76 
Sedimentary Formations 
Blanford’s able Report on the Haniganj Coal-field. ( u Memoirs 
Geol. Sur. India 7’ Vol. iii., part 7, chap, vi., page 135, 1801), 
in which the author writes in relation to the Panchet group : 
“ So far as this evidence goes, it tends to confirm Dr* Oldham’s 
suggestions as to the Damiidas 'being Upper Paleozoic. For 
Labyrinthodont reptiles (and consequently the Panchets if 
equivalent to the Mangalis) being Permian or Triassic, and the 
Damudas being but little older, would be Upper Carboniferous 
or Permian, or perhaps intermediate between Permian and 
Triassic ; but the evidence is very slight.” 
It is not strange that sixteen years continued exploration, 
and a critical examination of the fossils, should load to a modifi¬ 
cation of views, and it would be held presumptuous in anyone 
not on the spot to dogmatise to the contrary. 
The present able Superintendent of the Geological Survey in 
India, Mr. 11.13. Medlicott, FJJ.S., thus speaks of Dr. Eeist- 
mantel s botanical researches: — “ Paleontologists come from 
their cabinets in Europe with the fixed idea that the ‘ laws ’ they 
have seen to work so neatly as between Bohemia and Bavaria, 
or from Durham to Dorsetshire, will apply equally well between 
India and Australia, or Europe; and the eager aim of their 
labours seems to be to tally oil our Indian rock-groups as the 
representatives or equivalents of certain fossiliferpus series of 
Europe or elsewhere. From the beginning this Pnheontologieal 
fallacy has been a chief obstruction to our knowledge. When 
first the Gondwana fossils were taken up, pure Gcologv being in 
the ascendant, the fact that certain plant forms of the lower Gond¬ 
wana rocks were somehow associated with beds having a Car¬ 
boniferous Marine fauna in Australia, was made the basis of a 
special pleading to show that the Damiidas, their flora, and their 
Coal, were Paleozoic. The materials have now come into the 
hands of a pure palaeontologist. He has shown, I believe con¬ 
clusively, that tho Gondwana flora is wholly Mesozoic, nailing its 
several phases to certain representative zones in Europe. But 
it so happens that on the confines of India, east and west, the 
upper Gondwana groups arc associated with beds having a Marine 
fauna according to which these said groups have already been 
attached by pnheontologieal experts to other standard groups in 
Europe. It is true that the study of this fauna was only partial; 
but the experts were very accomplished in their line, and their 
judgment was quite unprejudiced, so that it must carry great 
weight. Here then again is an openingfor the proerustean method 
of research: and there are symptoms that it is to be duly applied; 
fhis lime to make the fauna conform to the flora .Xo theologian 
could be more impious in reducing the mysteries of existence 
to the compass of his narrow thoughts, than are often scientific 
specialists in imposing crude conceptions upon the proceedings 
