48 
President's Address. 
[Feb. 
several points of resemblance to the Siwalik, and amongst the Pikermi 
mammals are several characteristic species occurring also in the miocene 
beds of Central Europe. The Pikermi fauna is consequently commonly 
quoted as upper miocene, both by geologists and naturalists. Now the 
Pikermi beds have been admirably described by M. Gaudry in a work enti¬ 
tled “ Animaux fossiles et geologie de l’Attique,” in which it is shewn that, 
at the base of the ossiferous gravels, there is a layer containing pliocene 
marine fossils, and that all these beds rest unconformably on lacustrine 
miocene rocks. The age of the latter, it is true, depends on plants, but the 
pliocene marine fossils of the Mediterranean area are too well known for a 
mistake to be possible as to their relations. The reasonable conclusion ap¬ 
pears to be that the Pikermi mammals are pliocene also, and that some 
species survived to a later period in Greece than in Central Europe. It is 
highly probable that the miocene affinities of the Siwalik fauna are due to 
a similar migration to the southward of the animals which in the warmer 
miocene period inhabited central and northern Europe and Asia. Such a 
migration may have been facilitated by the circumstance that the Himalay¬ 
as up to pliocene times were of small elevation, even if they formed a range 
of mountains, for it has been shewn that all the disturbance of the north¬ 
western Himalayas is of post-eocene date and much is post-pliocene. A 
similar migration to the southward is perhaps indicated by the presence of 
miocene plants in Greenland, and the possibility, as explained by Mr. Gardi¬ 
ner, that the beds containing these plants are really of eocene age. If the 
suggestion made by Wallace in his “ Geographical Distribution of Animals” 
be correct, and the astonishing difference in the abundance of large animals 
in the later tertiary periods and at the present day be due to the extermina¬ 
tion of the greater portion in the glacial epoch, it is evident that the refri- 
geiation of the earth, known to have commenced as early as miocene times, 
had for its first effect the migration of many forms to the southward. 
Before quitting the subject of Indian Paleontology, I am very glad to 
be able to announce an act of liberality on the part of the Government of 
India. It has been determined to engage Dr. Waagen’s services for the 
description of Indian fossils, and thus to enable him to proceed regularly 
with the large collections from the Salt Range and other places. I am 
also happy to state that Professor Martin Duncan, who has described 
tertiaiy corals from so many parts of the world, has very kindly under¬ 
taken the examination of the large series of tertiary corals collected in 
Sind. We are also indebted to the same naturalist for having described 
some remarkable fossils from the Karakoram pass, occurring, apparent¬ 
ly , in triassic beds, though Dr. Stoliczka’s brief note does not state 
this so clearly as might be wished. These fossils are spherical with a 
