148 
Records of the Geological Survey of India, 
[voL. xr. 
far as it goes, the argument is fair and fairly urged, but it is not conclusive, and 
it cuts both ways. Dr. Feistmantel has omitted to note that there is nearly, if 
not quite as strong a link between the Karharbari beds and the upper coal mea¬ 
sures of Australia, and he also forgets that if, as Mr. Clarke and other Australian 
geologists consider, those upper coal measures are palasozoic, and if fossil plants, 
like VoUzia, are adequate to determine age, the mai’ked palteontological connec¬ 
tion between the Damuda and Newcastle beds, more marked than the Bunter 
affinities of the Karharbari strata, would show the Damudas to be palseozoic, and 
the Karharbari beds are older than the Damudas. 
Talchie geoup. —The close association of the Talchir and Karharbari groups 
renders it probable that any age which must be assigned to the one must be 
attributed to the other also. The view appears to be gaining ground rapidly that 
the connection between permian and trias is greater than was at one time sup¬ 
posed, but there are numerous indications that the permian rocks, containing the 
poorest of all known faunas of a great geological epoch, and corresponding to the 
greatest change in animal and vegetable life of which any record has been pre¬ 
served in the whole palseontological sequence, may have been, as suggested by 
Professor Ramsay ‘ many years ago, a cold period like the Glacial epoch, which 
has in comparatively recent times affected our planet, but more severe or more 
prolonged. The evidence of ice-bome boulders in the Talchir beds, as pointed 
out by my brother, Mr. H. P. Blanford,® agrees with similar indications of 
glacial transport in England and in South Africa, and this clue, however faint, 
appears to me more promising than the relations of fossil plants. 
It would, however, be an omission if I did not call attention to a fact which 
is of some importance, viz., that in certain permian European floras mesozoic 
forms are much better represented than pateozoic. Compare, for instance, the list 
of plants recently described by Heer from Eunfkirchen.® This flora comprises the 
genera Baiera, Voltzia and Schizolepis, aU mesozoic types, together with TJllmania, 
which is peculiar to permian beds, there being but one carboniferous genus 
present. 
In formulating the conclusions for which I have endeavoured to show my 
reasons in the preceding pages, I shall only notice the more important. 
If Dr. Feistmantel chooses to reply, I beg to point out that these are the essential 
questions to be decided. It is no answer to me to prove that I have overlooked 
some paragraph of his, or that I have made a slip about the name or relations of 
a fossil-plant. I do not pretend to a knowledge of palseo-botany, and I shall 
probably be shown to have erred in some trifling and secondary matters, as I did 
before. As no competent critic has hitherto attempted to analyse Dr. Peistmantel’s 
work, and as I believe I have shown that work to be deficient in accuracy, I ask 
geologists to suspend their judgment as to his conclusions until these have been 
1 Q. J. G. S.. Vol. XI, 1855, p. 198, &c. 
2 Q. J. G. S., 1875, p. 528. 
2 Jahr. K. Ung. Geol. Anst, Vol. V, 1876, quoted in Verli. K. K, Geol. Reichsanst. Wien. 
1877, p. 42. 
