TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 875 
Section C.—GEOLOGY. 
PRESIDENT OF THE Section,—Proressor H. A, Miers, M.A., D.Sc., 
F.RB.S. 
The President delivered the following Address at Johannesburg, on Tuesday, 
August 29 :— 
In opening the proceedings of Section C in its first visit to South Africa, and 
speaking first on behalf of those who are visitors, I think I may justly claim that 
to no Section of the British Association can this visit be more interesting or even 
more exciting than to us; we enter for the first time a country whose geological 
features and history, and whose mineral productions, have long aroused the 
keenest interest among European geologists and mineralogists. 
We have followed the discoveries and discussions of South African writers ; 
we have read your views and have become familiar with your terminology ; we 
have heard the reports of those who have visited the country, either as travellers 
or with the special object of investigating its geological problems or mineral 
resources; and, indeed, ever since the Geological Society of London received the 
historic papers of Andrew Geddes Bain, the father of South African geology, many 
of the memoirs of your own geologists have been communicated to European 
societies and journals; we have looked from afar with yearning eyes upon this 
alluring country; and at length we have found ourselves upon its shores. 
It has not been given to many of us to see those great pioneers of South African 
geology whose work was done in the days before amateurs and experts could 
come out for a few weeks or months to take a hurried survey of the country ; but 
their enduring labours, which have laid the foundation of all subsequent work, are 
well known to us, and it is not necessary for me to do more than mention the 
familiar names of Bain, Wyley, Stow, Atherstone, Sutherland, and Dunn, Of 
these only the last named survives; but when one remembers that his maps of 
North Cape Colony and of Orange River Colony have served as the basis of the 
maps now in use, one is reminded how recent is the whole history of South 
African geology, and how much was achieved in so short a time by these early 
workers. 
It is exactly one hundred years since John Barrow wrote the concluding words 
of his ‘Travels in South Africa’ which first directed attention to the geology of 
this country ; it is only fifty years since Bain sent home the manuscript of the 
classic papers to which I have already alluded. 
Since their days many have been the scientific visiturs to the country who have 
remained there for longer or shorter periods, whose works have made us familiar - 
with its problems and have contributed to their solution; the names of Cohen, 
Draper, Exton, Gibson, Green, Griesbach, Passarge, Rubidge, Sawyer, Schenck, 
and Seeley recall some of the most substantial scientific work which has been done 
either by visitors or residents. Several others who, without visiting the country, 
have by their researches in Europe helped to unrayel the problem of South African 
