13G 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[voL. \i. 
I take tlie Bunter flora for comparison because Dr. Feistmantel has repeatedly 
stated that the Damudas are of lower triassic age, but I may add, that were I to 
give the lists of known plants from Keuper or rhahic, (the flora of the Muschel- 
kalk is too poor for comparnson,) the result would be the same. There are a few 
allied forms in each of these subdivisions,^ and probably there are more in the 
rhsBtic than in the trias. There are also certain Damuda forms such as Phyllo- 
theca Indica, Saijenojiteris, Aldliopterls Lindleyana and A. conf. Wliithyemis which 
are much closer to Jurassic European forms than to triassic, and it may bo 
remembered that many European palaeontologists long classed the Damudas as 
oolitic. In short, so far from its being the fact that there is a distinct connexion 
between the Damuda flora and that found in European lower triassic rocks, the 
truth is really that there is not so strong a resemblance between Damuda and 
Bunter plants as there is between Damuda and Jurassic. On the other hand, I do 
not see how any one can look over the list given above without seeing the very 
mai’ked similarity between the Damuda flora and that of the Newcastle beds in 
Australia. So marked is this, that even if the Karharbari forms be included in 
the Damuda flora as Dr. Feistmantel has done, it still appears to me that the 
former is more closely allied to the Australian than to the Bunter flora. 
The conclusion at which I arrive is, that instead of the evidence which connects 
the Damuda formation with the Australian carboniferous rocks being about equal 
to that between the Damudas and European trias, as I at first thought, the former 
connexion is more marked than the latter. 
The relations of the lower Australian li&ls. —I pass on to the second question. 
The third point on wdiich, in Dr. Feistmantul’s opinion, my conclusions were 
“ rather premature”" related to the lower Australian coal strata, and, as he 
puts his thesis, “ The analogy with the flora of the lower coal strata in 
Australia is comparatively wcak’.^ I do not think this is an answer to my 
argument, becauso I never insisted upon the affinity between the Damuda flora 
and that of the lower coal measures of Australia. What I did show was' that 
the connexion between the various groups of the coal-bearing series in Australia, 
from the Wyanamatta beds to the lower coal measures, (excluding, of course, 
the Lepidodendron beds,) was exactly the same as that on the strength of which 
Dr. Feistmantel had just argued that the whole of the lower Gondwanas were 
triassic; and if the argument wore applied to the Indian beds, it was equally 
valid in Justifying the classification of all the Australian rocks below the Haw'kes- 
bury beds (and I might even have included the Hawkesbury and Wyanamatta 
* The only Keuper plants which have any marked relations to Damuda species, so fur as I am 
aware, are sonic forms of Pecopleris or AUthopteris allied to A. WliithyeMsis, and Noegijn-afhia 
Tugesiaca (Macroplurygimn, Bronnii), the latter alone being of any importance. Perhaps there may 
be a slight similarity bcJ.woon some of the Konper species of Fterophyltum and P. Burihvanense. 
It .should be remembered that only one specimen of Pieropliyllum Bardivanense, and one of 
Noeygerathia cf. Vogcsiaca have yet been found in Damuda beds. 
* Hoc. G. S. T., Vol. l.\, p. m. 
And again, p. 121, “ c What is the analogy of our Damuda .scries with the lower 
coal inea.sm‘es in Australia ?” 
Ib,. p. 83. 
