300 
Records of the Geological Survey of Lidia. 
[voL. XI. 
wlietlier tlie connexion with Madagascar and the Mascarene islands was again 
restored in the cretaceous jieriod, can at present hardly be decided. We have 
certainly got excellent littoral formations in the South Indian cretaceous 
beds which contain even land shells (Ilelicidw). The cretaceous bed.s of the 
Gan-ow hills show the same development, and it cannot be doubted that they 
were connected with the Triehinopoly beds. It appears equally certain that the 
South African crctaceou.s beds described by Grie.sbach^ owed their origin to the same 
marine basin as did the South Indian beds. We have therefore certain east and 
west coasts of the Indian continent in the cretaceous periods, and the north coast 
also will not inquire to be greatly changed; the south coa.st, on the contrary, is un¬ 
certain, but I have inserted it similarly to the jurassic coast lino a.s questionable. 
Tlio extension of the eocene >sea in India wa.s similar to that of the cretaceous 
sea ; it was only to the west that the sea penetrated far inland ; but how far the 
continent may have extended to the .south at this period is still quite uncertain. 
After the conclusion of the eocene epoch, tho sea retreated altogether from 
India ; only in the neighbourhood of Karrachi and Arracan does it appear to 
have touched the Indian continent, so that the sea of the mioceue and pliocene 
periods probably extended away to the southward. On the other hand, a north¬ 
westerly connection of the continents probably took place with North Africa 
through Arabia, as has been already assumed by Huxley. 
If we look back once more, we find that the simple facts of the geographi¬ 
cal distribution of the formations, and the formational facies in India, allow of 
obtaining deep insight into the changeful history of the distribution of land 
and water through long periods and over a great part of the southern hemisphere 
of our earth, as India partieijmted in all the changes, and always formed part 
of the great southern continent which was so often broken up and then re-con¬ 
nected. I have in my deductions purposely loft out of consideration the geogra¬ 
phical distribution of the fauna and flora of the present world-epoch, as I wished 
to move on purely geologico-palseontological ground . It may remain for other 
searchers to decide how far my deductions agree with those obtained from the zoo- 
or phyto-geographic facts. This much, however, is cei-tain, that H. Blanford’s 
supposition of an Indo-Oceanic continent that united Africa, India and Australia, 
and existed with few intei-ruptions and without imjiortant changes from the end 
of the palfeozoic up to the miocene and pliocene periods, is thoroughly erroneous, 
and that such a.ssnmption is not justified by the geographical distribution of the 
marine depo.sits either in India or any other jiart of the world. 
How far the Indian continent as now established has in the course of ages 
been related to the great mountain formations to the east, north, and west as a 
block (Festlandsscholle), according to Suss’ meaning, I hope perhaps to be 
able to show in another essay. 
Explanation op the Map. 
Although the map may to a certain extent be understood from what has been 
said above, it may not be superfluous again to emphasize those points which 
* Quart, Jouni. Gcol. Soc., XXVII, p. 53, 
