Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South AfricaMatthews, J. W. (Josiah Wright)
History
Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa
Matthews, J. W. (Josiah Wright)
Diamond mines and mining -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
FIG. 1. Hind feet and portion of the vertebræ of a fossil _Dicynodont_
reptile (_Owen_), natural size. Found by Capt. Jas. Scott Helps, in the
white shale in a cutting 50 feet deep, at the east of Kimberley mine,
facing claim .018, and 40 feet back from the margin of the mine,
measuring from the surface.
The above was drawn by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee, in Jan. 1878, soon after it
was found. The above specimen, together with three others, were
presented by Mr. Geo. Jas. Lee to the trustees of the British Museum,
and were, I believe, submitted to Professor Owen, who has now for some
years past been engaged preparing a monogram upon the Dicynodonts. From
the _Photographic News_ of Oct. 16th, 1885, I take the following: “The
British Association meeting at Aberdeen. In the Geological section, Dr.
R. H. Fraquair described a new and very remarkable reptile, lately found
in the Elgin sandstone, entirely from a photograph of the specimen
submitted to him by Professor Judd. He was able to assign the creature
to the genus _Dicynodon_, which characterizes similar sandstones in
South Africa.” There are no sandstones, however, near the Kimberley
mine, but the casts of Dicynodons have been found both within and
without the mine, and also in fragments of white shale upon the surface
of the ground a few hundred yards away from the mine. In Mr. Ralph
Tate’s “Historical Geology,” the following passage occurs:—
“Reptiliferous Sandstones of Morayshire: Geologists have maintained, on
stratigraphical grounds, that the Reptiliferous Sandstones are of the
age of the Old Red Sandstone; but the intervention of a conglomerate
implies a stratigraphical break, and a lapse of time of indefinite
extent; and the paleontological evidence favors the supposition that
these sandstones are of Triassic age.” In the light colored shales to
which I allude, and nearly in the same place, a fragment of a fossil
fish (_Palæoniscus_) of Triassic age was found, and was presented to the
British Museum. I may here repeat a passage from Mr. W. S. Dowel’s
paper, already quoted in this chapter: “Professor Liversidge describes
the geological formation of the district (Bingera, 350 miles north of
Sydney, Australia) as being of the Devonian or Carboniferous age, but
when making a visit in 1873 he was unable, in consequence of want of
time, and wet weather, to secure fossils in order to verify his opinion.
Since then Mr. Donald Porter and others have discovered fossils and
indications that clearly go to show that the professor was correct in
the opinions he had formed respecting the nature of the geological
stratification and the age to which it belonged.”
FIG. 2. Portion of a fossil leaf, natural size, found by Mr. Geo. Jas.
Lee on Oct. 13th, 1880, in the white shale from the Kimberley mine, at a
depth of about 50 feet, facing road 9, south. Length (as restored),
2¹⁄₂₀ inches; apex (restored), ¹⁷⁄₄₀ inch; width (entire), 1¼ inches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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