Prof. Owen on the genus Dicyuodon. 59 



A vast diluvial deposit is found in the basin of Fort Beaufort, rising in manv 

 places more than 100 feet above the banks of the Kat river. It is made up of 

 fragments of the rocks that compose the neighbouring mountains, the fragments 

 being well-rounded by attrition. A considerable quantity of calcareous tufa, and 

 also of detached calcareous nodules, differing in texture from those occurring in the 

 neighbouring strata, are also present in this deposit. In the lower parts of the 

 basin alluvium is found of considerable thickness. No fossils have hitherto been 

 obtained from either of the above modern deposits. 



From an alluvial deposit on the banks of the Modder river, before noticed , there 

 was obtained, about five years ago, the skull of a kind of Buffalo, retaining the 

 bony core of a pair of horns, which it is calculated must have measured full four- 

 teen feet from tip to tip when perfect. This fossil is now in Cape Town. 



[N.B. Professor Owen, in compliance with the earnest wish expressed by Mr. Bain, 

 having undertaken to examine and describe the principal specimens in Mr. Bain's col- 

 lection, it has not been deemed necessary to publish the original catalogue of specimens 

 which accompanied the foregoing paper.'] 



III. — Report on the Reptilian Fossils of South Africa. 



PART I. — Description of certain Fossil Crania, discovered by A. G. Bain, Esq., in 

 Sandstone Rocks at the South-eastern extremity of Africa, referable to different 

 species of an Extinct genus of Reptilia (Dicynodon), and indicative of a new 

 Tribe or Sub-order of Sauria. 



By RICHARD OWEN, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. &c. 



[Read January 8th, 1845.] 



Plates III. to VI. 



JjEFORE commencing the present Report, I must express my great obligation to 

 Mr. Bain for the opportunity of studying the extraordinary fossil remains which 

 form its subject, and for the favour which that zealous explorer of South African 

 geology has conferred on me, by coupling, with his transmission of the fossils 

 to the care of the Geological Society, the request that I would undertake their 

 description. 



