Astronomical Soctety. 525 



to by Captain Everest. Nothing in the shape of a ruin was to be 

 seen ; but the sappers were set to work, and, in a couple of days, 

 exposed the foundations of a building, 54 feet long by 12, with three 

 partition walls, and an oven at one end : evidently the site of a 

 dwelling-house, as had been described. 



While this operation was going forward, Ferrit Cotsee pointed out 

 another spot, on which, he said, there had formerly been an old ruin. 

 The sappers were again set to work ; and, at the depth of about 3 

 feet, encountered a wall, which they traced and cleared, with great 

 labour, in three or four days. This foundation, like the other, is of 

 stone and cla3^ It is 22 feet by 12, and generally from 2 to 3 feet 

 below the surface. Mr. Maclear attributes the depth to the sliding 

 down of the soil from above, the ground over it being much inclined. 

 Portions of chaff or short straw were found deep in the claj^; but 

 little confidence could be placed in this, as affording indications of 

 a granary; for thej' might have been carried down by ants or mice. 

 Ferrit Cotsee could give no account of the purpose of this building ; 

 there had been no roofed building there within his recollection. 



There were now three ruins exposed to view, and the question 

 arose, whether any one of these was the granary of Lacaille ? The 

 first was asserted by Ferrit Cotsee to be the ruins of his father's 

 dwelling-house ; the second was discovered exactly under the spot 

 which his sister-in-law, from his mother's information, had described 

 as the site of Oker Schalkevyk's house ; with regard to the tliird, 

 there was no direct evidence, but it stood relatively to the others in 

 the position in which granaries usually stand in the countr}^ and it 

 was difficult to conceive any other purpose to which it could have 

 been applied. Its dimensions were too contracted for a dwelling- 

 house, and its masonry too good for carrying the flimsy hut of a 

 hottentot or slave ; which, besides, are not oblong, but circular, and 

 never of more substantial materials than mud, except at the mis- 

 sionary institutions. After a minute and careful comparison of all 

 the circumstances, Mr. Maclear came to the conclusion that the plat- 

 form of Captain Everest was the dwelling-house of Cotsee's father, 

 as the son asserts it to have been, and that the granary was on the 

 foundation he had last exposed. This conclusion was subsequently 

 confirmed by an entry discovered among the colonial records, from 

 which it appeared that the ])roprietor of the place, in 17.52, was 

 Cornelius Cotsee, the grandfather of Ferrit ; and that Oker Schal- 

 kevyk, supposed by Captain Everest to be the i)roprietor, was not a 

 proprietor, l)ut a householder, at the will of Cotsee. The meridio- 

 nal distance of the granary from the platform of Captain Everest is 

 210 feet, or rather more than 2". 



ITie signals at the other two angles of the triangle, namely, Rie- 

 beck's Castle and C^apoc Jierg, were easily recognised. Tlic cliarcoal 

 remnant of the signal-fire still remains on Kie1)eck's Castle, and 

 was carefully covered up, by Mr. Maclear, with stones. 'I'hc top of 

 this rugged mountain, he ol)serves, i)resents nothing inviting, and 

 the ascent is laborious and difiicult : hence the reason of the signal 



