m 
 
 
 • •" 
 
 ^'/ 
 
ALBERT R. MANN 
 LIBRARY 
 
 New York State Colleges 
 
 OF 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 Cornell University 
 
Cornell University Library 
 GB 811.S6B87H 
 
 Hydrology of South Africa; or, Details of 
 
 3 1924 014 446 276 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014446276 
 
HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA, 
 
Preparing for the Press, 
 
 OE, RECORDS OF THE REPLANTING OF THE ALPS, THE CEVENNES, AND THE 
 PYRENEES, WITH TREES, HERBAGE, AND BUSH, 
 
 WITH A VIEW TO AEEESTING AND PEBVENTING THE DESTEUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES 
 AND EFFECTS OP TOEEENTS. 
 
 Compiled by JOHN CROUMBIE BROWN, LL.D. 
 
INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY EXHIBITION. 
 
 WORKS ON FOREST SCIENCE. 
 
 By the KEV. J. C. BROWN, LL.D. 
 
 • 
 
 Edinbubgh : OLIVER & BOYD. 
 
 London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, &C0., and W. RIDER & SON. 
 
 MoNTEEAi: DAWSON, BROTHERS. 
 
 I.— Introduction to the Study of Modern Forest 
 Economy. Price 5s. 
 
 In this there are brought under consideration the exten- 
 sive destruction of forests which has taken place in Europe 
 and elsewhere, with notices of disastrous consequences 
 which have followed — diminished supply of timber and 
 firewood, droughts, floods, landslips, and sand-drifts — and 
 notices of the appliances of Modern Forest Science success- 
 fully to counteract these evils by conservation, planting, and 
 improved exploitation, under scientific administration and 
 management. 
 
 Extract iteom Preface. — ' At a meeting held on the 28th of March 
 last year (1883), presided over by the Marquis of Lothian, while the 
 assemblage was representative of all interests— scientific, practical, and 
 professional — it was resolved : — "That it is expedient in the interests 
 of torestry, and to promote a movement for the establishment of a 
 National School of Forestry in Scotland, as well as with a view of 
 furthering and stimulating a greater improvement in the scientific 
 management of woods in Scotland and the sister countries which has 
 manifested itself during recent years, that there should be held in Edin- 
 burgh, during 1884, and at such season of the year as may be arranged, 
 an International Exhibition of forest products and other objects of 
 interest connected with forestry. " It was then moved, seconded, and 
 agreed : — "That this meeting pledges itself to give its hearty co-opera- 
 tion and patronage to the promotion of an International Forestry Exhibi- 
 tion in Edinburgh in 1884 ; and those present resolve to give their beat 
 efforts and endeavours to render the Exhibition a success, and of such 
 importance and general interest as to make it worthy of the name of 
 International." 
 
 ' It is in accordance with this resolution, and in discharge of obligations 
 which it imposed, that this volume has been prepared,' 
 
II.— The Forests of England; and the Management of 
 them in Bye-gone Times. Price 6s. 
 
 Ancient forests, chases, parks, warrens, and woods, are 
 described ; details are given of destructive treatment to 
 which they have been subjected, and of legislation and 
 literature relating to them previous to the present 
 century. 
 
 Extract from Preface. — ' Contrast with this [the paucity of works 
 in English on Forest Science], the richness of Continental languages in 
 literature on such subjects. I have had sent to me lately Ofversight of 
 Svenska Skogsliteraturen, BihliografisTca Studieren of Axel Cnattingius, a 
 list of many books and papers on Forest Science published in Sweden ; 
 I have also had sent to me a work by Don Jos6 Jordana y Morera, 
 Ingenero de Montes, under the title of Apuntes Bihliographico Forestale, 
 a catalogue raisonn6 of 1126 printed books, MSS., &c., in Spanish, on 
 subjects connected with Forest Science. 
 
 ' I am at present preparing for the press a report on measures adopted 
 in France, Germany, Hungary, and elsewhere, to arrest and utilise drift- 
 saud by planting them with grasses and trees ; and in Der Ihiropaeische 
 Flug-sand und Seine OuUur, von Josef Wessely Oeneral Domaenen- 
 Inspecktor, und Forst-Academie-Direktor, published in Vienna in 1873, 
 I find a list of upwards of 100 books and papers on that one department 
 of the subject, of which 30, in Hungarian, Latin, and German, were 
 published in Hungary alone. 
 
 ' According to the statement of one gentleman, to whom application 
 was made by a representative of the Government at the Cape, for infor- 
 mation in regard to what suitable works on Forest Economy could be 
 procured from Germany, the works on Forst- Wissenchaft, Forest Science, 
 and Forst- Wirthchaft, Forest Economy, in the German language may be 
 reckoned by cartloads. From what I know of the abundance of works 
 In German, on subjects connected with Forestry, I am not surprised 
 that such a report should have been given. And with the works in 
 German may be reckoned the works in French. 
 
 ' In Hermann Schmidt's Faeh Katalogae, published in Prague last 
 year (1876), there were given the titles, &c., oi German -works in Forst und 
 Jagd-Literatur, publishfed from 1870 to 1875 inclusive, to the 31st of 
 October of the latter year, amounting in all to 650, exclusive of others 
 given in an appendix, containing a selectiftn of the works published 
 prior to 1870. They are classified thus :— General Forest Economy, 93 ; 
 Forest Botany, 60 ; Forest History and Statistics, 50 ; Forest Legislation 
 and Game Laws, 56 ; Forest Mathematics, 25 ; Forest Tables and 
 Measurements, &c., 148; Forest Technology, 6 ; Forest Zoology, 19; 
 Peat and Bog Treatment, 14 ; Forest Calendars, 6 ; Forest and Game 
 Periodicals, 27 ; Forest Union and Year Books, 13 ; Game, 91 ; Forest 
 and Game in Bohemian, 44. , In all, 652. Upwards of a hundred new 
 works had been published annually. Amongst the works mentioned is 
 a volume entitled Die Literaiur der lelzten sieben Jahre (1862-1872) aus 
 
dem Gesammtgehiefe der Land-und Forst-wirthschaft mil Mnschluss der 
 landw. Geweber u. der Jagd, in deutscher, franzosischer u englisher 
 Sprache Herausg. v. d. Bucliandl, v. Gerold and Co., in Wein, 1873, a 
 valuable catalogue filling 278 pages in large octavo. 
 
 ' This volume is published as a small contribution to the literature of 
 Britain, on subjects pertaining to Forest Science. 
 
 ' It is after due consideration that the form given to the work— that 
 of a compilation of what has been stated in works previously published 
 — ^has been adopted. 
 
 III.— Forestry of Norway. Price 5s. 
 
 There are described in successive chapters the general 
 features of the country. Details are given of the geo- 
 graphical distribution of forest trees, followed by discussions 
 of conditions by which this has been determined — heat, 
 moisture, soil, and exposure. The effects of glacial action 
 on the contour of the country are noticed, with accounts 
 of existing glaciers aiid snow-fields. And information is 
 supplied in regard to forest exploitation and the transport 
 of timber, in regard to the export timber trade, to public 
 instructio'n in sylviculture, and to forest administration, 
 and to ship-building and shipping. 
 
 Extract rROM Prefaob. — 'In the spring of 1877, while measures 
 were being taken for the formation of an Arboretum in Edinburgh, I 
 issued a pamplet entitled The Schools of Forestry, in Europe : a Plea 
 for the Creation of a School of Forestry in connection with the Arboretum 
 in Edinburgh. After it was made known that arrangements were being 
 carried out for the formation of an International Exhibition of forest 
 products, and other objects of interest connected with forestry, in Edin- 
 burgh with a view to promoting the movement for the establishment 
 of a National School of Forestry in Scotland, and with a view of 
 furthering and stimulating a greater improvement in the scientific 
 management of woods in Scotland, and the sister countries, which has 
 manifested itself during recent years, the council of the East Lothian 
 Naturalists' Club resolved on having a course of lectures or popular 
 readings on some subject connected with forestry, which might enable 
 the members and others better to profit by visits to the projected Exhibi- 
 tion, and which should be open to the public at a moderate charge. The 
 conducting of these was devolved upon me, who happened to be vice- 
 president of the club. The following treatise was compiled from 
 information then in my possession, or within my reach, and it constituted 
 the basis of these lectures.' 
 
