ETS.) 
THE ORANGE RIVER GROUND MORAINE. 
By. A. W. Roaers, M.A. (Canvas), F.G.8. anp HE. H. L. 
ScuowaRz, A.R.C.S. 
(Read November 29, 1900.) 
(ilies BG MOLp MOOG, NOONE OA EG) 
Covering a very wide area in the divisions of Prieska and Hope 
Town is a peculiar conglomerate. The first geologist whose notice 
it attracted was Wyley, who mentioned it in 1859.* He refers to a 
trap conglomerate near Hope Town, and his doing so shows that he 
recognised a resemblance between it and the rock he called trap 
conglomerate in the south of the Karroo. After the publication in 
1868 of Dr. Sutherland’s observations in Natal,+ and his clearly 
drawn inference that the conglomerate there found at the bottom of 
the coal-bearing rocks had an origin like that of the glacial drifts in 
the northern hemisphere, the same idea was applied to the similar 
rocks of Cape Colony. Stow in 1872} described striated pebbles 
from Pniel, and also rounded and polished rock surfaces which he 
attributed to ice-action. In 1874 § he extended his observations of 
the polished rock surfaces over a large part of Griqualand West, and 
at the same time fixed the true position of certain boulder beds 
underlying the group of ‘‘olive shales.’’ He was of opinion, however, 
that the phenomena which he had already described as glacial 
belonged to a recent or at least a post-Karroo stage of denudation. 
Hibner || in 1871 doubtfully referred the conglomerate near Bloemhof 
(O.F.S.) to the claystone porphyry of Bain. Mr. E. J. Dunn {| pub- 
lished an account of the glacial conglomerate of Hope Town in 1873, 
but did not at that time recognise its true position, and in the first 
two editions of his map, published in 1873 and 1875, he separates 
the Hope Town conglomerate from the trap conglomerate of the 
* ‘Notes of a Journey in two directions across the Colony.” Cape Town, 1859. 
+ “On the Geology of Natal.” A paper read before the Nat. Hist. Assoc. of 
Natal; Durban, 1868. See also Q. J. G. S., xxvi., 1870, p. 514. 
+ “On the Diamond Gravels of the Vaal River.” Q.J.G.8., xxviii., 1872, 
pp. 3-22. 
§ ‘Geological Notes on Griqualand West.” Q.J.G.S. xxx., 1874, pp. 581-670. 
|| ‘‘ Geognostische Skizze von den Siid-Afrikanischen Diamanten-Distrikten.”’ 
Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 17 Band, 1871, iii., p. 85. 
{ ‘‘On a Gold Prospecting Expedition, 1872.”’ Cape Town, 1873. 
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