1897] ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN CAPE COLONY 335 



plants. 1 This was dug out for material to construct the railway 

 embankment close by, and when undisturbed was clothed with the 

 ordinary dense bush of the district. The section showed from above 

 downwards 4 to 5 feet of stiff' clay overlying a foot of rolled gravel, 

 the gravel resting on decomposed rock. The gravel had all the 

 appearance of shot of all sizes, from buckshot downwards. A little 

 above the gravel a large number of Hint implements were found, the 

 bulk of which appeared to be "rubbers" possibly used for dressing 

 skins or similar purposes. There were a few spear heads, some 

 fragments of coarse pottery, and a few limpets. 



This excavation is forty feet above the present level of the 

 Quignev, and the gravel probably belongs to that river; the clay is 

 assumed to be the accumulated wash from higher levels. The 

 place appears to have been a workshop, for its position would afford 

 the warmth of the morning sun with the coolness of shade in the 

 afternoon. 



On the north bank of the Buffalo, about twenty chains from the 

 river, and just W. of the road to the Pontoon, is the residence of 

 Mr Gately. The house and grounds stand on the rounded top of 

 an isolated knoll, which is connected with East London East by a 

 narrow neck of land. This neck is the watershed of two small 

 water courses which unite at the S. of the knoll, and run S.W. 

 into ' 1st creek.' On the top of the knoll there are from 2 to 

 3 feet of black mud, separated from the base rock by 1 to 2 

 feet of decomposed rock. The black mud is again seen to the E. 

 of the road to the Pontoon. In this black mud on the- knoll Mr 

 Gately has found round pierced stones, stone flakes, spear heads, 

 coarse pottery, and teeth and bones of hippopotamus. The de- 

 position of this black mud was contemporaneous with the two water 

 courses when they were at a level with the top of the knoll. 



Fringing the whole of the south-eastern coast of South Africa 

 there occurs in detached patches a peculiar wind-stratified calcareous 

 sandstone. Cove Rock and Bats' Cave at East London, the ' bluff ' 

 at Natal, and the Sisters and Fountain rocks near the Fish and 

 Kowie rivers, are conspicuous examples of the formation. At Cove 

 Bock and Bats' Cave it abounds in fossils, especially at the latter. 

 These consist of land and sea shells, mammalian bones, chiefly 

 ruminants, and teeth of hippopotamus, with remains of fishes, 

 apparently all of recent species. The rude and shifting nature 

 of the stratification leaves no doubt that this is an aeolian formation, 

 and comparable to that of the adjoining sandhills. 



1 An idea is prevalent that the castor-oil plant might be profitably grown as a pro- 

 ducer of a cheap lubricant. My own experience is, that it flourishes only where rivers 

 have cut deeply into their banks and exposed deeply seated soils, or where deep cuttings 

 are made, or around the f arth -holes of the porcupine and ant bear. It springs up on 

 this new soil with amazing rapidity, and crowds out every other plant ; but something 

 ails it, as after a few years, whether cultivated or not, it dies down and disappears. 



