PART 1.] Blanford: Palceonlological Relations of the Gondwdna Sgsietn. 149 
re-examined by a practised paleontologist. My object is gained if I have called 
attention to the subject, and have defended my old colleagues from Dr. Feistmanter.s 
•systematic, if unintentional, tendency to disparage their work. 
The conclusions are as follows :— 
I. The evidence adduced by Dr. Feistmantel to prove that the Umia beds of 
Cutch are not upper jurassic would be insufficient, even if it were correct, and 
the greater portion of it is incorrect. Some of the forms, and amongst these 
the most important, quoted as evidence of an older age, really confirm Dr. 
Waagen’s view that the beds are highest jurassic, (Tithonian or Poi-tlandian) 
and the Cutch plant-beds may have been contemporaneous with Wealden, as Dr. 
Stoliczka considered. 
II. The evidence brought forward to prove the Rajmahal beds lias is insufficient 
to justify the conclusion. 
III. No sufficient proof of connection between the Panchet group and the 
Keuper has been adduced to show that the two are of the same age or related by 
homotaxis. 
IV. The evidence on which the Maugli bods are classed as rhffitic and as 
newer than the Panchets is based upon various mistakes and omissions, whilst 
the geological evidence upon which the Mdngli beds were referred to the Kamthi 
group (probably older than Panchet) is indisputable, aud would suffice to show 
Dr. Feistmantel’s classification of the beds to bo erroneous, even if his paleonto¬ 
logical data were correct, which they are not. 
V. In short, if the affinities of the plant-fossils with those in European rocks 
were alone regarded, the whole Gondwana system above the Karharbari group 
would be probably classed as equal to European beds from middle jurassic to 
rhaetic, and it is highly probable that the lower Gondwana Damuda flora would 
be classed as newer than the upper Gondwana Rajmahal, as indeed it has 
been, in part at least, by no less authorities than De Zigno and Schimper. 
On the evidence produced by Dr. Feistmantel himself, both Rajmahals and Pan¬ 
chets are most closely affined by homotaxis to the same minor European formation, 
the rhsetic, although between the two Indian groups there is the greatest break, 
both stratigraphical and palaeontological, in tho whole Gondwana system. 
VI. No evidence of any value has been produced to establish the classification 
of the Damuda series as lower triassic (Bunter) ; the Damuda flora has far less 
in common with the Bunter, or with any triassic European flora, than with 
that of the upper coal measures of Newcastle, &c., in New South Wales, and the 
mesozoic relations of the Damuda flora, which, after all, are not stronger than the 
affinities to the Australian upper coal-measure flora, are m.ade out by selecting 
for comparison plants from various European formations ranging from middle 
jurassic to lower triassic. 
VII. The classification given by Dr. Feistmantel, and stated to be on the autho¬ 
rity of Mr Clarke, for the Australian plant-bearing beds, differs materially from 
all the data published by Mr. Clarke himself, and the union of the Newcastle 
beds with the Wyanamatta and Hawkesbury rocks instead of with the lower coal 
measures of Stony Creek, &c., is opposed to all the published evidence, and is 
