98 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vol. IX. 
markedly modern forms as Equits, Hippopotamus' and Bos, just as characteristic of the 
Pliocene in Europe; and it is from the presence of these and kindred genera that I am 
inclined to give my adherence to the view of the modern age of these strata ; rather than, led 
away by the presence of older forms, which might well have lived down to a later period in 
this country than in Europe, to place the Siwaliks in the Miocene period. Mr. W. T. 
Blanford, in the paper above quoted (page 18, note), attaches much weight to the presence 
of specialised Ruminants in the Siwaliks, as indicating their Pliocene age: and the absence 
of genera like Palceotkerinm and Auopdolherium, as far as negative evidence goes, also tends 
to prove the modern age of the Siwaliks; with regard to Mr. Blanford’s remark, however, 
it is mentioned in the report on the Miocene Mammals of Attica (Compt. Rend Yol. LI, p. 
1296) that “ L’abondance des Ruminants est remarquable h Pikermiand yet the strata 
are placed as Miocene. 
Assuming, however, the Pliocene age of the Siwaliks, and the former connection of 
India with Africa, we still have to account for the number of generic forms common to 
Tertiary India and Tertiary Europe: this, however, presents no difficulty, because it is> 
I believe, a well-established fact that Southern Europe and Northern Africa were connected 
by land in middle tertiary times ; so that a land communication (not necessarily continuous 
at any one period) must have once existed between India and Europe, across the Indian 
Ocean, allowing of the free migration of the Mammalia of the three great continents. 
According to this view of the case, we may readily conceive how a European Miocene 
genus like Helladotheriuni or Camelopardalis (both found fossil on the extreme southern 
borders of Europe) may have lived in these regions, in Northern Africa and in the inter¬ 
mediate submerged land, and so may have given origin to the Camelopardalis of the 
latter continent, and also to the Siuatherium, Brarr.athervum and Giraffe of the Indian 
Tertiaries, which lived in the succeeding Pliocene period. The same may be said of Elephas 
and Hippopotamus, some forms of both of these genera being found either living or fossil 
in all the three continents; both genera might have taken their origin in the Miocene 
“ Indo-Oceania,” or adjacent lands, and thence spread out on all sides ; to live in one continent 
up to Pliocene and Post-Pliocene times only, and in the other two to exist up to the 
present day. 
The presence of such genera as Equvs and Bos in the Pliocene of Europe, and in 
the Siwaliks of India—genera which are still living in both continents—appears to lead to 
the conclusion that the connecting land between India and Europe must have existed down 
to a comparatively modern period: and that perhaps some portion of the Siwalik strata were 
deposited during the period of this union. 
The very large number of Mammalian genera common to the Indian and European 
Tertiaries, and the comparatively small number common to the former and to the living 
Fauna of Europe, seem to point to an earlier separation between India.and Europe than 
between India and Africa; the Fannie of the two latter countries still have so many forms 
in common, that it appears only a relatively short period of time can have elapsed since their 
separation; a period not long enough to have modified the genera, and in several cases not 
even the species. Between India and Europe, on the other hand, the relationship between 
the living Mammalian genera is much less close; and we have to go back to the Miocene 
period of the latter country, and to the Pliocene period ol’ the former, to find conclusive 
evidence of a former land communication between the two. Still, as before said, certain 
living genera are now common to both countries, and we must bear in mind that, assuming 
tbe former union of the three great continents of the old world, India and Europe would 
be situated at tbe two ends of tbe chain, and that, therefore, their faunae would naturally 
