PART 4.] Waagen : Geograpkical distribution of fossil organisms in India. 285 
much to denudation as to any peculiarity in the manner of original deposition. 
Oldham’s’ view that the great hydrological basins of the Indian Peninsula were 
already at the period of deposition of the Damuda beds similar to what we now 
know them to be, and that, consequently, the geograjDhical distribution of the 
plant beds agrees on the whole with these river basins, is one of particular in¬ 
terest. 
The whole of this associated series of formations, with the exception of 
those which correspond in age to the upper cretaceous, has recently been designat¬ 
ed in India the Gondwana series, and the following groups in ascending order have 
been generally recognized: 1, the Talchir; 2, the Damuda; 3, the Panchet; 
4, the Mahadeva or Rajmahal; 5, the Jabalpur; but this succession of beds is 
subject to considerable change according to whatever basin a locality may be 
situated in, II. Blandford^ has distinguished with much skill certain geogra¬ 
phically limited regions which show the succession of beds develojied according 
to various types. The following are the regions adopted: I, Western Bengal ; 
II, Orissa, Sirguja, South Behar, and South Bewah; III, the Satpnra basin; 
IV, the Godavari basin; V, the deposits in the neighbourhood of Madras and Tri- 
chinopoly; VI, Kachh. The two last regions need not be noticed by us nov,', as 
they contain beside the plants also the remains of marine animals, and as the 
deposits occurring in them have already been treated of; but with regard to the 
remaining divisions, it will be judicious to adopt the divisions given by H, 
Blanford, but one more province must be added, No. VII, Sikkim, as there also 
only plant beds occur. It would hardly be of any interest to enumerate all the 
innumerable sandstones, shales, conglomerates, and coal seams which compose the 
Gondwana scries, and aggregate to some 12,000 feet in thickne.ss ; it will suffice 
to represent simply the type of the deposits in the different regions. I’he first 
of Blanford’s regions includes the carboniferous basin of the Damuda valley, the 
Kajmahal hills, and countless bttle coal basins, often not more than a square 
mile in extent, distributed Over the gneiss plateau which extends westward from 
the lower course of the Ganges. The development of the beds in the Raniganj 
coal-field, as described by W. T. Blanford® may pass as a type for this whole 
region, with the exception of the Rajmahal hills. 
The succession of beds in that region is as follows. At the top lie perfectly 
unfossiliferous coarse sandstones and conglomerates about 600 feet thick ; Blanford 
calls them the “ Upper Panchets,” but it is hard to decide whether thej should 
not pei’haps be reckoned to the Rajmahal group. Belo^v these follow the true 
Panchet beds, which consist of coarse sandstone and red shales, wnich pases 
down into greenish and grey clay with fine-grained sandstones. Their thickness 
is about 1,600 feet. These deposits have yielded numerous fossils, and amongst 
them are not only plant remains, but also Vertebrata (fishes, Dicynodon orientalis, 
’ Oldham : Records Geol. Surv. of India, III, p. 5. 
^ H. Blanford : Quart. .lourn. Geol. Soc., London, XXXI, p. 519. 
^ W. T. Blanford: Mem. Geol. Surv. of India, III. 
