6N SOtTTH AFRICAN STRATA. 133 



the beds in question, but also everything down to the Namaqualand 

 schists (i.e., the Swaziland System). 



Report by Sir T. H. Holland. 



I send herewith some notes which I have hurriedly written regarding 

 the questions which you ask in your circular to the Committee on South 

 African stratigraphy. It is difficult for me to say exactly how much of 

 my Indian experience is of value to you, and it would be much more 

 satisfactory, although I see that it is impossible, for the Committee to 

 meet and fight out the undetermined questions. From my point of 

 view, I have no right to vote on any question except the wide one of 

 retaining the term Archaean. For the rest, my remarks are no more 

 than suggestions to those who have the requisite local knowledge. 



I am in favour of making two divisions for the pre-Palaeozoic rocks, 

 and would suggest the retention of the term Archaean for the basement 

 complex of schists and gneisses. The Swaziland series of the Transvaal 

 and Natal appear to be essentially similar in lithological characters to 

 those of America included in the Archaean. 1 Their stratigraphical 

 position being in agreement with their lithological characters, they 

 have as much right to be regarded as Archaean as have the formations so 

 named in Europe, and the one point to remember is the fact that the 

 term Archaean is expressive to the geologist, although no one could prove 

 that the Archaeans of America, Europe, and South Africa are con- 

 temporaries. The Swaziland Series bears a relation to the younger rocks 

 very similar to that existing between Lawson's Ontarian group and the 

 Animikies, and a similar relation exists in India between the Dharwars 

 and associated gneisses and schists, on the one hand, and the unfossili- 

 ferous Cuddapahs and Bijawars, on the other. 



There is no justification for the recent American mutilation of Dana's 

 term Archaean ; the gneissose granites, granitoid gneisses, and schists are 

 not necessarily older than the Huronians of the typical area, and some- 

 times probably they are younger. The separation of the granitoid types 

 on the assumption that they possibly represent parts of the primitive 

 crust has no scientific foundation, for there may never have been a 

 primitive crust in the sense assumed in so many text-books that accept 

 the Nebular Hypothesis as an unimpeachable gospel. Possibly rocks 

 of the Huronian type, including even the conglomerates, were formed 

 long before the growth of the globe noticeably ceased, and it therefore 

 seems best to draw a group boundary line at the great Eparchaean 

 interval which appears to be so world-wide. Below this line are schists 

 of all sorts, of sedimentary as well as of igneous origin, closely folded 

 and foliated; above this line, on such stable Horsts as the Great Lakes 

 region in America, the central and southern parts of Africa, and the 

 Peninsula of India, there are old, generally unfossiliferous, probably in 

 all cases pre-Cambrian, rocks that are sometimes unaltered, sometimes 

 folded locally, and sometimes metamorphosed locally, but not gathered 

 into close folds with gneisses and schists. 



In peninsular India I propose to retain the name Archaean for 



1 The Geology of South Africa, 1905, p. 1 



