Prof. T. Rupert Jones — Some Central African Fossils. 553 



IV. — On Some Fossils from Central Africa. 

 By Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., F.G.S., etc. 



T N Professor Henry Druramond's " Tropical Africa," 8vo. London, 

 1 1888, pp. 183-199 are occupied with an interesting " Geological 

 Sketch " of the country between the Zambesi River (about 18° S. Lat.) 

 and the Tanganyika plateau (about 3° S. Lat.), his own observations 

 having been made along a route from Kilimane on the coast, to the 

 Shire, and up that river, by Lake Shirwa and Lake N}'assa, to 

 Karonga (or Karonga's village) on the north west shore near the 

 end of the lake ; and thence through the Uchungu district, for about 

 70 miles, in a part of the Tanganyika plateau. This region, like 

 most of the country bordering the lake, is composed of " granite 

 and gneiss." There are igneous rocks on the north-eastern shoi'e at 

 the lake's head ; and a stretch of sedimentary strata for about twenty 

 miles south of Karonga on the shore, and further south inland away 

 from the lake (as indicated on the map in Prof. Drummond's book). 

 These strata are referred to as "red and grey sandstones, fine con- 

 glomerate, limestone, shale, and coal," and are shown on the map 

 as the same as some west of the Lake Tanganyika, — some about six 

 degrees to the East, towards Zanzibar, — and some on and below the 

 Zambesi, including Livingstone's coal-beds at Tete on that river. 1 

 Indeed these beds are correlated (at p. 185) with the series in Cape 

 Colony and Natal known as the Karoo Formation, — at all events as 

 having "a somewhat similar relation" to the gneissic plateau. 



Coal. — At page 187, Prof. Drummond refers to a locality where 

 coal was found some years ago by Mr. Cecil Rhodes, examined 

 subsequently by Mr. James Stewart, and revisited by himself — 

 namely, "on the western shore of Lake Nyassa, about 10° South 

 Latitude." He does not report so favourably of this coal-seam as 

 Mr. J. Stewart did in the " Proceed. R. Geograph. Soc." new series, 

 vol. iii. 1881, p. 264. The latter observer noticed that in the valley 

 of the Rikuru. running northward across 10° 45' S. Lat., there is a 

 great change from " the granite and quartz, which prevail throughout 

 the whole country from the Murchison Cataracts on the Shire River 

 to Lake Tanganyika," to argillaceous rocks and shales, hard and 

 soft, with sandstone, dipping 1 in 2^ west and by north. Reaching 

 the mouth of the Rikuru on Lake Nyassa, in south latitude 10° 45" 15', 

 and going northward along the coast, after three miles he came to 

 "the stream in which is the coal discovered by Mr. Rhodes. The 

 coal lies in a clay bank tilted up at an angle of 45°, dip west. It 

 is laid bare over only some 30 feet, and is about seven feet thick. 

 It hardly looks as if it were in its original bed. The coal is broken 

 and thrown about, as if it had been brought down by a landslip, and 

 traces of clay are found in the interstices. Yet the bed is compact 

 and full of good coal. I traced it along the hillside for some 200 

 yards, and found it cropping out on the surface here and there. It 



1 It is mentioned at p. 186 that the black rock on the western border of the Shire 

 valley, at about 17° S. lat. thought by Livingstone to be coal, probably is a "very 

 dark diorite," which is present among the igneous rocks there. 



