Part 4.] Waagen: Geographical dtsirilidion of fossil organisms in India. 291 
age of the bed. Dr. Feistmantel appear.s to believe that I worked oat the Kachh 
Cephalopoda without deigning to give a look to the other fossils. But this was 
not the case ; on the contrary, I went over all the remaining shells as well as the 
corals together with Dr. Stoliczka very clo.sely, and we both came to the same 
conclusion, that the Gasteropoda, Pelecypoda, Bracluoi)oda, and Corals fully 
justified the conclusions on the ago of each several bed as deduced from the 
Cephalopoda.1 It was not till then that I published, with Dr. Stoliczka’s assent, 
the tabular view given in the introduction to the Cephalopoda. 
As far as I can judge. Dr. Feistmantel a25pears to me to misunderstand, to 
a certain extent, the great problem which awaits the phytopala:ontologist in 
India, and the solution of which is certainly worthy of great sacrifices. A 
series of floras has become known in Europe whose relative ages have been de¬ 
termined either by accompanying marine fossils, or by their bathrological positions 
with reference to beds containing marine shells. But the geological series of 
these floras is not a continuous one, as in the case of the marine faunas, but a very 
impei*fect one, compiled from different localities. But in India the very con¬ 
trary is the case. W e have here before us a fragment of a very old continent on 
which, from the end of the palaeozoic epoch through all the duration of the me- 
sozoic era, fresh-water depo.sits containing numei-ous plant-remains have been 
left behind, whereby it is possible to trace the changes of the floras from step 
to step, as has been done in Europe in the case of the marine faunas. Added to 
this is the fortunate circumstance that the coast lines of this continent are still 
preserved in very many jjlaees, so that carbonaceous beds which give promise 
of the discovery of plant-remains are often intercalated between the marine 
deposits. All conditions combine so as possibly to make India a comiiendium 
of palaeophytology, such as England has bccoine of the palaeontology of marine 
faunas. But an examination of the fossil floras of India should not be begun 
by calling in question securely settled facts, such as the age-determination of the 
Kachh beds by means of the 47 European species of Cephalopoda which occur 
in their appropriate zones ; care should rather be taken to bring all imaginable 
factors into consideration, and to seek to ascertain, by minute personal collection 
in the several coal basins on the one hand, and by careful examination of the 
intermediate coaly beds in the marine formations on the other hand, facts which 
might give safe general foundations for a stratigiuijhic palaBo^jhytology. 
I should not have entered so fully upon this point but for the fear that Dr. 
Feistmantel might, from his position as Palceontologist of the Geological Survey, 
confuse for ever the palffiontology of the marine faunas of India, and thus render 
this part of the earth’s surface inaccessible for really scientific research. I shall, 
however, not allow myself to express any opinion of Dr. Feistmanters labour on 
fossil plants; this may be done by more competent people than myself. 
There can be hardly any doubt that all the divisions of the Gondwana 
system which I have treated of in the foregoing pages owe their origin to inland 
* As quite correctly supposed by W. T. Blanford. Records Gcol. Surv. of India, IX, p. 81. 
D 
