82 
DIENER : TRIAS OF THE HIMALAYAS. 
with the Indian region, that the Central Mediterranean sea or " Tethys" 
formed an uninterrupted belt around the globe to the North of the 
Tropic of Cancer. 
The faunistic affinities both with the boreal region of Siberia and 
with the Japanese province are more remote. The relationship of the 
American and Japanese faunae has been exaggerated by E. v. Mojsiso- 
vics.^ As has been demonstrated by J. P. Smith, there is almost no 
kinship whatever between the rich fauna of the Muschelkalk of Nevada 
and the poor faunae from the Middle Trias of Japan. But the Indian 
fauna of this epoch is almost equally unlike that of Japan. Ceratites 
(Danubites) Kansa Dien. is perhaps the only species which has a remark- 
able resemblance with a Japanese form, viz., Ceratites [Danubites) Nau- 
manni Mojs. The Indian species of Japonites are less closely allied to J. 
planipUcatus Mojs. from Okatsuhama than to the European types of this 
genus recently discovered in the Trias of Montenegro. It is therefore not 
likely that the connection between the American and Indian Triassic 
provinces was established by way of Japan during the Muschelkalk 
epoch. Their faunae are related to each other more closely than either 
of them is to the fauna of Japan. 
In the Siberian region deposits of Muschelkalk age are known to us 
from two localities only, from the Magyl rocks on the lower Yana, and 
from the Russian Island near Vladivostok (Ussuri district). 
In the small fauna of the Magyl rocks discovered by Baron E. v. Toll, 
there is one species, Beyrichites affinis Mojs., which occurs also in the 
upper Muschelkalk of the Shalshal cliff. An affinity with the faunula 
from the Russian Island is indicated by the presence of a species of 
Ptychites rugiferi. There is also a close relationship between the Indian 
representatives of this group and the congeneric forms from Spitzber- 
gen, but it is not closer than with the Mediterranean types. 
Otherwise a comparison between the faunse of the Himalayan 
Muschelkalk and of the Olenek beds of North-eastern Siberia offers but 
little support on behalf of a near kinship between the Indian and 
boreal regions. In this respect only the presence of Gymnotoceras 
(group of Ceratites geminati) in both regions might be mentioned, and 
the strange groxn^ oi Ceratites {Philippites) Jolinkanus Dien. in Byans, 
^ E. V. Mojsisovics : Ueber einige Japanische Triasfossilien. Beilroege zur 
Palceont. Oesterr. Ungarns, etc., VII, 1888, p. 163. 
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