96 Obituary— Rev. Dr. Gordon— Mr. T. C. J. Bain. 



him walking along the street with the briskness and vigour — one 

 might almost say of youth — which so characterized him, that his 

 end was so near. But a severe cold, caught at the end of the month, 

 developed other complications, which at his great age it was im- 

 possible to resist; and it was not with surprise that many received 

 the sad intelligence of his death, which occurred at his residence of 

 Braebirnie, Elgin, on the morning of Tuesday, 12th December.^ 



MR. T. C. J. BAIN, OF THE CAPE COLONY. 



Mk. Thomas Charles John Bain, son of the eminent South- 

 African Geologist, Andrew Geddes Bain,^ lately died at Rondebosch, 

 near Cape Town, September 28th, 1893, aged sixty-four. He 

 inherited his father's taste for engineering, travel, and geological 

 research, with a strong constitution for withstanding hardships of 

 work and travel in the wildest parts of the Cape Colony. In 1854 

 he succeeded his father as the Inspector of Eoads (after an Assistant- 

 ship for six years) and District Railway Engineer. In 1874 he 

 was the District Inspector of Eoads, and in 1888 he became 

 Geological and Irrigation Surveyor. He was a J.P. for the whole 

 of the Western Province. The magnificent roads and passes in the 

 Colony are monuments of the skill of father and son ; and with 

 both of them opportunities for observation and discovery were not 

 neglected ; but geological results of great importance followed Ihe 

 noting of sections and the unearthing of fossils, particularly of the 

 numerous great and small reptilian bones and skeletons. Several of 

 these are known specifically by the appellation of Bainii, after 

 either the father or the son. One particularly interesting skeleton 

 of the gi'eat Pariasauriis Bainii was unearthed by Mr. T. Bain and 

 Prof. H. G. Seeley, near Fraserburg, in the Nieuweld Range, about 

 two years ago, and is now mounted perfect in the British Museum 

 (Natural History), London, and represented by a good model, life- 

 sized, in the Museum at Cape Town. 



Mr. Thomas Bain furnished some of the earliest Reports on the 

 Colonial gold-fields of Kuysa and Prince- Albert ; and of late had 

 been successful in boring for water in British Bechuanaland and 

 elsewhere. 



The widow survives, with four sons, and four married and three 

 unmarried daughters. One of the sons is under the Civil Commissioner 

 of Albany, and one in the Public Works Department ; and we may 

 fairly hope that, though the Country has lost such good and useful 

 public servants as A. G. and T. C. J. Bain, yet some of the surviving 

 successors of those eminent men may further advance the scientific 

 status of the Colony, and add to its prosperity and importance by 

 elucidating its geological structure, thereby increasing the benefits 

 derived from agriculture, stock-growing, and mining ; especially by 

 the aid of good water-supply and irrigation. T. R. J. 



^ We are indebted to the Moray and Nairn Eayress, of December 16, for most of 

 the above particulars. 



2 An obituary notice of Mr. A. G. Bain appeared in the Geological Magazine 

 for January, 1864, pp. 47, 48. Mr. Thos. Eaiu is mentioned therein as an already 

 known geologist. 



