PART 3.] 
Feistmaniel: Fossil Floras in India. 
139 
types, and some local forms. This, I think, tends to show the close connection of the 
Karharbari coal strata with the Talchir shales; and the evidence from the plants speaks 
strongly for a triassic, or at least mosozoic age of these strata. The bearing of this 
conclusion upon the age of the Damudas in other fields needs not to be pointed out. 
Prom the vegetable remains in the Talchir shales, which are as well preserved as in 
the coal-beds, the conclusion would follow that the Talchir shales must have been deposited 
rather under similar conditions as the coal-bed, and different from those under which the 
boulder bed was formed. 
XVI.— Ok the occurrence of Glossopteris in the Panchet Group, and in the 
Upper Gondwanas. 
When reporting in the last number of Records (Vol. X, 2) on some fossils which I col¬ 
lected in the Nunia stream north-west of Assensole, I suggested that some beds above the 
outcropping coal seam might, from their stratigraphieal position, he considered as associated 
with those which were distinguished as the Panchet group, although Glossopteris occurred 
in them. 1 added that I had no doubt that this genus passes into the Panchet group. 
Already in 1861 Mr. Oldham mentioned a Glossopteris fragment* * * § from the real Panchet rocks, 
as described by Mr. Blanford.f Mr. Oldham says :—“ There are a few mutilated and drifted 
fragments of fossils beside, one of which (fragment of one side of a frond) shows the 
existence of Glossopteris, undistinguishable save generieally.” And the same is repeated 
again by Mr. Oldham on page 206 in the same paper, so that already at that time there 
was no mistake about it; but later, it seems to have been generally supposed that no 
Glossopteris exists in the real Panchet group. J 
To satisfy myself how the matter stands, I made a search through all our collections of 
fossil plants from the Raniganj field in tho hope of finding the specimen mentioned by 
Mr. Oldham. I succeeded in finding about eight leaf fragments, just in those specimens of 
the rocks which are full of the small Estheria, allied to that in tho Mangli beds. The 
Glossopteris remains are mostly only fragments of the leaf, but peculiarly well preserved, 
and one can sec the reticulations without the lens, some (about 3), however, show distinctly 
the midrib, from which the secondary veins pass out, forming distinctly meshes (see figures). 
Thus there can he no doubt that Glossopteris existed during the deposition of the Panchet 
group. This manner of preservation resembles that in the Ivawarsa beds of the Chanda 
district, where Glossopteris occurs also in a very fragmentary state, and again associated with 
Estheria (the form as in the Panchets and in the Mangli beds). In my note on the Estheria 
beds in India §, I have already pointed this out, and I repeat again that the Kawarsa beds 
very likely are on the horizon of the Panchets in Bengal. 
We have thus in the real Panchet group Schizonewm and Glossopteris, both of which 
occur again in the underlying Rauiganj group; and the Panchet group is certainly as closely 
connected by fossils with the Rauiganj group, as the Mangli beds are with the Kamthi 
(Raniganj) group. Mr. W. T. Blanford himself found no great unconformity between the 
Raniganj and Panchet groups. On page 127, 1. c., Mr. Blanford says:—“ It should, however, 
he remembered that there is a very considerable apparent conformity between the two groups, 
* Additional remarks on the geological relations and probable age of the several systems of rocks in Central 
India, etc. M. G. S., Vol. Ill, p. 197, et aeq. 
t On the geological structure and relations of the Raniganj coal-field, M. G. S„ Vol. Ill, pp. 3 and 128. 
t See a lotter by Dr. Oldham to Rev. W. B. Clarke, published in his “ Remarks on Sedimentary Reeks of New 
South Wales,” 3rd edition, page 29. 
§ Rec. Geol. Surv., X, 1, p. 29 
