Nov. 3, 1872] 

crystalline sandstone, granite, clayslate, agate, tour- 
maline, iron pyrites, garnet, garnet spinel, &c., which | 
compose this alluvium, are all roundedly polished and | 
waterworn, and are imbedded at Klipdrift in a brownish, 
fatty earth. 
“The question ari<es, Js this alluvium of recent or ancient 
formation? Did the majority of the pebbles exist in the 
form of a conglomerate, aggregated from the alluvium of 
a former age? Or have the Kopjes at no very late period 
been the bed of the river? 
“Tt is my opinion that the water-worn gravel has been 
under the influences of running water prior to the last 
great changes which formed the present landscape. The 
greater number of the water-worn pebbles and boulders 
are of the basalt of the Kopjes. Many of them are a crystal- 
linesandstone, others are water-worn fragments of clayslate, 
sandstone, &c., of the sedimentary rocks which exist in 
the Kopjes. The agates, tourmalines, and garnets 
are undoubtedly- from some supercumbent conglome- 
rate sandstone which has yielded to denudation and no 
longer exists at Klipdrift, and also toa considerable extent 
from the amygdaloidal trap everywhere prevalent. I 
have in my possession from the Vaal a single fragment 
of red sandstone containing garnets, but I have not suc- 
ceeded in tracing this to its source. 
“Tt will, therefore, be sufficiently apparent that there 
must have existed, at a remote geological period, a series 
of metamorphic and sedimentary rocks which lay above 
the present rock system of the region, and that, through 
successive disturbances and persistent denudation, these 
have been worn away, forming in great part the alluvial 
soil of the present surface. 
of this series still exist, as in the clay-slaty crystalline 
sandstone and conglomerate of Sitlacomies Valley, in the 
thin layers of claystone, sandstone, and micaceous sand- 
stone of some of the Kopjes now worked for diamonds, aud 
generally in the fragments of sedimentary rocks scattered 
over the surface along the whole Vaal Valley. 
“T am decidedly inclined to think that the diamonds 
have not been washed down from some higher region. 
I hope to show in another article that the Free State 
possesses an independent diamondiferous centre, and 
that there no river has existed at any time, for there is 
no evidence of water-wearing, and the soil is not alluvial, 
Diamonds have been discovered two hours’ distance from 
Potchefstroom, and all down the Vaal to its junction with 
the Orange River, and thence to ten hours’ distance below | 
Hope Town. This is a stretch of at least 500 miles. I | 
believe the diamonds have come from: some rock which 
“may now have vanished, but which existed formerly 
throughout the whole region. 
“Tn concluding at present, I have to make some obser- 
vations on the position of the gravelly soil which is now 
being washed for diamonds. 
favour of the summits of the Kopjes. They have tested 
this belief, or rather formed it, from their experience of 
the old Kopje. How can it be explained that the soil is 
alluvial and yet deposited far above the influences of the | 
river? For two or three miles inland, which I investi- 
gated, there is everywhere on the heights the same deposit. 
“There are certain facts which enable me to point out 
the geological history of these Kopjes. The summits 
are all basalt. 
NATURE 
In some few spots remnants | 
The old diggers are in | 
This has been protruded through the | 
3 
eri otiataeen and Boftglonenaie traps. Ata subsequent 
period, however, there must have been another elevat on 
for the blocks and columns radiate from a centre, so that 
the crevices are wedge-shaped, or expanding outwards to 
the surface. This subsequent upheaval was evidently 
not simultaneous throughout the whole region, but suc- 
cessive, and therefore the bed of the stream was changed 
from place to place. The present bed of the Vaal can- 
not be an old one, and the whole surface of the country as 
far as the alluvial soil extends was, at different previous 
times, under the wearing and breaking influence of the 
river. Granting, then, a series of rocks such as have 
been described undergoing water-wearing by the ancient 
Vaal, which by intermittent and successive upheavals was 
compelled continually to change its course, and the pre- 
sence of alluvial gravel on the summits of the Kopjes far 
and wide is easily explained. 
“Tn the hollows no gravel is apparent, because a thick 
covering of sand, the accumulation of present denudation, 
lies over the gravel. Diggers do not care to undertake 
the labour of carrying off the surface sand at present. 
In time this will be done, and I am convinced there will 
be found more diamonds than on the Kopjes And when 
the day comes when the bed of the stream shall be 
searched by deflecting the water in canals through the 
| many flats which abound in the Valley of the Vaal, a 
superior diamondiferous gravel will be worked. From all 
I saw and for the reason I have now advanced, the pre- 
sent diamond digging of South Africa is only trifling in 
comparison to what it should and will ultimately be.” 


THE QUARTERLY WEATHER REPURT 
Quarterly Weather Report of the Meteorological Office, 
with Pressure and Temperature Tables for the Year 
1869. Part I. January—March, 1869. 
T is an arduous undertaking to establish and work a 
system which shall give us a perfectly full, trust- 
worthy, and continuous account of the meteorology of 
even so small a part of the globe as the British Isles. 
The Meteorological Committee of the Royal Society are 
therefore deserving of credit in the systematic effort which 
| they have made to establish the weather records of these 
isles upon a scientific foundation. Nor must we forget 
that our Government has been very liberal in this matter, 
and that a grant of 10,000/. a year devoted to meteorology 
* represents a very handeone contribution from that national 
purse which is, alas! so often shut when it ought to be 
open, and so often open when it ought to be shut. 
Let us now consider how far the Committee have suc- 
ceeded in advancing our knowledge of British Meteoro- 
logy, and in what respect, if any, they have fallen short 
o that which they might have been expected to accom- 
| plish. For this purpose let us divide the labours of the 
Committee into three heads, and consider separately their 
system of obtaining information, their system of discussing 
it, and, in the last place, their system of publication. 
In the first place, and with respect to their observa- 
| tional system, it is hardly necessary to state that they have 
| established seven observatories in which the various 
meteorological elements are registered continuously by 
| means of photography, or that the Kew Observatory has 

| 