IV.— Finland : its Forests and Forest Management. 
 Price 6s 6d. 
 
 In this volume is supplied information in regard to 
 tlie lakes and rivers of Finland, known as The Land of a 
 Thousand Lakes, and as The Last-born Daughter of the 
 Sea ; in regard to its physical geography, including notices 
 of the contour of the country, its geological formations 
 and indications of glacial action, its flora, fauna, and 
 climate ; and in regard to its forest economy, embracing a 
 discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of 
 Svedjande, the Sartage of France, and the Koomaree of 
 India; and details of the development of Modern Forest 
 Economy in Finland, with notices of its School of Fores- 
 try, of its forests and forest trees, of the disposal of its 
 forest products, and of its legislation and literature in 
 forestry are given. 
 
 Extract jeom Prejaoe.— ' I happened to spend the summer of 1879 
 in St. Petersburg, ministering in the British and American Chapel in 
 that city, ■while the pastor sought relaxation for a few months at home. 
 I was for years the minister of the congregation worshipping there, and 
 I had subsequently repeatedly spent the summer among them in similar 
 circumstances. I was at the time studying the Forestry of Europe ; 
 and I availed myself of opportunities afforded by my journey thither 
 through Norway, Sweden, and Finland, by my stay in Russia, and by 
 my return through Germany and France, to collect information bearing 
 upon the enquiries in which I was engaged. On my return to Scotland 
 I contributed to the Journal of Forestry a series of papers which were 
 afterwards reprinted under the title Glances at the Forests of Northern 
 Europe. In the preface to this pamphlet I stated that in Denmark 
 may be studied the remains of forests in pre-historio times ; in Norway, 
 luxuriant forests managed by each proprietor as seemeth good in his own 
 eyes ; in Sweden, sustained systematic endeavours to regulate the 
 management of forests in accordance with the latest deliverances of 
 modern science ; in Finland, Sartage disappearing before the most 
 advanced forest economy of the day ; and in Russia, Jardinage in the 
 north, merging into more scientific management in Central Russia, and 
 Riboisermnt in the south. This volume is a study of information which 
 I then collected, together with information which I previously possessed, 
 or have subsequently obtained, in regard to the Forests and Forestrv of 
 Finland.' 
 
 Translation of Extracts from Letters from Dk A. Blomqvist, Director 
 of the Finnish National School of Forestry at Evois : — ' On my return 
 from Salmos three weeks ago I had the great pleasure to receive your 
 volume on the Forests and Forest Management in Finland. I return 
 
5 
 
 you grateful thanks for the gift, and no less for publishing a description 
 of the forestal condition of our country. It ia with sentimeata of true 
 gratitude I learn that you had previously taken part in a work so 
 important to our country aa the preparation of a new edition of the New 
 Testament in Finniah. Your descriptions of our natural scenery are 
 moat excellent and interesting. Personally I feel most interest in your 
 accounts of Koomaree. I value it much, and not less so your concurrent 
 final conclusion in regard to the eflfecta of the exercise of it in Finland.' 
 
 Translation of Statement by M. De La Gbte, in the Bevue des 
 Eavx et Fdreta of January ISSi : — ' In an address delivered some weeks 
 since at a banquet of exhibitors in the French section at Amsterdam, 
 M. Herisson, Minister of Commerce, expressed an intention to publish 
 a series of small books deaigned to make known to French merchants 
 foreign lands in a commercial point of view. If the Minister of Commerce 
 wishea to show to our merchants the reaouroea posseaaed by Finland, he 
 need not go far to seek information which may be useful to them, they 
 will be found in a small volume which has just been published by Mr 
 John Croumbie Brown. 
 
 ' Mr Brown is one of those English ministers, who, travelling over the 
 world in all directions [some at their own cost], seeking to spread the 
 Word of the Lord in the form of Bibles translated into all languages, 
 know how to utilise the leisure left to them at times while prosecuting 
 this mission. Some occupy themselves with physical science, others with 
 archaeology, some with philology, many with commerce ; Mr Brown has 
 made a special study of sylviculture. He has already published on thia 
 subject many works, from amongst which we may cite these : Hydrology 
 of South Africa ; The Forests of England ; The Schools of Forestry in 
 Europe ; SSboisement in France ; Pine Plantations on Sand Wastes in 
 France. 
 
 'Hia last book on Finland is the fruit of many journeys made in that 
 country, which he visited for the first time in 1833, but whither he has 
 returned frequently since that time. Mr Brown gives narrativea of hia 
 voyages on the lakes which abound in Finland, and his excursions in the 
 immenae forests, the exploitation of which constitutes the principal 
 industry of the country. The School of Foreatry at Evois has furnished 
 to him much precise information in regard to the organisation of the 
 service, and the legislation and the statistics of forests, which, added 
 to what he had procured by his own observation, has enabled him to 
 make a very complete study of this country, poetically designated The. 
 Land of a Thousand Lakes, and which might also justly be called The 
 Kingdom of the Forest, for there thia reigna aovereign.' 
 
 v.— Forest Lands and Forestry of Northern Russia. 
 Price 6s 6d. 
 
 Details are givea of a trip from St. Petersburg to 
 the forests around Petrozavodsk on Lake Onega, in 
 the government of Olonetz; a description of the forests 
 
on that government by Mr Judrae, a forest official of 
 high position, and of the forests of Archangel by Mr 
 Hepworth Dixon, of Lapland, of the land of the Satnoides 
 and of Nova Zembla ; of the exploitation of the forests 
 by Jardinage, and of the evils of such exploitation ; and 
 of the export timber trade, and disposal of forest products, 
 la connection with discussions of the physical geography 
 of the region information is supplied in regard to the 
 contour and general appearance of the country ; its flora, 
 its forests, and the palaeontological botany of the regions 
 beyond, as viewed by Professor Heer and Count Saporta ; 
 its fauna, with notices of game, and with copious lists of 
 coleoptera and lepidoptera, by Forst-Meister Gunther, of 
 Petrozavodsk. 
 
 Extract tbom Pbbfaoe.— 'In the spring of 1877 I published a 
 brochure entitled TIte Schools of Forestry in Europe: a Pkajor the Crea- 
 tion of a School of Forestry in connection with the Arboretum in Edin- 
 burgh, in which with details o£ the arrangements made for instruction in 
 Forest Science in Schools of Forestry in Prussia, Saxony, Hanover, 
 Hesse, Darmstadt, Wartemburg, Bavaria, Austria, Poland, Russia, 
 Finland, Sweden, France, Italy, and in Spain, and details of arrange- 
 ments existing in Edinburgh for instruction in most of the subjects in- 
 cluded amongst preliminary studies, I submitted for consideration the 
 opinion, "that with the acquisition of this Arboretum, and with the ex- 
 isting arrangements for study in the University of Edinburgh, and in 
 the Watt Institution and School of Arts, there are required only facili- 
 ties for the study of what is known on the Continent as Forest Science 
 to enable these Institutions conjointly, or any one of them, with the 
 help of the other, to take a place amongst the most completely equipped 
 Schools of Forestry in Europe, and to undertake the training of foresters 
 for the discharge of such duties as are now required of them in India, in 
 our Colonies, and at home. " 
 
 ' This year has seen world-wide arrangements for an International 
 Exhibition of forest products and other objects of interest connected 
 with forestry in Edinburgh, "In the interests of forestry, and to pro- 
 mote a movement for the establishment of a School of Forestry in Scot- 
 land, as well as with a view of furthering and stimulating a greater im- 
 provement in the scientific management of woods in Scotland and the 
 sister countries which has manifested itself during recent years." 
 
 ' The following is one of a series of volumes published with a view to 
 introduce into English forestal literature detailed information on some 
 of the points on which information is supplied to students at Schools of 
 Forestry on the Continent ; and to make better known the breadth of 
 study which is embraced in what is known there as Forstwissenscaft, or 
 Forest Science.' 
 
