Notes on the Geologi/ of Sivellendam. 
109 
the author said, for his late friend. Mr James Brown, a joung 
chemist, who, by his labours and discoveries in the science to 
which he had devoted himself, gave promise of an active and 
useful life, which was, however, cut short by an attack of 
cholera, that in a few hours proved fatal. His retiring manners 
and devotion to his work made him unknown, save to a few 
friends, who were thus unexpectedly called to mourn the loss of 
one who seemed destined by his labours to command the respect 
of the scientific world; and the collection was some months 
ago placed in the hands of the writer by his father. It con- 
sists of nearly 1000 different specimens, with accompanying 
manuscripts, drawings, and sections, most elaborately exe- 
cuted. Valuable memoirs had been published by Mr Bain on 
the geology of South Africa ; but he did not seem to have 
visited Du Toit, the locality where the fossils on the Society's 
table had been gathered, as it was not mentioned by him. 
Du Toit is about thirty-five miles north-west from Swellen- 
dam. It is situated on the further side of the Lange Bergen 
Mountains, on the oldest beds of what, from palseontographical 
evidence, seems to be the Old Red Sandstone. The fossili- 
ferous beds are composed of coarse sandstones and shales. 
The fossils are chiefly brachiopod mollusca, and include 
Spirifer antarcticus, and OrMgnii, Terebixitula Bainii, Orhi- 
cula Bainii, (fcc, Solinella <intiqua, and other bivalves. 
Besides these there were only some Enerinite stems, and the 
cast of a Trilobite, neither of which could be more specifically 
described, owing to their bad preservation. Mr Carruthers 
noticed the remarkable condition in which the clay slates of 
the metamorphic series exist in the vicinity of Swellendam, 
where they have little more consistency than dried alluvial 
brick clays, so soft as to have permitted Mr Bain to drive a 
tunnel of 400 feet through them by the aid of the pickaxe and 
spade alone. The induration increases, however, until in 
other localities the rocks become, as Mr Douglas says, ex- 
ceedingly hard, siliceous, and splintery, so as to cut the hand 
when incautiously griped." 
