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of Devonian and Carboniferous age, and include those answering 
to European Permian and Trias, and consequently are of older 
date than the Oolites and Liassic cliffs in England from which 
have been derived, among other strange reptilian forms, the 
numerous kinds of ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. 
The Cape fossils are imbedded and petrified in shales and 
rocks of quartzose sandstone, the strata of which slightly 
incline in their southern verge from horizontality. They seem 
to have been deposited from lacustrine or estuarine waters dur- 
ing a lapse of time which may be conceived from the mountain 
ranges into which they are now elevated. The following vertical 
thickness of the fossiliferous strata has been ascertained : at 
the Stormberg Beds, 1,800 feet; at the Beaufort Beds, 1,700 
feet ; at the Koonap Beds, 1,500 feet ; at the Upper Ecca Beds, 
1 ,200 feet. These stratified beds, or basins, of ancient waters, 
have been, in the course of their upheaval, traversed by trap 
dykes, and the consolidating and elevating forces to which the 
shales have been subjected have converted them into the hardest 
and most intractable rocks that my chisel ever operated on: 
they 66 strike fire ” at every blow. The difficulty of extricating 
the imbedded teeth and bones of the strange creatures that 
haunted the banks and shallows of the ancient lakes or estu- 
aries is enhanced by the near correspondence in colour of the 
petrified parts to the dark, often black, rock in which they are 
enclosed. 
In the year 1838 Mr. Andrew Geddes Bain, employed in the 
construction of a military road north of Fort Beaufort, observed 
in parts of the rock he was blasting portions like teeth and 
fragments of bone ; these he transmitted to the Geological 
Society of London, and they were referred by the Council to 
me to report on. The result was so novel that Mr. Bain was 
encouraged to persevere in the collection and transmission of 
such evidences, and received for that purpose grants of money 
from the Geological Society and from the Trustees of the British 
Museum. I kept up communication with Mr. A. G. Bain until 
his demise, and have continued the same with his son, Mr. 
Thomas Bain, the present Surveyor of Roads to the Cape 
Colony. 
The rich series of fossil evidences from these gentlemen have 
been supplemented by specimens transmitted by successive 
Governors (Sir George Grey, K.C.B., and Sir Henry Barkly, 
K.C.B.), by H.R.II. the Duke of Edinburgh, by Dr. Guybon 
Atherstone, of Graham’s Town, by Dr. Bubidge, by J. M. 
Orpen, Esq., Government Surveyor of the Cape, and by several 
friendly colonists. 
Besides separate Reports and Memoirs in the “ Transactions ” 
of the Royal and Geological Societies, the fossils so received 
