THE OXFORD FORMATION IN EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA. 
257 
Our surmise has been confirmed by M. Alcide D’Orbignv, who, having examined 
the Himalayan fossils of this age which we have submitted to him l , acquaints 
us, that the most common of the Hindoo Belemnites is identical with the very 
common Russian species Belemnites absolutus (Fischer) ; whilst among the Ammo- 
nites are the A. interruptus (Schloth.) and the A. triplex (Sow.), which in France 
and Germany are highly characteristic of the Oxford clay ! We are not yet suffi- 
ciently acquainted with the details of East Indian geology to be able distinctly to 
assert, whether, as in Russia, the “ Terrain Oxfordien” there prevails to the ex- 
clusion of other members of the oolitic series ; but the fact is very remarkable, 
that from whatever locality of Northern or Southern India fossils of this age have 
hitherto been brought home, they all have the “ facies Oxoniensis.” Thus in the 
Runn of Cutch and the adjacent lands at the mouth of the Indus, English geolo- 
gists have already shown, that Qryphcea dilatata is associated with lossils very 
similar to, if not identical with, the Ammonites and Trigonige of the Oxford for- 
mation 2 * . The same inference has, indeed, been drawn from similar fossils collected 
in Southern Africa, on the Orange river, considerably to the north of the Cape 
of Good Hope 8 . 
So far, then, we are assured by the evidence of organic remains, that the Ox- 
fordian strata occur in other quarters of the globe ; but how are they there distri- 
buted? Do they occur in great continuous zones or isolated patches, and are they, 
as in Russia, the sole representatives of all the oolitic series ? Where, again, are 
their eastern limits in Asia? may they not range from the Himalaya mountains, 
through Nepaul 4 5 * * , even into the Birman and Chinese empires ? 
Though future explorers alone can answer these queries, our readers will, in the 
1 These Himalayan fossils included the collection of Lady Sarah Amherst and one made by Major 
D’Arcy, and presented by him to Dr. Buckland. 
a See the memoir of Captain Grant, Geol. Trans., vol. v. p. 289, and the notice by Colonel Sykes of 
collections made by Captain W. Smee and Colonel Pottinger, ibid. p. 715. The oolitic fossils of the Runn 
of Cutch, and also of the desert to the north-east (Balmeer, Joonah, &c.), have quite the character of the 
middle oolite. See figure of Gryphma dilatata, Geol. Trans, vol. v. p. 7 1 9. 
5 Silurian System, p. 583. These African species were collected by Dr. Smith. 
^ The late General Hardwick, of the East India Company’s service, brought home, together with his 
splendid collection of natural history, certain fossils from Nepaul. Among these were three species of 
Ammonite, named and figured but not described by Mr. J. E. Gray; viz. A. Nepaulensis, A. Walhchn, 
and A substriatus, all evidently forms of the oolitic series, but whether distinct from those of the Lias 
cannot well be determined. (See Hardwick and Gray’s Illustrations of Indian Zoology. Fol. vol. i. last 
plate.) 
