PART 3.] 
Blanford: Gondwana Series in India. 
85 
for the determination of age. In the Panchet group of the Lower Gondwana series we 
have Bicynodon showing an affinity for South African strata, other reptiles from which have 
just been shown by Professor Owen* to be allied to Permian forms found in Russia. The 
other known Panchet Vertebrata are lalyrinthodonts and a Thecodont Saurian, which, 
according to Professor Huxley, might be either lower mesozoic or upper palmozoic. Besides 
these there are the ubiquitous Esther ice. Prom the Damitda formation (including the Kamthi 
of Mangali) one Lahyrinthodont (Brachyops laticeps) has been described, the affinities of 
which appear to be uncertain, an Archegosaurus, hitherto only imperfectly examined, and 
Estherice. The whole evidence, so far as it goes, both of animals and plants, tends to connect 
the whole of the Gondwana series with formations ranging from the Upper Palmozoic to the 
Lower Jurassic. 
It must be remembered that the affinities between the plants of the Australian coal¬ 
bearing rocks and those of the jurassic beds of Europe are unmistakeable. They have been 
pointed out by all palaeo-botanists, and they extend to some of the plants in the beds 
interstratified with the carboniferous marine strata. 
It would have been useless to recapitulate all these facts, most of which are well known, 
and none of which are new, did they not lead to a conclusion which appears t o me of the highest 
importance with reference to the ancient distribution of animals and plants. 
In the present distribution of the animal kingdom, there is much greater uniformity 
throughout the globe in the marine than there is in the terrestrial fauna. The former 
varies chiefly with the depth beneath the sea, and, amongst the shallow water and 
coast forms, with climate. A collection of Mollusca or Echinodermata (and these are our 
principal guides in palaeontological classification) from the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the 
Indian Oceans, all taken within the tropics, would afford but few examples of generic dis¬ 
tinction. A collection of terrestrial vertebrata or invertebrata from Tropical America, North¬ 
ern Australia, Malacca and Africa, would differ from each other, not merely in genera, but, 
in many instances, in families. The plants from these different tropical lands would also 
exhibit marked generic distinctions, and whilst many of the American plants would show 
affinities with the miocene forms found in Europe, numerous representatives would be 
found, amongst Australian animals and plants, of forms which, in Europe, were typical of 
mesozoic strata.f 
In the evidence now recapitulated, 'that the plants which existed in Australia, whilst 
carboniferous forms inhabited the seas, were allied to species and genera of the jurassic flora of 
Europe, that some of these same forms of carboniferous age in Australia co-existed in India 
with species found also in the triassic rocks of Europe, and that plants of the lower oolite 
of England still existed in India, whilst the surrounding seas nourished uppermost oolitic 
forms, we have convincing proof that the land faunas and floras of palaeozoic and mesozoic 
times differed from each other in various parts of the globe, at least as much as they do in 
the present day. In short, the conclusions to which we are, I think, brought by a considera¬ 
tion of the evidence are— 
1st. —That the faunas and floras of distant lands varied in palaeozoic and mesozoic times, 
as they do at the present day, far more than the fauna of the seas; in short, that there were 
distinct terrestrial zoological and botanical provinces. 
2nd. —That evidence, founded upon fossil plants, of the age of rocks in distant regions, 
must be received with great caution, and that such evidence is certainly in some cases opposed 
to that furnished by the marine fauna. 
* Geological Society of London : Meeting of May 24th, 1876. Only an abstract of the paper has hitherto reached 
India. 
t It would take up too much space to go into details. Zamia and certain Froteacece amongst plants, Ceratodus 
and the Marsupialia amongst animals, are sufficient to establish the general fact. 
