1889.] Results of a Mission to South Africa. 9 



the whole of the Karoo rocks, up to the zone in which the coal is 

 found, so that if a geological survey of your country should be ever 

 made — and I may say that I can conceive of nothing more desirable 

 in the interests of the population generally than such a survey — it 

 would be possible to examine these rocks thoroughly and economically 

 by means of the fossils to which I have referred. And see the 

 importance of this. When we were on the flank of the Zwartberg, 

 just at the base of the Karoo series, there were in the neighbourhood 

 of Prince Albert some thin indications of coal beds, which were at the 

 time in process of examination ; well, if those coal beds occur in the 

 lowest zone of the country, in which we find vertebrate fossils at all, 

 • there is therefore the possibility of that seam at Prince Albert following 

 on the line of country, and elsewhere proving more valuable, more 

 useful, more capable of ministering to the wants of mankind, than is 

 the case at Prince Albert. Now these newer coal beds present this 

 character ; they are in the position in which the coal grew ; we were 

 able to establish this in a very remarkable way. At one spot in the 

 neighbourhood of Cyphergat we entered what had been once an open 

 working, and there found the trees standing in the position in which 

 they grew, with their roots still in the position in which those roots 

 were extended through the life of the tree, the trunk of the tree being 

 broken off. And this leaves a fact of extraordinary character, which I 

 have never seen in any tree, either alive or fossil ; its roots presented 

 when they were examined this detail an internal case which was divided 

 by nodes in this way internal surface, and ribbed longitudinally, so 



- as to present almost the character of the catamites, which is associated 

 with coal throughout the greater part of the world ; externally was 



- a covering which was thickened over the nodes, so that the external 

 roots presented not a constriction, but a thickening in the position in 

 which these nodes were situated ; and the character may perhaps, when 

 I get into the land of scientific books once more, enable me to find out 



■ the nature of this tree, and throw some light upon it, as it is associated 

 with coal in the other parts of the world. This was no isolated 

 condition, for immediately beneath were the fragments of another tree 

 so situated as to show that the tree had grown and had become 

 broken off and accumulations of sand had set in over the country, 

 the country had increased in range, and then a new forest had 



.grown on top of the old one. The importance of this lies in the 

 fact that your coal has hitherto been regarded as being, to a large 



<,extent at least, drift coal, which from its position has been swept 

 along by moving water, and if so, your coal would be of accidental 

 occurrence, not to be relied upon ; but if your coal has been under such 

 conditions as that in which I found it, under the same condition as 

 that in other parts of the world ; that is, if your forest tree has lived, 