VI.— French Forest Ordinance of 1669; with Historical 
 Sketch of Previous Treatment of Forests in France. 
 Price 4s. 
 
 The early history of forests in Frauce is given, with de- 
 tails of devastations of these going on in the first half of 
 the seventeenth century ; with a translation of the Ordi- 
 nance of 1669, which is the basis of modern forest econo- 
 my ; and aotices of forest exploitation in Jardinage, in La 
 Methods a Tire et Aire, and in La Methode des Comparti- 
 ments. 
 
 Extract from Preface.— ' "The Celebrated Forest Ordinance of 
 16G9 :" Such is the character and designation generally given at the 
 present day to the Ordinance in question. It is iinown, by reputation 
 at least, in every country on the Continent of Europe ; but, so far as is 
 known to me, it has never before been published in English dress. It 
 may possibly be considered antiquated ; but, on its first promalgation, it 
 was welcomed, far beyond the bounds of France, as bringing life to the 
 dead ; and I know of no modern system of Forest Exploitation, based on 
 modern Forest Science, in which I cannot trace its influence. la the 
 most advanced of these — that for which we are indebted to Hartig and 
 Cotta of Saxony — I see a development of it like to the development of 
 the butterfly from what may be seen in the structure of the chrysalis ; 
 and thus am I encouraged to hope that it may prove suggestive of bene- 
 ficial arrangements, even where it does not detail what it may be deemed 
 desirable to adopt. 
 
 ' In my translation I have followed an edition issued with Royal ap- 
 proval in 1753, with one verbal alteration to bring it into accordance 
 with certain older approved editions, and with another verbal alteration 
 to bring it into accordance with editions issued in 1699, 1723, 1734, and 
 1747.' 
 
 Translation of notice by M. Db La Grte for July 1883 in the Revue 
 des Eavx et Fdrets : ' England, which with her immense possessions in 
 India, in Canada, and in the Cape of Good Hope, is beyond all question 
 a State rich in forests, has never up to the present time given to this 
 portion of her domains more than a very moderate share of her attention ; 
 but for some years past public opinion is becoming alarmed, in view, of 
 the immense devastations which have been committed in them, and the 
 forest question coming forward spontaneously has become the subject of 
 numerous publications : amongst which, after the excellent monthly 
 collection, the Journal of Forestry and Estate Management, comes the 
 Translation of the Ordinance of 1669, which has just been published by 
 Mr John Croumbie Brown. This translation of a monument of juris- 
 prudence, well known in France, but which has never before been repro- 
 duced in English, has furnished to Mr Brown an opportunity of giving a 
 historical sketch of French Forest Legislation, and an exposition of the 
 
8 
 
 different methods of exploitation followed in our country. Drawn from 
 the best sources, and commented on with talent, these documents form 
 an elegant volume, which the author has made the more complete by 
 binding with it a summary of the treatise he has published on the 
 Forests of England.' 
 
 VII. -Pine Plantations on Sand Wastes in Prance. 
 Price 7s. 
 
 In this are detailed the appearances presented by the 
 Landes of the Gironde before and after culture, and the 
 Landes of La Sologne ; the legislation and literature of 
 France in regard to the planting of the Landes with trees ; 
 the characteristics of the sand wastes ; the natural his- 
 tory, culture, and exploitation of the maritime pine, and 
 of the Scots fir; and the diseases and injurious influences 
 to which the maritime pine is subject. 
 
 ExTRAOTS FROM PREFACE. — ' The preparation of this volume for the 
 press was undertaken in consequence of a statement in the Standard and 
 Mail, a Capetown paper, of the 22d July 1876, to the effect that in the 
 estimates submitted to Parliament £1000 had been put down for the 
 Cape Flats, it was supposed with a view to its being employed in car- 
 rying out planting operations as a means of reclaiming the sandy tracts 
 beyond Salt Eiver. 
 
 ' This volume was originally compiled in view of what seemed to be 
 required at the Cape of Good Hope. It has been revised and printed 
 now, as a contribution towards a renewed enterprise to arrest and 
 utilise sand-wastes which stretch from Table Mountain to the Hottentot 
 Holland Mountains ; and additional information is forthcoming if it 
 should be desired.' 
 
 VIII.— Reboisement in France ; or. Records of the Re- 
 planting of the Alps, the Oevennes. and the 
 Pyrenees, with Trees, Herbage, and Bush, 
 with a view to arresting and preventing the de- 
 structive consequences of torrents. Price 12s. 
 
 In this are given a risume of Surell's study of Alpine 
 torrents, of the literature of France relative to Alpine tor- 
 rents, and of remedial measures which have been proposed 
 for adoption to prevent the disastrous consequences fol- 
 
lowing from them — translations of documents and enact- 
 ments, showing what legislative and executive measures 
 have been taken by the Government of France in connec- 
 tion with reboisement as a remedial application against 
 destructive torrents — and details in regard to the past, 
 present, and prospective aspects of the work. 
 
 Extract prom Preface. — ' In a treatise on the Hydrology of South 
 Africa I have given details of destructive effect^ of torrential floods at 
 the Cape of Good Hope and Natal, and referred to the measures adopted 
 in France to prevent the occurrence of similar disastrous floods there. 
 The attention of the Legislative Assembly at the Cape of Good Hope 
 was, last year, called by one of the members of the Assembly to the 
 importance of planting trees on unproductive Crown lands. On learn- 
 ing that this had been done I addressed to the editor of the Gape Argus 
 a communication, of which the following is a copy : — 
 
 ' " I have before me details of destructive effects of torrents which have 
 occurred since I left the Colony in the beginning of 1867. Towards the 
 close of that year there occurred one, the damage occasioned by which 
 to roads knd to house property at Port Elizabeth alone was estimated at 
 from £25,000 to £30,000. Within a year thereafter a similar destructive 
 torrent occurred at Natal, in regard to which it was stated that the 
 damage done to public works alone was estimated at £50,000, while the 
 loss to private persons was estimated variously from £50,000 to £100,000. 
 In the following year, 1869, a torrent in the Western Province occa- 
 sioned the-fall of a railway bridge, which issued in loss of life and loss 
 of property, and personal injuries, for one case alone of which the rail- 
 way proprietors were prosecuted for damages amounting to £5000. In 
 Beaufort West a deluge of rain washed down the dam, and the next 
 year the town was flooded by the waters of the Gamko ; and the next 
 year, 1871, Victoria West was visited with a similar disaster. Such are 
 the sums and the damages with which we have to deal in connection 
 with this question, as it affects the case ; and these are only the most 
 remarkable torrents of the several years referred to. I have spoken of 
 millions of francs being speat on riboisement in France, and some may 
 be ready to cry out, ' Nothing like such an expenditure can be under- 
 taken at the Cape ! ' Perhaps not ; but the losses occasioned by the 
 torrents seem to amount at present to about a million of francs in the 
 year. This falls in a great measure on individuals, that would fall on 
 the community ; and the community iu return would benefit by water 
 retained to fertilize the earth, instead of being lost in the sea, and by 
 firewood and timber being grown where now there is none. These are 
 facts well deserving of consideration in the discussion of the expediency 
 of planting Crown lands with trees. " 
 
 ' Towards the close of last year, 1874, still more disastrous effects 
 were produced by torrential floods. According to the report given by 
 one of the Colonial newspapers, the damages done could not be esti- 
 mated at much less thau £300,000, According to the report given by 
 
10 
 
 another, the damage done to public works alone was estimated at 
 £350,000,^ — eight millions, seven hundred and fifty thousand francs. And 
 my attention was called anew to the subject. 
 
 ' On addressing myself to M. Eax6, Director-General of the Administra- 
 tion of Forests in France, there was afforded to me every facility I could 
 desire for extending and verifying the information I had previously col- 
 lected in regard to the works of riboisement to which I have referred. 
 Copies of additional documents were supplied to me, with copies of 
 works sanctioned by the Administration, and arrangements were made 
 for my visiting and inspecting, with every assistance required, the works 
 begun and the works completed ; and thus I have been enabled to sub- 
 mit a much more complete report than it would otherwise have been in 
 my power to produce. 
 
