16 /. R. Gregory — Lignite-bed near Cape Town. 



it -will be seen that 80 feet 8 inches had already been sunk below 

 the lignite and no coal had yet been arrived at. Mr. Thomas 

 told me that he thought it likely he would soon get coal before he 

 went much deeper. I told him positively that it was absolutely 

 impossible to find coal anywhere in the neighbourhood,, and that the 

 lig-nite was a true Tertiary ligTute, or brown coal, and in it I had 

 found small fragments of the large fan-like leaves of the palm, 

 similar to those in the Bovey coal in Devonshire, and which prove it 

 to be of Miocene, or, at all events, of Tertiary age : and then the 

 clays and sands evidently belong to the Tertiary Epoch, and are 

 similar to our Eoghsh deposits of pipe-clays and Eocene sands. In 

 the bed of black friable sandstone, 4 feet 3 inches ia thickness (and 

 yet it can hardly be called a sandstone, as it is not compact enough), 

 is a veiy large amount of a viscid petroleum-like substance which 

 dii'ectly overlies the ligmite bed, and the black bituminous clay im- 

 mediately below it, and of a thickness of 7 feet 1 inch. I suggested 

 that if these beds were of any extent they might be turned to account 

 for making paraffin or some other oil, and used for burning ; but 

 then, ag-ain, it must be borne in mind that there is no fuel but wood 

 in the district, and not a large quantity of that, so that some of the 

 product must be employed to continue the manufacture : it is there- 

 fore doubtftil if such an undertaking would pay. 



In returaing from Joostenberg I stopped at the D'Urban Eoad 

 Station, where I heard that another bed of lignite existed : this is 

 only about Vl\ miles fr-om Cape Town, Joostenberg being about 40 

 miles. This bed is about one mile fr-om the station : here I found 

 three small pits nearly full of water ; the lignite appeared very 

 similar, but perhaps in a little thicker beds than at Joostenberg, 

 with the same variety of sands and clays, or nearly so. I think it 

 may possibly be a contiauation of the deposit at J oostenberg, though 

 25 miles distant. 



Some short time after this I went on a journey up the country and 

 heard nothing more of the "' Coal diggings, " till I accidently saw a 

 notice ia one of the papers that the works hadbeen stopjjed, — and that 

 they had dug 29 feet deeper since I was there, and then abandoned 

 them, so that in addition to the beds in the above table the following 

 have to be added : — 



FT. ET. 



BroTVTi and red sandstone 9 



Bro^vn and bine sandstone 8 



Yellow loose sandy rock 12 



29 

 In previous table 90 11 



Total 119 11 



In concluding this notice, I may just draw attention to the con- 

 duct of the newspaper editors. It seems that the Enghsh Times 

 quoted or received notes of this '•' coal venture," which were inserted 

 as a paragraph. After the speculation had been abandoned, the 

 Cape papers turned round on the Times with a paragraph headed 

 '•'Sold ao-ain. The London Times of such a date, etc., says that a 



