48 Miscellaneous. 
Mr. Bain’s readiness to impart information on his favourite science, 
and the ardour he felt and inspired others with in its pursuit, will 
long be gratefully remembered by those who have been led by him 
to explore the fertile fields of South-African Geology. 
Mr. Bain was a man of powerful frame and great physical energy 
and endurance; nor did he fail in a well-known attribute of a good 
geologist,—he was pre-eminently ‘good company,’ being gifted with 
great humour, and having a large fund of anecdotes of the early 
times of the Cape Settlement, rich in incident, which will give em- 
ployment to the pen of some future Cooper. Moreover he had an 
excellent voice, and sang with great taste and feeling the songs of 
Burns and other bards of his native land. He was a warm friend ; 
and brought up a family of ten children to be a credit to his name. 
Mr. Thomas Bain is employed in the same department as his late 
father was; and has already done good service in Geology. 
The robust constitution of Mr. Bain showed, about two years ago, 
signs of having felt the strain to which his arduous labours had 
exposed it; and symptoms of heart-disease showed themselves. He 
came to this country last summer in the hope of recruiting his health; 
and had barely time to enjoy the warm reception of Sir R. I. Mur- 
chison, Professor Owen, and other leaders of science, to whom his 
labours had made him known, when the damp and cold of approach- 
ing winter rendered his return to the more genial climate of the 
Cape the only hope of prolonging his life. He died a few days after 
landing.—R. N. 
Tur Cotovrinc Marrer or tHe Biuz Forrst-Marsre.— 
The chief colouring ingredient of rocks and of many minerals is iron 
in its several degrees of oxidation. ‘Thus, we have red and brown 
jasper, &c., blue and red marls of the New Red Sandstone. Iron in 
another state of chemical combination has been recently determined 
by Prof. Church (Chem. Soc. Journ., Nov. 1864, p. 379) to give to the 
darker portion of the iamestone of the Forest-Marble its blue colour. 
The bedded limestones of this formation are characterized, as is well 
known to geologists, by dark mesial bands in the blocks into which 
the rock has naturally divided. The dark band frequently constitutes 
nine-tenths of the bulk of a thick compact slab ; very thin slabs are 
sometimes without a dark band. The dark stone is most abundant, 
and is of a deeper tint towards the base of the deposit. The lower- 
most stratum rests upon a blue clay of exactly the same tint as the 
dark stone, and owes its colour to the same substance. The colour- 
ing material of the dark bands is diffused iron-pyrites; the paler tint 
of the surrounding parts of the slab is due to the iron-oxide result- 
ing from the oxidation of the pyrites. Similar appearances are 
familiar to us in the limestones of the Lower Lias, the deeper seated 
limestones being of a dark-blue colour, and those parts exposed to 
atmospheric agencies being light-grey or white ; whilst intermediate 
portions exhibit the darker internal bend as in the limestones of the 
Forest-Marble.—R. T. 