 ' While the compilation I have prepared owes its publication at this 
 time to the occurrence of the inundations of last year at the Cape of 
 Good Hope, the publication has been undertaken iu the hope that in 
 other countries besides South Africa the information may be turned to 
 practical account.' 
 
 Translation of extract from letter to the author by M. Alexandre 
 SuRBLL, Jngenieur des Fonts et Chausses, chairman of the Compagnie des 
 Chemins des Fer dv, Midi et du Canal lateral a, la Garonne, and author of 
 Mudeswr les Torrents des Hautes- Alps, Ouvrage Couronne par I'Academie 
 des Sciences en 1842 : — ' You are rendering an eminent service to society 
 in calling the attention of serious thinkers to the subject of riboisemevts 
 and gazormements. It is a vital question affecting our descendants, 
 specially in southern climates, there are useful truths which have to be 
 diffused there, and you have fulfilled this duty amongst your country- 
 men. 
 
 ' In France public opinion, long indifferent, is now sufficiently en- 
 lightened on the question, and much has been done. 
 
 ' I have been able to establish in the course of a recent journey 
 that, throughout a great part of Switzerland, in Styria, in Carinthia, 
 and in the Tyrol, the same phenomena which have issued in the desola- 
 tion of our French Alps are beginning to produce the same effects. 
 There have been recognised a number of extinct torrents which had 
 originated in the destruction of the forests. If people go on sleeping, 
 and the administration or the communes do nothing to arrest the evil, 
 posterity will have a sad inheritance devolved upon it. 
 
 ' You have given, with very great clearness, a risumi of what I have 
 done in France, be it by my works, or be it by my workings, for the re- 
 generation of oar mountains.' 
 
 Translation of extract from letter by the late M. Ernest Cezanne, In- 
 genieur des Fonts et Chausses, Beprisenlant des Hautes Alpes dV Assemble 
 Nationak, and author of Une Suite to the work of M. Surell. ' The 
 post brought to me. yesterday your very interesting volume on Riboise- 
 ment. I at once betook myself to the perusal of it ; and I am surprised 
 that a foreigner could digest so completely such a collection of our 
 French documents drawn from so many diverse sources. The problem 
 
11 
 
 of rSboiaement and the regeneration of the mountains ia ooe of the most in- 
 teresting which maB has to solve, but it requires time and money, and 
 with the authorities and political assemblies, technical knowledge which 
 is as yet but very sparingly possessed. It is by books so substantial as 
 yours, sir, that public opinioa can be prepared to face the importance 
 of this great work. ' 
 
 IX.— Hydrology of South Africa ; or Details of the 
 Former Hydrographic Condition of Cape of Good 
 Hope, and of Causes of its Present Aridity, with 
 Suggestions of Appropriate Remedies for this 
 Aridity. Price lOs. 
 
 Ia this the desiccation of South Africa, from pre-Adamic 
 times to the preseat day, is traced by iadications supplied 
 by geological formatioas, by the physical geography or the 
 general contour of the country, and by arborescent pro-' 
 d notions in the interior, with results confirmatory of the 
 opinion that the appropriate remedies are irrigation, 
 arboriculture, and an improved forest economy : or the 
 erection of dams to prevent the escape of a portion of 
 the rainfall to the sea — the abandonment or restriction of 
 the burning of the herbage and bush in connection with 
 pastoral and agricultural operations — the conservation and 
 extension of existing forests — and the adoption of measures 
 similar to the reboisement and gazonnement carried out in 
 France, with a view to prevent the formation of torrents, 
 and the destruction of property occasioned by them. 
 
 M. Jules Clavd, of world-wide reputation as a student 
 of Forest Science, wrote in the Beme des Deux Mondes of 
 IstMay 1882:— 
 
 \Translated,'\ ' Since the first travels of Livingstone, the African 
 continent, hitherto inacessible, has been attacked on all points at once. 
 By the north, and by the south, by the east, and by the west, hardy 
 explorers have penetrated it, traversed it, and have dragged from it 
 some of its secrets. Travellers have paid tribute and done their work 
 in opening up a path ; it ia now for science and civilisation to do theirs, 
 in studying the problems which present themselves for investigation ; 
 and in drawing ia the current of general circulations the peoples and 
 lands, which appear as if destined to stand outside ; and in causing to 
 
12 
 
 contribute to the iacreaae of social wealth the elements of production 
 previously unknown. Thus are we led to receive with interest works 
 which can throw a new light on the condition of regions which may 
 have been known for a long time, and which make known the conditions 
 of their prosperity. It is under this title that the work of the Rev. J. C. 
 Brown on the Hydrology of South Africa appears deserving of notice ; 
 but it is so also from other points of view. Mr Brown, after a previous 
 residence in the colony of the Cape, whither he had been sent in 1844 
 as a missionary and head of a religious congregation, returned thither 
 in 18t)3 as Professor of Botany in the College of South Africa, and he 
 remained there some years. In both of these positions he had occasion to 
 travel through the colony in all directions, and had opportunities to col- 
 lect moat valuable information in regard to its physical geography. Mr 
 Brown on going out to the Cape knew nothing of the works which had 
 for their object to determine the influence of forests on the climate, on 
 the quantity of rain, and on the river-courses in Europe ; he had never 
 heard mention of the work of M. Surell on the torrents of the Alps, or 
 of that of M. Mathieu on forest meteorology, nor of those of M. 
 Domontzey, Costa de Bastelica, and so many others on the subject of 
 r6boisement ; and yet in studying by himself, and without bias, the 
 climatic condition of South Africa, he came to perceive that the dis- 
 turbances in the regularity of the flow of rivers within the historic 
 period should be attributed in a large measure to the destruction of 
 forests ; and he meets in agreement on this point the savants whose 
 names have been mentioned. We have thought it might not be with- 
 out interest to readers of the Revue to have in the lines of Mr Brown a 
 collection of phenomena which, in their manifestation at any speci- 
 fied point are not less due to general causes, the effects of which 
 may be to make themselves felt everywhere where there may be 
 existent the same conditions than to aught else.' And there follows a 
 lengthened article in illustration. 
 
 X.— Water Supply of South Africa, and Facilities for 
 the Storage of it. Price 18s 6d. 
 
 In this volume are detailed meteorological observations 
 on the humidity of the air and the rainfall, on clouds, and 
 ■winds, and thunder-storms ; sources from which is derived 
 the supply of moisture which is at present available for 
 agricultural operations in the Colony of the Cape of Good 
 Hope and regions beyond, embracing the atmosphere, the 
 rainfall, rivers, fountains, subterranean streams and reser- 
 Toirs, and the sea ; and the supply of water and facilities 
 for the storage of it in each of the divisions of the colony 
 
— in Basutoland, in the Orange Eiver Free State, in 
 Griqualand West, in the Transvaal Territory, in Zululand, 
 at Natal, and in the Transkei Territory. 
 
 Extract from Preface. — ' Appended to the Eeport of the Colonial 
 Botanist at the Cape of Good Hope for 1866 was an abstract of a Memoir 
 prepared on the Hydrology of South Africa, which has since been 
 embodied in a volume which has been published on that subject, and an 
 abstract of a Memoir prepared on Irrigation and its application to 
 agricultural operations in South Africa, which embraced a Eeport on 
 the Water Supply of the Colony ; its sources, its quantity, the modes of 
 irrigation required in diflferent circumstances, the facilities for the adop- 
 tion of these in different districts, and the difficulties, physical and 
 other, in the way of works of extensive irrigation being carried out 
 there, and the means of accomplishing these which are at command. 
 
 ' In the following volume is embodied that portion of the Memoir 
 which related to the water supply, and the existing facilities for the 
 storage of this, with reports relative to this which were subsequently 
 received, and similar information in regard to lands beyond the Colony 
 of the Cape of Good Hope, which it has been sought to connect with the 
 Colony by federation, or otherwise ; and the information relative to 
 irrigation has been transferred to a Report on the Kivers of the Colony, 
 and the means of controlling floods, of preventing inundations, of 
 regulating the flow of rivers, and utilising the water by irrigation 
 otherwise. 
 
