage, as proposed by 
Noetling, is too minute, and a combination of the three zones distin- 
guished by him within the Otoceras beds will better express our 
present knowledge regarding their true faunistic relations. The 
Meekoceras beds have been referred unanimously to the Trias. 
There is indeed no doubt about their parallelism with the Seis or 
lower Werfen beds, since the homotaxis of the overlying Hedenstroe- 
mia stage with the Campil beds of the Eastern Alps has been proved 
by the recent discovery of the fauna of Kcira in Albania. The 
Otoceras beds have been included with the Permian system by Noetling, 
1 F. Noetling : Ueber das Alter der Otoceras Schichten von Rimkin Paiar 
(Painkhanda) im Himalaya. Neues Jahrh. /. Mineral, etc., Beilagebd., XVIII, 
p. 518. 
2 C. Diener : Ueber die stratigraphisclie Stellung der Otoceras beds im Himalaya, 
Centralbl. /. Miner., etc., 1905, pp. 1-50, 36-45. 
2 F. Noetling : Ueber Medlicotlia und Episageceras aus den permischen 
und triadischen Schichten Indiens. Neues Jahrh. /. Mineral, etc., Beilagebd., XIX, 
p. 369. 
^^Lethcea palceozoica, II, p. 656. 
5 Asiatische Trias. Lethcea mesozoica, Bd. I, Trias, 2 Lieferg., 1905, 
p. 127, 
( 248 ) 
