natives were busy striking the tents, and loading the bullocks,
bullock-carts and elephants: these proceeded on the march, occupying
in straggling groups nearly three miles of road, whilst we remained
to breakfast with Mr. F. Watkins, Superintendent of the East India
Coal and Coke Company, who were working the seams.

The coal crops out at the surface; but the shafts worked are sunk
through thick beds of alluvium. The age of these coal-fields is quite
unknown, and I regret to say that my examination of their fossil
plants throws no material light on the subject. Upwards of thirty
species of fossil plants have been procured from them, and of these
the majority are referred by Dr. McLelland* [Reports of the
Geological Survey of India. Calcutta, 1850.] to the inferior oolite
epoch of England, from the prevalence of species of _Zamia,
Glossopteris,_ and _Taeniopteris._ Some of these genera,
together with _Vertebraria_ (a very remarkable Indian fossil),
are also recognised in the coal-fields of Sind and of Australia.
I cannot, however, think that botanical evidence of such a nature is
sufficient to warrant a satisfactory reference of these Indian
coal-fields to the same epoch as those of England or of Australia; in
the first place the outlines of the fronds of ferns and their
nervation are frail characters if employed alone for the
determination of existing genera, and much more so of fossil
fragments: in the second place recent ferns are so widely
distributed, that an inspection of the majority affords little clue
to the region or locality they come from: and in the third place,
considering the wide difference in latitude and longitude of
Yorkshire, India, and Australia, the natural conclusion is that they
could not have supported a similar vegetation at the same epoch.
In fact, finding similar fossil plants at places widely different in