 ' In the series of volumes to which this belongs its place is immedi- 
 ately after that on the Hydrology oj South Africa, which contains 
 details of the former hydrographio condition of the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and of causes of its present aridity, with suggestions of appropriate 
 ' remedies for this aridity ; and it has been prepared to show that, iiot 
 in a vague and general use of the terms, but in strict accordance with' 
 the statement, the severe, protracted, and extensive droughts, and 
 destructive floods and inundations, recorded in the former volume, find 
 their counterpart in constantly alternating droughts and deluges in 
 every district of the Colony, — and that, in every so-called division of it, 
 notwithstanding the deluges, there were protracted sufferings from 
 drought, and, notwithstanding the aridity, there is a supply of water 
 at command, with existing facilities for the storage of the superabundant 
 supply which at present proves productive of more evil than good.' 
 
 Statement by Reviewer in 'European Mail : — ' Dr Brown is well known 
 at the Cape, for in the exercise of his duties he travelled over the prin- 
 cipal part of it, and much, if not indeed the substance, of the bulky 
 volume before us, has been before the Cape public in the form of Reports 
 to the local Government. As these reports have been commented upon 
 over and over again by the local press there is little left for us to say 
 beyond the fact that the author reiterates his opinion that the only 
 panacea for the drought is to erect dams and other irrigation works for 
 the storage of water when the raiuS come down. There can be no doubt 
 
u 
 
 that this is aage and wholesome advice, and the only question is, who 
 is to sustain the expense ? Not long ago, somewhere about the time 
 that Dr Brown was prosecuting his labnurs, it will be remembered that 
 General Wynard said that "Nature had furnished the cups if only 
 science would take the trouble to make them secure." It is but to 
 repeat an oft-told story that with a good supply of water South Africa 
 would be one of the finest of nature's gardens, and would be capable of 
 producing two crops a year, in addition to furnishing fodder for sheep 
 and cattle. The question of the water supply for irrigation and other 
 purposes has been staved off year after year, and nothing has been done. 
 It is not too much to say, however, that the question must make itself 
 felt, as it is one of the chief factors in the ultimate prosperity of South 
 Africa. The author is evidently in love with his subject, and has con- 
 tributed a mass of facts to Hydrology which will be useful to all coun- 
 tries of an arid character.' 
 
 XL— Forests and Moisture; or Effects of Forests on 
 Humidity of Climate. Price 10s. 
 
 In this are given details of phenomena of vegetation on 
 which the meteorological effects of forests affecting the 
 humidity of climate depend — of the effects of forests on 
 the humidity of the atmosphere, and on the humidity of the 
 grouad, on marshes, on the moisture of a wide expanse of 
 country, on the local rainfall, and on rivers — and of the 
 correspondence between the distribution of the rainfall and 
 of forests — the measure of correspondence between the 
 distribution of the rainfall and that of forests — the distri- 
 bution of the rainfall dependent on geographical position, 
 or determined by the contour of a country — the distribution 
 of forests affected by the distribution of the rainfall — and 
 the local effects of forests on the distribution of the rain- 
 fall within the forest district. 
 
 Extracts prom Prefack. — ' This volume is one of a ueries. In the 
 first of the series — a volume entitled — published last year. Hydrology 
 of South Africa ; or, Details of the Former Hydrographic Condition of 
 the. Gape of Good Hope and of Causes of its recent Aridity, with Sugges- 
 tions of appropriate Remedies for this Aridity. 
 
 ' This volume, on the effects of forests on the humidity of the atmos- 
 phere and the ground, follows supplying illustrations of the reasonable- 
 ness of the suggestion made in regard to the conservation and extension 
 of forests as a subordinate means of arresting and counteracting the 
 deseccation ajid aridity of the country.' 
 
IS 
 
 KxTRACTS moM LETTERS to the author from the late Hon. George P. 
 Marsh, Minister of the United istatea at Eome, and author of The 
 Earth as Modified hy Human Action : — ' I am extremely obliged to you 
 for a copy of your S^boisement in France, just received by post. I hope 
 the work may have a wide circulation. . . . Few things are more 
 needed in the economy of cur time than the judicious administration of 
 the forest, and your very valuable writings cannot fail to excite a 
 powerful influence in the right direction. . . 
 
 ' I have received your interesting letter of the 5th inst. , with the 
 valuable MSS. which accompanied it. I will make excerpts from the 
 latter, and return it to you soon. I hope the very important facts you 
 mention concerning the effect of plantations on the island of Ascension 
 will be duly verified. 
 
 . . . ' I put very little faith in old meteorological observations, 
 and, for that matter, not much in new. So much depends on local 
 circumatanoes, on the position of instruments, &o. — on station, in short, 
 that it is only on the principle of the tendency of some to balance each 
 other that we can trust to the registers of observers not known to be 
 trained to scientific accuracy. Even in observatories of repute, meteoro- 
 logical instruments are seldom properly hung and guarded from dis- 
 turbing causes. Beyond all, the observations on the absorption of heat 
 and vapour at small distances from the ground show that thermometers 
 are almost always hung too hish to be of any value as indicating the 
 temperature of the stratum of the atmosphere in which men live and 
 plants grow, and in most tables, particularly old ones, we have no 
 information as to whether the thermometer was hung five feet or fifty 
 feet from the ground, or whether it was in any way protected from heat 
 radiated from near objects. ' 
 
 Extract Letter from the late Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian 
 Institution, Washington : — ' The subject of Forest Culture and its in- 
 fluence on rainfall is, just at this time, attracting much attention in the 
 United States. At the last meeting of the American Association for the 
 advancement of science a committee was appointed to memorialise Con- 
 gress with reference to it. Several of the Western States Governments 
 have enacted laws and offered premiums in regard to it. The United 
 States Agricultural Department has collected statistics bearing on the 
 question, and we have referred your letter to that establishment. 
 
 ' The only contribution that the Smithsonian Institution has made to 
 the subject is that of a series of rain-fall tables, comprising all the obser- 
 vations that have been made in regard to the rainfall in the United 
 States since the settlement of the eoantry ; a copy of this we have sent 
 to your address. 
 
 ' It may be proper to state that we have commenced a new epoch, 
 and have, since the publication of the tables in question, distributed 
 several hundred rain gauges in addition to those previously used, and to 
 those which have been provided by the Government in connection with 
 the signal service.' 
 
 These notices and remarks are cited as indicative of the importance 
 which is being attached to the subject discussed. 
 
16 
 
 Extract from Letter to the author from Lieut. -Col. J. Campbell 
 Walker, Conservator of Forests, Madras, then Conservator-in-Chief of 
 Forests, New Zealand ; author of Seport on State Forests and Forest 
 Management in Germany and Austria:—'! am in receipt of yours, 
 along with the notices of your works on Forestry, by book post. 
 I think very highly of the scope of the works, and feel sure that they 
 and similar works will supply a want much felt by the Indian forest 
 officers. 
 
 ' It contains many important data which I should have vainly sought 
 elsewhere, and it will be regarded by all competent judges as a real 
 substantial contribution to a knowledge of the existing surface, and the 
 changes which, from known or unknown causes, that surface is fast 
 undergoing.' 
 
 Copies of any of these Works will be sent post-paid to 
 any address within direct Postal communication with 
 Britain, on receipt by Dr John C. Brown, Haddington, 
 of a Post-Office Order for the price. 
 
HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA ; 
 
 '-•mm — »w* 
 
 i • 
 
 OR DETAILS OF THE FORMER HYDROGRAPHIC CONDITION 
 OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 
 
 AND OF CAUSES OF ITS PRESENT ARIDITY, 
 
 WITH SDGttESTIONS OP APPBOPBIATE BEMEDIES FOB THIS ABIDITY. 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 JOHN CROUMBIE BROWN, LL.D., 
 
 Forrmtiy Governmetit Botanist at the Cape of Good Hope and Professor of 
 
 Botany in the South African College, Capetown, 
 
 Honorary Vice-Preside7it of the African Institute of Paris, 
 
 Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 
 
 Fellow of the Linnean Society, dhe. 
 
