Carboniferous Glaciation. Etc .— White. 301 
the remarkable identity between one of the Australian forma¬ 
tions and the Talchir boulder bed 1 of India. 
In 1869, 2 Dr. Sutherland described certain beds (“Ecca”) in 
Natal, South Africa, whose characters were such that he con¬ 
sidered them due to glaciation, and suggested a contempor¬ 
aneity with the Permian breccias of England whose glacial 
origin had lately been proposed 1 by Sir A. Ramsay. 
It is remarkable indeed that in three widely separated con¬ 
tinents observers, working independently, and in two cases, at 
least, without the knowledge of each other, should within so 
short a time make known to the world the discovery of 
glacial formations in those continents, and still more remark¬ 
able that, as we shall see later, all these great formations 
should prove to belong to one great system of paleozoic, and 
probably contemporaneous age. Without waiting to follow the 
history of the theory through the period of its struggle for 
existence, 3 I will attempt to present, as briefly as possible, a 
summary of those peculiar features and characteristics of 
formation which have caused certain extensive terranes, bor¬ 
dering on the Indian ocean, to be satisfactorily accounted for 
only by considering them due to glacial action. For the sake 
of convenience I shall at the same time introduce some of the 
paleontological data which will afterwards be of use in dis¬ 
cussing the geological epoch in which the glaciation occurred. 
INDIA. 
Although the first evidence of ancient glaciation 
in India was discovered in 1856, well-founded proofs were not 
obtained until 1872, 4 when Thomas Oldham and Mr. F. Fed- 
1 Thomas Oldham. Additional remarks on the geological relations 
and probable geological age of the several systems of rocks in central 
India and Bengal. Mem. Geol. Surv. India, hi, 1863, pp. 197-213. 
Jour. As Soc., Bengal, May, 1861. 
2 Sutherland. Notes on an ancient Boulder Clay of Natal. Quart. 
Journ. Geol. Soc. London, xxvi, 1870, pp. 514-516. 
3 Though the evidence of glaciarion is in some way treated in nearly 
all the volumes published by the Geological Survey of India, the list 
appended includes approximately all the literature that discusses the 
question of the glaciation itself; and from it the history of the matter 
may easily be reviewed. 
4 Oldham’s note in W. T. Blanford : Description of the geology of Nag¬ 
pur and its neighborhood. Mem. Geol. Surv. India, ix, art 2, pp. 1-36. 
See pp. 10, 28-31 
F. Fedden. On the Evidence of “ Ground-ice ” in tropical India, 
during the Talchir period. Rec. Geol. Surv. India, vn, 1875, pp. 16-18. 
