571.1 334 
Vv 
Evidence of the Antiquity of Man in Kast London, 
Cape Colony; with a Note on the Castor-Oil 
Plant. 
BOUT the year 1857, in opening up a quarry on the left bank 
of the Quigney River, at its junction with the Buffalo, a shell 
mound was discovered, forming a rounded bluff roughly measuring 150 
by 150 by 40 feet deep. The mound was clothed by 18 inches of 
made soil, masked by vegetable growth on the surface, and con- 
tained abundance of shells of recent mollusca (Patella, Mytilus, 
Ostrea, Haliotis, etc.), with bones of fish, birds, antelopes, hippopo- 
tami, and other mammalia, layers of ash, fragments of charcoal, and 
pieces of coarse pottery. No other implement of any kind was 
found, but burnt stones were very common; most of the deposit was 
removed to fill up a lagoon behind the East Training Wall of the 
Buffalo River. 
The locality had remained unaltered since 1827, for in 1867 
the writer accompanied the Rev. W. R. Thomson on a visit 
there, and heard him say that the spot was quite unchanged. The 
same trees and the same track remained, and but for the impedi- 
ment caused by the construction of the West Training Wall of the 
river Mr Thomson would have undertaken to drive a bullock waggon 
along the same track as he had done in 1827. This track, it may 
be of interest to mention, ran in a straight line from where Mr A. 
Webb’s house now stands, to the right bank of the Quigney at its 
mouth ; then skirting the mound, it proceeded for one hundred yards 
along the Buffalo River towards the mouth, and from thence on the 
east bank it crossed the river diagonally to the ravine at the large 
quarry on the west bank. 
So far as is known this kitchen-midden is the most recent trace 
of primitive man at East London, and yet must be in itself of vast 
antiquity. 
Passing to the back of the new jail one sees a small excavation 
in the railway cutting, which in 1887 was covered with castor-oil 
[+ The following personal observations by Mr Geo. R. M‘Kay, relative to discoveries of 
ancient man in East London, have been forwarded to the editor by Dr Schénland. 
They formed part of a lecture delivered in 1887, and the editor is glad to put them on 
record. | 
