THE 



OEOLOaiCAL MAGAZINE 



VOLUME LIX. 



No. IX.— SEPTEMBER, 1922. 



ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 



On a Small Collection of Fossil Plants from the 

 Tanganyika Territory. 



By A. C. Seward, F.R.S., Pres.G.S. 



WITH NOTES ON THE TANGA BEDS BY DR. E. 0. TEALE. 



PLATE XVII. 



rpHE specimens submitted to me were obtained by Dr. E. 0. 

 -*- Teale in the Tanga Hinterland in the Tanganyika Territory 

 from beds assigned by Bornliardt to the Stormberg series of the 

 Karroo system. Tanga is situated approximately on Lat. 5° S. 

 Owing to the imperfect state of preservation and the fragmentary 

 nature of the specimens, which occur as impressions on a hard 

 laminated arenaceous shale, it is impossible to express with con- 

 fidence an opinion on the precise geological horizon of the beds or 

 to assign all the fossils to a definite position in the vegetable kingdom. 



My opinion is that the plants indicate either a Triassic or a Rhaetic 

 horizon. 



Dr. Teale has kindly contributed a map of the district and the 

 following notes : — - 



" The beds in which the identifiable plant fossils were found form 

 the middle or dark shale division of a sedimentary series which 

 comprises a considerable portion of the coastal zone of the Tanga 

 district. (See map, fig. 1.) 



" The region was described in 1900 by Bornhardt,'- who regarded the 

 beds as representing the upper portion of the Karroo system ; he 

 suggested their correlation with the Stormberg beds of South Africa. 

 The present palajontological examination ponits to a greater affinity 

 of the plants with European than with South African forms, and there 

 is a strong probability that the Tanga rocks represent a distinct and 

 later basin than those with tyjiical Lower Karroo characters further 

 south and south-west in the territory and elsewhere in South Africa . 



" The area which these rocks embrace is ijicliided between the coast 

 on the east and the margin of the crystalline rocks to the west at 

 about 20 miles inland. The southern boundary of the exposures 

 lies a little to the north of the Tanga-Moshi railway line, along which 



1 W. Bornliardt, Zur Oberfldchengestaltuncj und Geologic Deutsch-Ost- 

 Afrikas, Deutscli-Ost-Afrika, vii, 1900. 



VOL. LIX. — NO. IX. 25 



