552 Notices of Memoirs — Report on the Stormberg Coal-field. 



side (Albert), and the conditions of working, are described at pages 5 

 and 6 and 16-33. The seams of coal are not numerous nor thick ; 

 the aggregate being not more than 6 feet 6 inches, at Bushman's 

 Hoek and the Indwe Eiver, with 4 feet more represented by " one 

 or two thin seams of inferior coal, occupying a higher position in the 

 series," a few miles to the south. Ferns from the coal-shales are 

 identified (p. 19) with Pecopteris odontopteroid.es (p. 11), Cyclopteris 

 caneata, and Tceniopteris Daintreei of Queensland. 



The " Red Beds " are described at pages 7-9. The " Cave Sand- 

 stone," described at pages 9 and 10, forms conspicuous precipices, 

 being at some places a solid freestone more than 150 feet thick, 

 almost without any lines of bedding. Water, running over its edge, 

 or oozing out from beneath, forms the numerous caves to which it 

 owes its name. One of these is 330 feet wide at the entrance, 144 

 feet deep, 60 feet high at mouth, lessening to nothing at the back of 

 the cave. The kloofs (gorges), krantzes (precipices), kops (little 

 hills), blocks, caves, and fantastical masses (pulpit-rocks, etc.), of 

 this sandstone give rise to picturesque and sometimes grand scenery. 

 The felspathic material in this sandstone, acted on by infiltrating 

 rain-water, gives the calcareous stalagmite (drip-calc) seen in some 

 of the caves and krantzes. In this sandstone, as in the " Coal- 

 measures "and " Red-beds," ripple-marks and mud-cracks are present, 

 also " tracks of crustaceans." 



The " Volcanic rocks " are described in detail at pp. 10-16. "Two 

 of the cores still preserve a crater-like form ;" these are of very 

 great interest, and are " Glat Kopjes " and " Telemachus Kop." 

 Pipes, throats, flues, plugs, etc., of old volcanos are also met with 

 among the " Stormberg beds " in the Nieuwveldt and Karreebergen 

 (near Caernarvon). The numerous dykes of igneous rock all over 

 the region are referred to ; also the agate-gravel of many rivers of 

 South Africa is noticed as having been derived from the amygcla- 

 loids ; and the origin of " pipe-agate," as due to the uprise of steam 

 in hot vesicular and siliciferous lava from the damp ground over 

 which it flowed, is concisely stated among other interesting facts 

 connected with this division of South-African Geology. 



We may mention that in the "Cape Monthly Magazine," new 

 series, vol. ii. 1873, p. 60, is Mr. Dunn's earlier report on the Storm- 

 berg Coal ; and that Mr. Evans, of Queenstown, has given some 

 useful notes on the Stormberg Coal as known in 1870 (see the 

 " Mining Journal," January 14, 1871) ; also that Mr. G. W. Stow, 

 F.G.S., has described and illustrated the Geology of Dordrecht and 

 other places north and south of the Stormberg, in the Quart. Journ. 

 Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. 1871, pp. 523, etc. 



In conclusion, Mr. Dunn states (p. 32) : — " The tract of country 

 over which coal-outcrops may be expected to occur on the South 

 slopes of the Stormberg, lying between Bushman's Hoek and the 

 Indwe, has not been examined. From the position the coal-measures 

 occupy, it is clear that coal- outcrops will be found right round the 

 base of the Drackensberg, and equally clear that the seams are 

 thicker and the quality better the further they occur to N.E. from the 



