704 report — 1884. 



perhaps because the relations of the beds with remains of animals to the plant- 

 bearing strata are less clearly known. It will be sufficient to notice some of the 

 most prominent peculiarities of these formations here, as I hope that a fuller 

 account will be given to the section by Professor Rupert Jones, who has made an 

 especial study of South African geology. 



In the interior of South Africa, occupying an immense tract in the northern 

 parts of Cape Colony, the Orange Free State, Transvaal, and the deserts to the 

 -westward of the last two, there is a great system of sandstones and shales with 

 some coal-beds, generally known as the ' Karoo formation.' The sequence of sub- 

 divisions is the following : — 1 



Stormberg beds, about 1,800 feet thick 

 •Beaufort „ „ 1,700 ,, „ 

 Koonap „ „ 1,500 „ „ 



The beds are but little disturbed in general, and form great plateaux. They rest 

 ■partly on Palaeozoic rocks (Carboniferous or Devonian), partly on gneissic forma- 

 tions. As in Australia, the underlying Palaeozoic rocks contain a flora allied to the 

 Carboniferous flora of Europe. 



At the base of the Karoo formation are certain shales with coal, known as the 

 Ecca beds, and remarkable for containing a great boulder-bed, the Ecca or Dwylca 

 conglomerate, 8 like those in the Talchir beds in India and the Hawkesbury sand- 

 stone in Australia, the boulders, precisely as in the Talchir beds, being embedded in 

 fine compact silt or sandstone, which in both countries has been mistaken for a 

 volcanic rock. The Ecca beds are said to contain Glossopteris and some other 

 plants, but the accounts are as yet somewhat imperfect. The whole Karoo system, 

 according to the latest accounts, rests unconformably on the Ecca beds, whilst the 

 Ecca beds are conformable to the underlying Palaeozoic strata. 



Unfortunately, although a considerable number of animals and a few plants 

 have been described from the ' Karoo formation,' it is but rarely that the precise 

 subdivision from which the remains were brought has been clearly known. 



The known species of plants are very few in number ; Glossopteris browniana, 

 and two other species of Glossopteris? liubidyea, a fern nearly akin to Gangam- 

 opteris and Glossopteris, and a Pkyllotheca-like stem are recorded, without any cer- 

 tain horizon, but probably from the Beaufort beds. There is no doubt as to the close 

 similarity of these plants to those from the Damudas of India and the Newcastle 

 beds of Australia. 



From the Stormberg beds there are reported Pecopteris or Tltinnfeldia odonto- 

 pteroides, Cyclopteris cuneata, and Taniiopteris daintreei, 4 three of the most 

 characteristic fossils of the uppermost plant-beds in Australia, and all found in the 

 Upper Jurassic Queensland beds. 



The animals found in the Karoo beds 5 are more numerous by far than the 

 plants. The greater portiou have been procured from the Beaufort beds. They 

 comprise numerous genera of dicynodont, theriodont, and dinosaurian reptiles, 

 two or three genera of labyrinthodont amphibians, some fish allied to Palceomscus 

 and Amblyplerus, and one mammal, Tritylodon. Of the above the Tritylodon and 

 some reptilian and fish remains are said to be from the Stormberg beds. 



Tritylodon is most nearly related to a Rhsetic European mammal. The relations 

 of the reptiles called Therioc&ntia by Sir R. Owen are not clearly defined, but 

 representatives of them and of. the Dieynodontia, as already noticed, are said to be 

 found in the Permian of Russia. The Glossopteris and its associates may of course 

 be classed as Carboniferous or Jurassic, according to taste. Neither the fauna nor 

 flora show sufficiently close relations to those of any European beds for any safe 

 conclusions as to age, even if homotaxis and synchronism be considered identical. 



' Q. J. G. S. xxiii. 1867, p. 142. 



2 Sutherland, Q. J. G. 8. xxvi. p. 514. 



3 One classed by Tate as Dictyopteris, 0. J. G. S. xxiii. p. 141. 



* Dunn, ' Report on Stormberg Coal-Field,' Geol. May. 187!), p. 552. 

 5 Owen, ' Cat. Foss. Rept. S. Africa Brit, Mus. 1876,' &c. 