 HENRY S. KING & CO., 
 
 65 COBNHILL, and 12 PATEBNOSTEK BOW, LONDON. 
 
 1875. 
 
ALL EIGHTS BBSBRVED. 
 
CONTENTS AND ARGUMENT. 
 
 PASE 
 
 Preface, ....... 1 
 
 Intboduction . . . . . . .7 
 
 States how the sal)ject of the Hydrology of South Africa came under the consider- 
 ation of the Author , gives his experience of drought at the Cape (p. 8) ; and of 
 deluges (p. 12 ); and observationa of the similarity of several districts to features 
 of the Lake Districts of North America and of Finland (p. 14}. 
 
 PART I. — FoBMEE Htdeogeaphic Condition op South Afbica, . 18 
 
 Chaptbb I. — Testimony supplied hy the Physical Geography of South 
 
 Africa, ." . . . . . .18 
 
 Describes the general contour of South Africa (p. 18) ; specifies at greater length 
 similarities to features of the Lake Districts of North America and to Finland 
 (p. 21) ; adduces indications that the land had been long under water, and that 
 valleys specified had been created hy the flow of ocean-currents (p. 27) ; 
 describes the composition of Table Mountain (p. 31) ; and draws the conclusion 
 from the physical geography of the locality that the land must have upheaven 
 from the bottom of the ocean, and, it may he, have been again submerged 
 and subsequently upheaven, and this done oftener than once (p. 33). 
 
 Chapter II. — Testimony in regard to the former Geographical condition 
 
 of South Africa supplied by Geological Observations, . 3.5 
 
 Section I. — Geological Formations of Table Mountain, . . .37 
 
 States that these belong to the Primary, Metamorphic, Silurian, and Devonian 
 formations (p. 38) ; supplies indications of the land having been for ages of 
 untold duration at the bottom of the ocean (p. 47) ; and quotes descriptions 
 given by Hugh Miller of what may be supposed to have then been the state of 
 the ocean (p. 57). 
 
 Section II. — Geological Formations less ancient than those of 
 
 Table Mountain, . . . . .62 
 
 Refers successively to the lower and upper karoo shales, with imbedded fossils, in- 
 dicative of the existence of dry land (p- 62) ; to trap conglomerate rocks, indicative 
 of volcanic eruptions (p. 64) ; and dicynodon fossils, indicative of the existence 
 of extensive lakes— quotes description given hy Hugh Miller of the supponed 
 condition of land at this period (p. 68), and description given by Page of coal 
 deposits (p. 69) ; cites account given by Dr Grey, of Cradock, of carboniferous 
 deposits in the vicinity of dicynodon beds (p. 75) ; and refers successively to 
 new red sand stone formations (p. 78), ooletic formations (p. 80), tertiary 
 deposits (p. 82), boulder formations (p. 85), and the drymg up of the Great 
 Sahara (p. 88). 
 
P E E F A C E. 
 
 This Volume owes its publication in some measure to the phrase Postal 
 University having come under my notice in a passage in a review, which 
 appeared in the Spectator, of a work by Mr George Baden-Powell, entitled 
 " New Homes for the Old Country," of which the following is an extract ; — - 
 
 " Tiie squatters or landed proprietors of Australia are mainly drawn from 
 the highest class of immigrants, and have generally received some, at least, of the 
 elemeuts of a liberal education ; but they enter, many of them, on their new work 
 very young, and find themselves at certain seasons of the year with ample 
 leisure, but, as Mr Baden-Powell remarks, separated by their new life from all 
 the centres of learning : 
 
 " ' Could they but bridge over this separation by means of the post, they might continue 
 to do a modified amount of work on soma u-eful subject. A Board of professors forms 
 the centre of the system, and all the instruction is carried on by letter. The idea might further 
 be elaborated into examinations, and even to the granting of degrees. Peculiarly and 
 immediately useful would be the study of engineering, and of veterinary science, of natural 
 history, of law, and many other matters of immense benefit to the dwellers in the bush. 
 And a young " super," by devoting any leisure hours, more especially of his first tliree or four 
 years, to the study of veterinary science, would assuredly become a far better manager of 
 cattle, sheep, and horses, than if his knowledge of the subject were confined to limited personal 
 experience. The value of ru.ns, again, is greatly enhanced by the proper storage of water, 
 by the erection of dams, and by judicious clearing and planting. Forsucli purposes engineering, 
 geology, and botany, practical and to tlie point, may prove of immense use. In short, many 
 are the branches of l^nowledge which might be successfully studied by the means of such 
 instructors, and which in the end would prove invaluable to the success of the squatter. A 
 postal university might be made to form an efficient substitute for training colleges, which 
 would be of little use m a country where the requisite amount of leisure time at the disposal 
 of the would-be students is so broken and uncertain that their attendance would be an impossi- 
 bility, even though we leave out of the question altogether the immense distance they would 
 have to journey to any fixed centre. Meading by post could be carried on at any available 
 opportunity, and at any distance from the central courts.' " 
 
 In connection with this it is said : — ■ 
 
 " Sydney possesses a University of its own, at which, however, at present, it is 
 impossible to get that real University education whose chief charm lies not so 
 much in the book-learning that it gives as in that mutual intercourse and rubbing 
 together of those of every character with learned, clever, and good men, which 
 proves so useful in after life. New South Wales, though fortunate in possessing 
 the Services of several clever professors, is as yet too youug to provide a sufficieatly 
 large number of undergraduates. 
 
 " Situated on the top of a neighbouring eminence, the University Buildings 
 form a conspicuous and handsome feature in the Sydney landscape, and closer 
 inspection will show them to be of very high order with regard to size, plan, 
 material, and finish. 
 
 " The happy idea of starting what may be called a Postal University has lately 
 claimed attention. Such method of education should prove an immense boon to 
 Australia. Thousands and thousands of miles of bush country are held by the 
 8j[uatters, and their work, necessarily of a very isolated character, is mainly in 
 the hands of young men, most of whom have entered on its life fresh from school 
 and full of aspirations. At times they have a great amount of leisure on their 
 hands, and this a large majority of them would probably be very glad to devote 
 
11 PREFACE. 
 
 to self-improvement. At school their minds have been trained ; thus they know 
 the way of working, but their new life separates them from all centres of 
 learning." 
 
 Such was the statement of Mr Baden-Powell. On seeing this I addressed 
 to the editor of the Colonies a letter on the subject, of which the following 
 is the substance : — 
 
 " The term Postal University is new to me, but the desideratum is not. For 
 some years I held the chair of Botany in the South African College, Capetown, 
 and in professional tours which I made throughout the colony and districts 
 beyond its limits, I met with not a few men such as are referred to, giving 
 thought in their isolated homes to the requirements of the country for the 
 development of its resources and its capabilities, and giving willing labour to 
 the perfecting of devices which could 'only be entertained in ignorance of what 
 was well known to practical and scientific men in Europe. 
 
 " On some of the tours which I made, 1 gave field-lectures on the vegetable 
 products of the locality, which were attended by numbers varying from fifteen 
 to eighty ; and not a few availed themselves of the opportunity thus afforded 
 to them to propound questions of considerable importance to the interests of 
 the colony — questions relating not only to economic botany, but to mining, 
 to metallurgy, to motive force developed in connection with magnetism and 
 electricity, and to other subjects. 
 
 " On other tours I encouraged arrangements being made for open public 
 conferences on subjects connected with agriculture, arboriculture, and irrigation. 
 These were attended by still greater numbers ; and information was given and 
 obtained on a wide range of subjects. On one occasion, at an isolated farm, 
 some twelve or fifteen miles from Montague, from twenty to thirty farmers met 
 me, and the conference was continued, with a short intermission for refreshments, 
 from 10 a.m. till 5 p.m. At these conferences there occurred sometimes an 
 adjournment in a body to the vineyard, the water leading, or the dam, for the 
 purpose of testing information given, and continuing the discussion in view 
 of facts and phenomena referred to. 
 
