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COAL.
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system
of groups or series together, and drawing them away from the floras
characteristic in other countries of palaeozoic periods.
But
what have been called palaeontological contradictions occur in these
rocks, for it has been found, with reference at least to some of the
Pigher or younger groups, that the marine faunas, where present, do not
always point to the same conclusions as the floras.
In
the Annual Report of the Survey for 1876, this state of things was
summarized by Mr. H. B. Medlicott in the following words :—
The
facts of our Gondwana rocks are certainly puzzling to systematists. On
the west, in Kach, we have the flora of the top Gondwana group, which
has a Bathonian facies associated with marine fossils of Tithonien affinities ; while on the S.E., in the Trichinopoli beds, with a flora, so
far as known, like that of the Rajmahal group, which is taken to be
liassic, have been described by Mr. H. Blanford as overlaid in very
close relation by the Otatoor group, the fauna of which has been declared upon very full evidence to have a Cenomanien facies.
Another instance of these contradictions I quote from the " Manual," p. 100 :—
The
Kota beds, with their liassic fish, have now been so closely connected
with the Maleri clays and sandstones, containing triassic reptiles and
fish and Jurassic fish, that both are classed in the same group.
The occurrence of several genera of Damuda plants, more particularly Glossopteris, in
the higher Australian coal-measures, passing thence downwards into beds
containing carboniferous marine fossils, and, lower still, typical
carboniferous plants, has been used as an argument in favour of the
view that our Indian coal-
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