74 
LITHOGRAPHIC STONE. 
[Nature ancl Art, August 1, 1866, 
Koom Kop. Nyanka being tlie Damara designa- 
tion applied to a plant, or, if I understand you 
rightly, to a flowering bulb ; and Koom’ Kop 
being the name of the locality where it is found. 
“The Damara name supplied by you, Otjiturnbo 
otjihoro, or stump with a head, embodies the 
previous designation given by Dr. Hooker. Nyanka, 
Otjiturnbo, and Otjihoro, I understand to be Damara 
words ; and Koom’ Kop, to be a corruption of a 
Seroan or Hottentot word, implying some reference 
to three rivers.” 
It is impossible, even in the quotations I have 
taken the liberty to make, to do justice to Dr. 
Brown’s complete and exhaustive scientific descrip- 
tion of this plant. My object has been rather to 
extract what more particularly refers to the 
labours of my friend and I trust that when his 
journal is published, fac-similes of his stereoscopic 
views of these and other objects of interest, as well 
as much valuable information will be laid before 
tlie public respecting the Ethnology, Zoology, and 
Botany of Southern Africa. Several of his specimens 
are in the museum at Kew, and others brought from 
the west coast by Sir A. P. Eardley Wilmot, It. N. , 
may be seen in one of the conservatories, where 
every effort is being made to maintain their vitality. 
LITHOGRAPHIC STONE. 
By W. B. Lobd, Royal Artillery. 
O TJB simply stating that the stone to which we 
are indebted for so many graphic, charming, 
and life-like representations of both animate and 
inanimate objects is of the “ Lias” order, belonging 
to the “ Bavarian Jura” formation, might, to a 
certain number of our readers, prove all-sufficient, 
and at once explain to them the nature of the 
subject with which we are about to deal. There 
are others, not versed in the science of geology, who 
would wish for more than the name of the forma- 
tion to which the stone belongs, and ask for further 
and more extended data, as to where it is found, 
what it contains, the position it occupies on the 
earth’s crust, and, last, but not least, what it is 
worth. To the latter class, then, do we address 
ourselves, trusting that our stone may not prove a 
heavy burden. 
In the neighbourhood of A iclistadt, in Bavaria, 
extensive quarries and deep workings have been 
established, where the stone, in vast quantities, is 
raised from its bed. Solenliofen, too, lias its name 
favourably associated with lithographic stone ; whilst 
the picturesque and richly-wooded heights in the 
vicinity of Pappenheim are built up, so to speak, 
layer on layer, with this interesting and valuable 
deposit. The broken heights stand up in bold, 
sharp outline, more like to the scarped walls and 
vast remains of huge fortifications of some past and 
forgotten age, than to Nature’s monuments, reared 
in commemoration of extinct races. In these 
valleys ceaselessly ring out, in clear music, like 
the clink of the armourer’s anvil, the lusty strokes 
of the quarryman, who, with ponderous hammer, 
breaks into suitable fragments the flat slabs already 
displaced and ready to his hand. Those of our 
readers who have travelled by the Great Western 
Railway between Swindon and Bristol may perhaps 
remember certain cuttings, near the latter place, 
against the sides of which stand clearly-marked, 
straight, even layers of light-grey stone, as if the 
kitchen of some comfort-loving ogre of that vague 
period known as the “dark ages” had been ruthlessly 
cut through by invading “ navvies,” and that 
these were the broken edges of the flags. These 
floor-like layers are “ white lias,” closely allied to 
the true lithographic stone, and it is questionable 
whether carefully- selected specimens from this dis- 
trict might not be found even and compact enough 
in grain to be made available for some descriptions 
of lithography. The dolomite or magnesian lime- 
stone deposits associated with the lithographic- 
stone formations of the “Jura” are remarkable for 
the interesting and curious bone-caverns found 
amongst them. The contents of these caves mainly 
consist of the remains of animals which have here 
lain buried for countless ages. These are merely 
affairs of yesterday when compared with the rocks 
deep amongst whose clefts and crevices the ancient 
caverns are formed. The neighbouring rocks, in 
turn, contain, as we shall see, remains of creatures 
older far than those whose bones are entombed 
amongst the cavernous vaults of the dolomites. 
Strange it is that the very stone on which, when 
polished and prepared, the artist, with skilful touch 
and pigments of vax'ied hue, depicts the richly- 
shaded dragon-fly, or banded, pearly fish, to delight 
the eye of the lover of Nature and Art, should 
contain, sealed up within its own hidden recesses, 
like flies in amber, not only dragon-flies, fish, and 
shells of the graceful nautilus, but old-world types 
of life so strange, so incongruous, and startling, 
that, beside them, the “ roc ” of Sinbad the Sailor, 
the hideous dragon which Saint George is popularly 
supposed to have bravely slain in single combat, 
and the huge serpent killed by Hercules before 
obtaining the apples of the Hesperides, become 
almost probabilities. Stranger than all these is the 
very anomalous and remarkable bird which the 
astute powers of observation and knowledge of 
comparative anatomy possessed and brought to bear 
by Professor Owen has rescued from the category 
of lizards, amongst which it was for some time 
associated, and placed in the position it now 
occupies. The existence of fossils on the surface of 