 " Subjects broached at the field lectures and conferences were discussed more 
 fully in letters, which were franked at the Colonial Office. Copies of these letters 
 were appended to annual reports to the government which 1 made as Colonial 
 Botanist. These were printed and submitted to both Houses of Parliament, 
 by command of the governor, and a number of copies were put into circulation 
 on loan, while copies were sent to oflicials and others, who might desire to possess 
 copies for reference. 
 
 " The following list of these shows the kind of subjects upon which informa- 
 tion was sought : — 
 
 "Appended to Eeport of Colonial Botanist for 1863— (1) Memoir on the Conservation and 
 Extension of the Forests as a means of counteracting disastrous consequences following the 
 destruction of Bush and Herbage by Fire. (2) Eeport on the Capetown Botanic Gardens. 
 (3) Copies of Letters to and from the Colonial Botanist on subjects connected with the 
 Development of the Resources of the Colony, viz. : 1. Letters from and to the Rev. T. D. 
 Philip Hatikey on Destruction of Orange Trees ; 2. Letter to the Eev. P. Smail, Bathurst, 
 on the Bust in Wheat ; 3. Letter, sent in triplicate, to A. N. Ella, Esq., Queen's Town, P. W, 
 Hopley, Esq., Burgersdorp, and D. Arnot, Esq., Colesberg, on Grasses and Pasture Herbs ; i. 
 Letter to J. Mosel, Esq., Uitenhage, on the possibility of obtaining a substitute for India- 
 Kubber or Gutta-Percha from the Milk Sap of the Euphorbia; 6. Letter to W. Lemark, 
 Esq., Port Elizabeth, on the Growth of Chicory ; 6. Letter to Mr Titterton. Kracha Kama, 
 on the Cultivation of the Prickly Pear, with a view to the Preparation of Cochineal ; 7. Letter 
 to the Eev, T. Merrington, Bethelsdorp, on the Cultivation of the tSocootrine Aloe, and the 
 Preparation of the Drug ; 8. Letter to Mr Buckley, Knysna Forest, on the Cultivation of the 
 Olive and Kei Apple; 9. Letter to the Eev. W. Stegmann, Adelaide, on the Spread of the 
 Ehenoster Bush; 10. Letter to Mr Hayward, Swellendam, on the Planting of Trees by 
 Water-Courses ; 11. Letter to the Eev. J. Brownlee, King William's Town, on Plants found 
 by him in British Kaffraria; 12. Letter to Dr Harvey, Professor of Botany, Trinity 
 College, Dublin, on South African Plants ; 13. Letter to John A. Merrington, Esq., on 
 Irrigation, Arboriculture, Wine-Making, the Utilization of Night-Soll, and the ColleGtiBg of 
 Salt as supplying liemunerativo E jiployuient for Capital. 
 
PREFACE. HI 
 
 ' Appended to Eeport of Colonial Botanist for 1864.— (1) Letter to J. A. Merrington, Esq., 
 London, on the Sour, the Sweet, and the Mixed Veldts, and the Karoo, on their Agricultural 
 Capabilities, and on the Employment of Irrigation, Arboriculture, Agricultural Machinery, 
 and Manure, as means of developmg these. (2) Letter to the same, in answer to the question 
 — Can we increase the number of Vegetable Productions of South Africa, or can we render 
 those already obtained mure valuable? — including notices of Lindseed Oil, CoJza Oil, 
 Mustard, Chicory, Beet, Tobacco, Wine, Euphorbia Sap, Aloes, Timber, Maize-Fibre, 
 Olives, Castor Oil, Myrtle-Berry, Wax, Kenrboom Gum, Buchu, and Indigo. (3) Letter to 
 the same, on the improvement of the manufacture of Cape Aloes. (4) Letter to the fame, on 
 the preparation of Ebonite and Vulcanite from the milk sap of the Euphorbia. (5) Letter to 
 the same, on the improvement of the Cape Wines. (6) Letter to the same, on the import- 
 ance of the establishment of an experimental farm, with a view to the development of the 
 agricultural resources of the Colony. (7) Letter to J. H. Davis, Esq., J. P., Colesberg, on 
 Grasses and Herbage, found on the Sour, the Sweet, and the Mixed Veldts, and the Karoo. 
 
 (8) Letter to P. W. Hoply, Esq., M.L.A., Burghersdorp, sent in duplicate to A. N. Ella, Esq., 
 Queen's Town, on Pasture Herbs and Grasses of the districts of Albert and Queen's Town. 
 
 (9) Letter to John Dickson, Esq., Port Elizabeth, on Grasses adapted to arrest drifting sands. 
 
 (10) Letter to F. Tudhope, Esq., Graham's Town, on the question — Whether good or evil 
 preponderates in the results obtained by burning the veldt ? embodying an illustration of the 
 improbability of the pastoral condition of the Colony being perpetuated by the practice. (11) 
 Letter to Dr Harvey, Professor of Botany, Trinity College, Dublin, on South African Plants. 
 (12) Letter to James Chapman, Esq., Cape Town, on the Welwitschia mirabilis, (13) Cir- 
 cular addressed to Missionaries labouring in South Africa beyond the Colony, requesting 
 their co-operation in extending the acquaintaiice of botanists with the flora of South Africa. 
 (14) Keport on the accommodation provided for the herbarium of the late Dr Pappe, and on 
 the expediency of providing accommodation for a museum of South African Vegetable 
 Economic Products. (15) Letter to the Honourable the Colonial Secretary on measures 
 calculated to develope the vegetable resources of the Colony. 
 
 " Appended to Keport of Colonial Botanist for 1865.— (I) Letter to G. A. T. de Graaff, Esq., 
 Hon. Secretary to Mossel Bay Agricultural Society, on Experimental Farms adapted to the 
 wants of the Colony. (2) Eeport on the Potato Disease, submitted in accordance with the 
 desire of Select Committees of Legislative Council. (3 ) Keport on Rusts and other destruc- 
 tive growths on Cereals. (4) Eeport on the Destruction of Orange Trees in the Colony, with 
 special notices of the Scale, the Soot-like substance, and the Ants and other Insects found 
 upon diseased Orange Trees, and of the probable cause of the evil, and the remedy. (5) 
 Keport on the Destruction of Chesnut Trees and Walnut Trees in different parts of the 
 Colony. (6) Eeport on the Blight afifi-cting Apple Trees in the Colony. (7) Letter to E. V. 
 Williams, Esq., Simon's Town, on the affection of Peach Trees. (8) Letters to Albert 
 Kennedy, Esq., Land Surveyor, Humansdorp, on the r.rrest of Drifting Sand, and on plant- 
 ing the same with Trees, (9) Letter to J. F. J, Wrensoh, Esq., Sec. to Divisional Council of 
 district of Albert, on Trees deemed suitable for culture in that and similar districts. (10) 
 Letter to J. H. L Schumann, Esq., Aberdeen, South Africa, on Trees deemed suitable for 
 culture in the Karoo and Sweetveldt, and on raising Trees from Seeds. (U) Letter to E. L, 
 Layard, Esq., Cape Town, on Trees deemed suitable for culture at Cape L'Agulhas and other 
 districts exposed to a strong sea breeze. (12) Letter to Dr Mueller, Government 
 Botanist and Director of Melbourne Botanic Gardens, relative to Shrubs and Trees used 
 at the Cape for Fences, Avenues, and Burying-grounds. (13) Letter to Walter G. Fry, 
 Esq., Victoria Tanery, Bristol relative to Tannin-yielding Plants growing in the Colony. 
 (14) Letter to D, D. Williamson, Esq., Manager of the North British Kubber Company, Edin- 
 burgh, on the utilisation of Milk-sap of the Euphorbia. (15) Letter to the Eev. Mr Bousseau, 
 Clanwilliam, on the Culture and Manufacture of Indigo. (16) Circular relative to facilities for 
 Irrigation in different parts of the colony. 
 
