Notices of Memoirs — Short Notices. 463 



II. — Shokt Notices. 



1. South African Geology. — Dr. F. H. Hatch extends our know- 

 ledge of the geology of the Transvaal by describing in Trans. Geol. 

 Soc. South Africa (vii, 1904) the Marico district. This is stated 

 to be a great syncline formed by the Pretoria beds, the Dolomite 

 and Black Eeef Formations, and the underlying Ventersdorp beds. 

 Dr. Hatch describes the interesting igneous complex to which 

 reference has been made by Molengraaff under the name of the 

 "Plutonic Series of the Bush Veld." In this complex the great 

 development of pyroxenite with associated peridotites would appear 

 to constitute an outer ultra-basic zone. For, as one travels east- 

 wards, one traverses successively zones of a more and more acid 

 type, until rocks are reached in which quartz plays the predominant 

 role. A rough map attached to the paper explains this succession. 



Dr. Corstorphine, in dealing with the Central South African 

 Coalfield (Trans. Geol. Soc. South Africa, vi), considers that the 

 coal of Vereeniging and that of the Orange Eiver Colony, as well 

 as that of the Eastern Transvaal and the neighbouring portion of 

 Natal, is of Ecca Age, Molengraaff (ibid.) concludes that the 

 remarkable tectonics of the Vredefort mountain-land have been 

 caused by the intrusion of a huge granite boss, the Vredefort granite, 

 which phenomenon took place after the deposition of the rocks of 

 the Cape System (Black Eeef series, Dolomite series, and Pretoria, 

 or Gatsrand, series), and before the deposition of the strata of the 

 Karroo System ; and in the discussion which followed. Hatch said 

 he agreed, and that Molengraaff was also probably correct with 

 regard to the overtilting of the Witwatersrand beds. 



J. P. Johnson has described (ibid.) some implement-bearing 

 gravels in the neighbourhood of Johannesburg. These show facies 

 of true Eoliths, Palseoliths, and Neoliths, as compared with 

 European examples, and the author comes to the conclusion that 

 the Bezuidenhont Valley drift must be much newer than the hill- 

 drift of Eordekop, and that the close of the Neogene era in South 

 Africa saw much the same evolution in the culture of its stone-age 

 as did that of the Thames basin and the rest of Britain and Western 

 Europe, and that such progress must have taken an approximately 

 equal length of time. 



J. Kuntz (ibid.) gives an interesting example of the pseudo- 

 morphosis of quartz pebbles into calcite. T. N. Leslie, in reviewing 

 the fossil flora of Vereeniging, carefully points out the many errors 

 that have occurred in recording various plants from these beds, and 

 gives Seward's final list of plants as showing the Permo-Carboni- 

 ferous age of these plants as compared with those of India and 

 South America. 



The Annual Eeports for 1901 and 1902 of the Geological 

 Commission of the Cape of Good Hope provide much matter of 

 special interest, Messrs. Eogers and Schwarz report on a journey 

 from Swellendam to Mount Bay, on a general survey of the rocks 

 in the southern part of the Transkei and Pondoland, including 



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