484 SIR RODERICK MURCHISON’S ADDRESS. [chap, xviii. 
concerning the long period of time during which the 
central parts of Africa have remained in their present 
condition, save their degradation by ordinary atmo¬ 
spheric agencies. My view, as given to this Society 
in 1852, was mainly founded on the original and 
admirable geological researches of Mr. Bain, in the 
colony of the Cape of Good Hope. It was, that, 
inasmuch as in the secondary or mesozoic age of 
geologists, the northern interior of that country was 
occupied by great lakes and marshes, as proved by the 
fossil reptile discovered by Bain, and named Dicyno- 
don by Owen, such it has remained for countless ages, 
even up to the present day. The succeeding journeys 
into the interior, of Livingstone, Thornton and Kirk, 
Burton and Speke, and Speke and Grant, have all 
tended to strengthen me in the belief that Southern 
Africa has not undergone any of those great submarine 
depressions which have so largely affected Europe, Asia, 
and America, during the secondary, tertiary, and quasi 
modern periods. 
“ The discovery of Dr. Kirk has confirmed my 
conclusion. On the banks of an affluent of the Zam¬ 
besi, that gentleman collected certain bones, apparently 
carried down in watery drifts from inland positions, 
which remains have been so fossilized as to have all 
the appearance of antiquity which fossils of a tertiary 
or older age usually present. One of these is a portion 
of the vertebral column and sacrum of a buffalo, un- 
distinguishable from that of the Cape buffalo ; another 
is a fragment of a crocodile, and another of a water- 
tortoise, both undistinguishable from the forms of those 
animals now living. Together with these, Dr. Kirk 
found numerous bones of antelopes and other animals, 
which, though in a fossil condition, all belonged, as he 
assured me, to species hoav living in South Africa. 
“ On the other hand, none of our explorers, including 
Mr. Bain, who has diligently worked as a geologist, 
have detected in the interior any limestones containing 
marine fossil remains, which would have proved that 
