Yy
3

INDIA

and the coast of Madras was the eastern coast-line of that
pre-Indian continent of which India is now the muchdiminished
 representative. But whilst the Aravallis were
clearly the north-western limit of this prehistoric continent,
it is not quite so clear what formed the boundary on the
north-east, There was no Gangetic basin in those days,
and it was probable that the Rajmahal hills and the hills
of Assam continued the land area to the Himalayas east
of Sikkim ; for it is certain that the Eastern Himalayas
are vastly older than the western, and that the Burmese
mountains are comparatively
 young. Next followed
 a long period of
repose and of the silent
process of alluvial deposit
 by river action,during
which the wide central
beds called Gondwana
were formed. Here we
must note the existence
of ice-worn bouldersand
the evidence of former
glaciers in Rajputana ;
and at this point we are
faced with the almost indisputable
 fact that the
India of the Aravallis and of the Rajmahal hills was but an
axtension from South Africa. The evidence which has been
collected to prove this ancient connection seems to be
conclusive. Plants of Indian and African coal measures
are identical, and not only plants, but the fauna of that
seriod claim a similar affinity. Near the coast of South
Africa a series of beds occur which is similar in all
respects to an existing Rajmahal series; whilst the dis-:ribution
 of marine fossils proves that to the north-west
and to the south-east respectively of a land barrier which
must have included the Maldives, Laccadives and Madagascar,
 were two distinct seas. This land connection
must have existed at the commencement of cretaceous

Fic. 2.