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II — On the Discovery of the Fossil Remains of Bidental and other 



Reptiles in South Africa. 



By ANDREW GEDDES BAIN, Esq. 



Abridged from a letter addressed by the Author to Sir Henry De la Beche, 

 For. Sec. G.S., and dated " Fort Beaufort, April 29, 1844." 



[Read January 8th, 1 845.] 

 Plate II. 

 XlAVING been employed, during the last seven years, under the Officers of the 

 Corps of Royal Engineers, in superintending the construction of military roads in 

 the colony of the Cape, more especially on its eastern frontier, and having also 

 travelled far beyond that frontier in a northerly direction, I have had opportunities 

 of observing the geological structure of that part of South Africa ; and I venture 

 therefore, although only a self-taught geologist, to submit the following observa- 

 tions to "the Geological Society. 



My principal field of research has been the tract of country extending north- 

 wards from the sea-coast of the county of Albany to the heads of the rivers which 

 enter the sea on that coast*. The sea-boundary of this county, commencing about 

 450 miles to the east of Cape Town, at the mouth of the Boschman's river, runs 

 in a north-easterly direction about seventy miles, to the mouth of the Keiskamma 

 river. In this length of coast are the mouths of the Great Fish and Gualana rivers, 

 the former about 500 miles east of Cape Town, the latter about fifteen miles further 

 to the north-east. The portion of the tract of country above described which I 

 have examined with most attention, lies between the coast and the northern foot of 

 the Winterberg mountain, whose summit is at the distance of nearly ninety miles 

 from the sea. Respecting the country further in the interior I have also given 

 some geological notices. 



In this eastern extremity of the colony no granite has been observed ; but the 

 lowest rocks seen near the coast belong to a stratified series. Since their dip, 

 though variable, is, in the main, from the sea inwards toward the land, it is the 

 lower members of the series that are found nearest the coast ; and of these the 

 fundamental rock is a red quartzose sandstone, highly crystalline in parts, and 

 alternating with a talcose slate. Its strike is east-south-east and west-north-west, 

 and this direction is very constant ; but the dip is extremely variable. An instance 

 of this occurs near Graham's Town, the capital of the eastern province, where, 



* See the Maps, Plate II. and m page 55. 

 VOL. VII. — SECOND SERIES. I 



