300 Carhoniferous Glaciation, Etc. — White. 
areas of India, Africa and Australia at some time during the 
Carboniferous epoch, a key to many of the stratigraphical and 
biological problems in other parts of the world will have been 
obtained. 
The object of the present paper is threefold : first, to set 
briefly before American geologists a summary of the prevail- 
ing opinions respecting the so-called palaeozoic glacial epoch 
of the southern and eastern hemispheres, with outlines of its 
evidence, extent and probable age as based on paleontological 
or stratigraphical relations ; secondly, to^ bring together and 
correlate some recently published data, wliile suggesting some 
conclusions, which may be drawn therefrom, as to the devel- 
opment of the mesozoic plant life of the western hemisphere; 
and, finally, to further interest our geologists and paleontolo- 
gists in observing the later evidence and results in this hemi- 
sphere of such an important climatic change in the south and 
east. 
The general geological features, so far as they are known, 
of all the countries with which we are concerned have been so 
often repeated in the large number of recent contributions to 
the subject in hand, that I shall confine myself chiefly to the 
glacial indications themselves, assuming that my readers are 
either already more or less familiar with the grand geological 
divisions of those parts, or will be able to refresh their mem- 
ories from the enumerations and accompanying charts. 
In 1856, the brothers W. T. and H. F. Blanford, while mak- 
ing the first exploration of the coal region in the district of 
Cuttack, India, found an extensive formation which they 
named the Talchir group, and whose composition was such as 
to cause them to regard it as glacial ; and in their report ' 
Mr. W. T. Blanford suggested that certain phenomena, there 
observed, must be due to the movement of ground ice, and he 
ventured to jDredict that further investigation would reveal 
satisfactory evidence of ice-action. 
In 1861, Dr. Thomas Oldham, while examining some litho- 
logical specimens from the formations at Wollongong, in New 
South Wales, sent him by Mr. W. B. Clarke, was surprised at 
>W. T. Blanford, H. F. Blanford and Wm. Theobald. Geological 
structure and relations of the Talchir coal field in the District of Cut- 
tack. Mem. Geol. Surv., India, vol. I, 1859, pp. 33-88. See p. 40. 
