30 Annals of the South African Museum. 



to the Lower Cretaceous ; but in a more recently published tabular 

 correlation of the geological formations of the Transvaal and Cape 

 Colony, Molengraaff has ascribed them with a note of interrogation 

 to the Middle Jurassic." In 1896 E. B. Newton published a useful 

 summary of previous work on the Cretaceous conchology of South 

 Africa,! and furnished a complete list of the known Mollusca from 

 the Uitenhage beds, which he classed as Neocomian. In their text- 

 books de Lapparent J and Kayser have followed Holub and Neu- 

 mayr in assigning a Neocomian age. Passarge, in his work on the 

 Kalahari, |j has tabulated the Uitenhage Series with the Upper 

 Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous. Lemoine believes it to be of 

 Lower Cretaceous age.^ 7 



(b) Additional Evidence for Age. We see from the foregoing that 

 a comparison of the Uitenhage Mollusca with European forms 

 seems to point definitely to a Lower Cretaceous age, for it will 

 be conceded that the evidence of the Cephalopoda must be allowed 

 to carry the greatest weight in influencing a decision. The repre- 

 sentatives of Holcostephanus (sensu stricto), Hamites and Crioceras 

 already recorded, supply in themselves sufficiently striking evidence, 

 and notable additions to these are other forms of Holcostcphanns, as 

 well as representatives of Acanthodiscus and Bochianites included 

 in the collections submitted for examination and described in these 

 pages. Two other species of Holcostephanus (sensu stricto), hitherto 

 undescribed, are represented in the collection of the Geological 

 Society of London. One of these is apparently allied to H. ather- 

 stoni (Sharpe), but has greater lateral compression as well as other 

 distinctive characters. It closely resembles H. psilostomus Neum. 

 and Uhlig, of the European Neocomian, and is the "compressed 

 variety" of H. atherstoni mentioned by Pavlow, :;::: who aptly sug- 

 gested close relationship to a shell from the Neocomian of Spain, 

 figured by Nickles as Holcostephanus hispanicus. The significance 

 of such an assemblage of Cephalopoda in the Uitenhage beds cannot 

 be mistaken, quite apart from the bivalve forms to be mentioned 

 below and a representative of the Crustacean genus Meyeria. In 

 Europe the known species of Holcostephanus (sensu stricto) are 

 almost wholly, if not entirely, confined to strata of Upper 

 Valanginian and Lower Hauterivian age. 



In his paper on the Uitenhage fauna E. Tate ft gave a tabular list 



* Molengraaff (2), p. 119. t Newton (2). 



I de Lapparent (1), p. 1267. Kayser (1), p. 444. 



|| Passarge (1), p. 82; see also p. 597. IF Lemoine (1), pp. 383, 389. 



** Pavlow and Lamplugh (I), pp. 492, 496, (134 and 138 of authors' copy). 



ft Tate (1), p. 166. 



