226 
TRAVELS IN 
the ground, a mafs of pure iron In a malleable ftate. Confi- 
dered as a great curiofity, it was carried from place to place, 
and is now in Cape Town. The mafs was entirely amorphous ; 
exhibited no appearance of having ever been in a mine ; no 
matrix of any kind was adhering to it ; nor in the cavities of 
its furface were any pebbles or marks of chryftallization. It 
was exceedingly tough, and the fradure more like that of lead 
than of iron. The weight of the mafs might be about three 
hundred pounds. A fpecimen of this Iron being carried into 
England, fome time ago, by Colonel Prehn, it was fuppofed 
that this metal was to be met with in its native ftate at the 
Cape of Good Hope. Mineralogifts, however, are ftill in . 
doubt whether iron, though the moft abundant of all metals, 
has yet been difcovered in a native ftate ; and whether thofe 
malTes that have been found in Siberia, in Senegal, and a few 
other places, were not the produds of art, which, on fome 
occafion, or by accident, had been buried in the ground. The 
mafs in queftion exhibited evident marks of force having been 
ufed in order to flatten and to draw it out. It had probably 
been the thick part of a ftiip's anchor, carried from the coaft to 
the place where it was found by the Kaflfers, and attempted by 
them to be reduced into fmaller pieces. 
Travelling along the feet of the Rktherg before mentioned, 
on the northern fide, we pafled feveral fine clumps of foreft- 
trees in the kloofs of the mountain, and among thefe obtained 
three new fpecies of timber foreign to the woods near Zwart 
Kop's bay. The face of the country was here particularly 
rugged ; the hills were compofed of fand-ftone, refting on 
bafes 
