44, 
President's Address. 
[Feb. 
than another containing only the forms of a later epoch, and perhaps 
the nearest approach to such an anomaly is in Barrande’s well known 
‘ colonies’ of lower silurian fossils apparently overlying upper silurian. I 
am not sure that this case of interposition can be yet considered as 
decided, but admitting the fact, as contended for by Barrande, the 
difference between upper and lower silurian is not equivalent to the 
difference, for instance, between silurian and devonian, much less to 
that between silurian and carboniferous, the next great and typical series 
in ascending order, nor can the change be compared to that between triassic 
and jurassic rocks. The freshwater and land organisms of past times, both 
vegetable and animal, are, however, far less thoroughly known than the 
marine, and it appears to have been assumed rather than proved that their 
succession has been as uniform throughout the land surface as has that of 
marine beings in the sea. 
Now in the Gondwana system, with one or two exceptions in the upper 
subdivision, the only organic remains found are terrestrial or fluviatile, 
plants being much more common than animals. The few animals traced are 
chiefly reptiles, amphibia or fish, but these are of great interest, because 
similar forms, owing to their biological importance, have been very carefully 
examined and described almost wherever they have been found. 
The animal remains have only been found in a few parts of the country. 
One of the richest of these is in the Panchet beds of the Raniganj coal field; 
another is in the neighbourhood of Sironcha, at the junction of the Pranhita 
and Godavari rivers. In this last-named country there are several locali¬ 
ties, at one of which, near the village of Kotah, remains of several species of 
ganoid fish have been found in limestone, whilst at another, close to a village 
site called Maledi, teeth and bones of reptiles and fish have been discovered 
in red clay. The part of the 1 Palseontologia Indica’ to which I have referred 
contains descriptions of some of the Kotah fish by Sir P. Egerton, and of 
the teeth of Ceratodus, another fish found at Maledi, by Mr. Miall, toge¬ 
ther with a brief note of my own upon the deposits in which the fossils 
occur. In the ‘ Records’ is a paper by Mr. Hughes describing the geology 
of the upper Godavari basin, between the river Wardha and the Godavari 
near the civil station of Sironcha. Now Sir P. Egerton has shewn that the 
Kotah fish belong to the genera Lepidotus, Tetragonolepis and Dopedius, 
and are typically lower jurassic (liassic) forms. The Ceratodus from Maledi 
and some other places is very closely allied to a triassic species, and it is 
associated with two reptiles, Hyperodapedon and Parasuchus, both triassic 
types. It is therefore very startling to find that Mr. Hughes is of opinion 
that the Kotah limestone is a bed of the Maledi deposits, and that the two 
are in fact identical. 
