PRF.STDENTIAI. ADDRESS SECTION \). IQ 



" I have accumulated a considerable store of facts bearing on our 

 geology, which I hope to write up as opportunity affords, but the almost 

 total absence of any sympathy with my work here, and the poverty and 

 meanness of the powers that be, are serious difficulties in the way of 

 geological work in South Africa. The work that is published by the 

 Government here is simply disgraceful and one is ashamed to own to it. 



" At the Cape I struggled through many years of very uphill work, 

 always hoping for better times and lioping that geology would receive more 

 attention, but my patience quite gave out, and T felt that 1 was merely 

 wasting my life." 



However, against the disadvantages under which these early 

 geologists worked, must be placed the supreme interest which is 

 attached to work in an absolutely new field. As their researches, 

 crude though they were, proceeded, they were privileged to see 

 unfolding, for the first time, in its grand outlines, the wonderful 

 history of this portion of the earth. In the case of Stow, for 

 instance, it was surely some compensation for the hardships 

 which he had undergone, to be able to picture, for the first time, 

 in all its grandeur, the great ice age of South Africa. Unfortun- 

 ately, owing to lack of support, he was not allowed the satisfac- 

 tion of communicating his great discovery to the world at large, 

 but only to the favoured few who were privileged to read, in 

 manuscript, the remarkable memoir which he had prepared. No 

 one who has perused the manuscript of this great work of Stow 

 can doubt that, had it been j^ublished, the great controversy which 

 lasted for many years after his death, regarding the origin of the 

 Dwyka conglomerate, would never have occurred. As it turned 

 out, Stow's discovery was slowly rediscovere 1 piecemeal, and the 

 conclusions which he had arrived at, as early as 1876, cannot be 

 considered as having been finally established before 1905, the 

 year of the visit of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science to this country. TW that visit the doubts which still 

 existed in the minds of foreign geologists, regarding the genuine- 

 ness of the South x\frican ice age, were cleared away. 



So much for the beginnings of geological research in this 

 country. Let us now glance at the conditions under which it h 

 being carried on at present. 



The Geological Survey of the Transvaal and the Geological 

 Commission of the Cape have recently been merged in the Geo- 

 logical Survey of the Union, with a stafif of six geologists, besides 

 other officials, costing altogether, for maintenance, about £10,000 

 per annum. Of the field-geologists, three are working in the 

 Transvaal, two in the Cape Province, and one in Natal. While 

 it is satisfactory to think that the increased prosperity of the 

 country and the advance of public opinion have made the estab- 

 lishment of a permanent survey of this character possible, yet, 

 when one considers the great area of the country comprised by 

 the Union, and the extent to which its prosperity depends on the 

 exploitation of its mineral wealth, it becomes evident that the 

 stafif of the present Survey is quite inadequate. Large tracts of 

 South Africa have perforce to lie neglected, while in the other 



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