 Appended to Eeport of Colonial Botanist for 1866. — (1) List of South African Trees, Shrubs, 
 and Arborescent Herbs — upon the natural history, or botanic characters, or economic uses 
 of which a report is forthcoming if necessary. (2) Abstract of memoir prepared on the Forests 
 and Forest Lands of Southern Africa. (3) Abstract of memoir prepared on the Forest Economy 
 of the Colony. (4) Abstract of memoir prepared on Arboriculture in the Colony. (5) A"b- 
 stract of memoir prepared on the Hydrology of Southern Africa. (6) Abstract of memoir 
 prepared on Irrigation, and its application to agricultural operations in South Africa. (7) 
 Observations on the agricultural capabilities of the Colony, and requirements for the develop- 
 ment of these : A resum^ of the results and observations made during tenure of office in the 
 years 1863, 1864, 1865, and 1866. (8) Copy of circular relative to South African Plants de- 
 sired by the Directors of Botanic Gardens in Europe and elsewhere. 
 
 " Snch are subjects on which iaformation has been desired and transmitted 
 by post in one colony, and it may be inferred that corresponding information 
 'will be desired in others. 
 
 " The desideratum might be supplied in part by the publication of a series 
 of treatises 011 liiacoveties of modern science applicable to the development 
 of colonial settlements, printed in small type and on thin paper, that^ they 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 may be transmitted by book-post from the place of publication if need be to 
 •wherever they may be required. In such treatises it would be desirable that all 
 statements iu other works cited should be quoted ia full, as those for whose 
 perusal they are designed live far from cities, have not access to works of refer- 
 ence, and rarely have an opportunity of entering a bookseller's shop. 
 
 " More efficiently would the deaideratam be supplied if arrangements were also 
 made for answering queries. This might easily be done by combining with the 
 publication of such treatises as have been referred to the publication of other 
 works calculated to meet the craving of colonists having little access to general 
 literature, issuing the whole periodically, keeping each number within a speci- 
 fied postal weight, and bringing each up to this by appended sheets appropri- 
 ated to answers to correspondents, and by encouraging subscriptions for the 
 whole by annual pre-payment by post-office orders. There is not an outstation 
 to which letters can be sent to which these could not be sent from London, 
 the postage being substituted, if necessary, for the trade allowance to book- 
 sellers. 
 
 " In the absence of any such arrangements, may I submit to your consideration 
 the expediency of making the Colonies a medium for such communication ? What 
 I attempted to do single-handed at the Cape might be done much more efficiontly 
 and extensively by the editor of a newspaper or periodical extensively circulated 
 in the colonies, published in London, where access could be had to sources of 
 valuable information on subjects connected with the practical application of science 
 to the physical development of nature. I do not conceal from myself that it 
 would be unreasonable to expect that professional counsel would always be 
 obtained by the conductors simply for the asking ; and I question whether any 
 increase of circulation which would result from arrangements for obtaining infor- 
 mation from professional men on all subjects, on which information might be 
 desired, would cover the expenditure which would be incurred in procuring this. 
 
 " This is one of the considerations on the ground of which I would recommend 
 the publication of treatises with the provision for answering queries." 
 
 Practical effect has not been given to the suggestion, nor is it deemed 
 probable that it would be found remunerative to do so ; but it may be some 
 one may be able to give a practicable and remunerative form to the idea 
 suggested to me by the proposal of Mr Baden-Powell ; and having had of 
 late some time at my command, I have, partly with a view to supply an 
 indication of the kind of treatises which I consider to be likely to meet the 
 case of such colonists, of the character described by him, with whom I have 
 had correspondence or personal intercourse, recast the materials I had col- 
 lected on the Hydrology of Southern Africa and embodied in the Memoir on 
 that subject referred to above, in which the desiccation of South Africa 
 from pre-Adamic times to the present day is traced by indications supplied 
 by geological formations, by the physical geography or general contour of 
 the coimtry, and by arborescent productions in the interior, with results 
 confirmatory of the opinion that the appropriate remedies are irrigation, 
 arboriculture, and an improved forest economy ; and in recasting this I 
 have added information which has in the interval come into my possession. 
 The treatise, even in its present form, is designed primarily for the benefit 
 of colonists at the Cape of Good Hope, but it embodies information which 
 may be useful in other lands beside South Africa. In view of what I have 
 stated in regard to the difficulties experienced about stations and getting 
 access to works cited, I have quoted in full many passages to which it 
 might have sufficed to refer in a treatise designed primarily for readers 
 otherwise situated. In doing so, I have availed myself gladly of permission 
 given to me by the Hon. George P. Marsh, minister of the United States of 
 America at Eome, to quote freely from his valuable work, " The Eai-th as 
 
PREFACE. T 
 
 Modified by Human Action," and of permission to do so from a valuable paper 
 by Mr J. Fox Wilson on the desiccation of the Valley of the Orange River, 
 read before a Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society. I have also 
 quoted largely from the works of Dr Livingstone and others. 
 
 If encouragement offers, the publication of this will be followed by the 
 publication. of one or more of similar treatises on the following subjects, 
 which have been prepared with a view to being ultimately deposited in 
 manuscript in the Public Library in Capetown, Cape of Good Hope, for con- 
 sultation by scientific and practical men desiring the information they con- 
 tain, but which will admit of introduction into the text, or of additions in 
 the form of foot-notes, of such illustrations or explanations as may appear to 
 be desirable to meet the requirements of colonists and residents in localities 
 in which it is difficult to get access to the various sources of information 
 open to those who dwell in towns and older settled lands : 
 
 1. Reboisement in France : or, the Replanting of Forests on the Alps and 
 Pyrenees and Mountains of Central France, with a view thereby to prevent 
 the occurrence or the destructive effects and consequences of torrents. 
 
 2. Sylviculture in Belgium, with a study of the Dunes or Sand-hiUs in 
 Belgium, Holland, and France, and of the arrest and utilization of the drift- 
 sands of the Gironde by plantations of trees. 
 
 3. Die Bewaldung of the Karst, in Illyria : or, the re-foresting of the 
 country, with a view thereby to restore fertility to a land reduced to sterility 
 through the destruction of trees. 
 
 4. The Forest Economy of Russia, and the arrangements which are 
 there being made to introduce the improved forest mangement of the day. 
 
 5. The Forest Economy of Finland, and arrangements which have there 
 been made to carry out a systematic management of forests, in accordance 
 with the requirements of Forest Science. 
 
 6. The Forest Economy of Sweden, in which country the latest arrange- 
 ments suggested by discoiu'ses of Forest Science are being introduced and 
 vigorously carried out. 
 
 7. Forest Science and Forest Economy of France. 
 
 8. Forest Administration in Germany. 
 
 9. Improved Forest Management in India and Burmah, illustrative of the 
 practicability of introducing with success into the management of colonial 
 forests measures suggested by the most advanced Forest Science of the day. 
 
 10. Forest Lands and Forest Management in Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 11. American Forests, and treatment of forests in the United States, in 
 the British Dominion of Canada, in Honduras, and in British Guiana. 
 
 On the subject of Forest Science, which these treatises were designed to 
 unfold, I find the following statement by Dr Hooker quoted in a number of 
 the " Journal of Applied Science " for August 1872 : — 
 
 " Forestry, a subject so utterly neglected in this country that we are forced 
 to send all candidates for forest appointments in India to France or Germany for 
 instruction, both in theory and practice, holds on the continent an honourable and 
 even a distinguished place amongst the branches of a liberal education. In the 
 estimation of an average Briton, forests are of infinitely less importance than 
 the game they slielter, and it is not Jong since the wanton destruction of a flue 
 young tree was considered a venial offence compared with the snaring of a 
 pheasant or rabbit. Wherever the English rule extends, with the single excep- 
 tion of India, the same apathy, or at least inaction, prevails. Id South Africa, 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 according to the colonial botanists' report, millions of acres have been made 
 desert, and more are being made desert annually, through the destruction of 
 the indigenous forests ; in Demerara the useful timber trees have all been 
 removed from a'ccessible regions, and no care or thought given to planting others ; 
 from Trinidad we have the same story ; in New Zealand there is not now a good 
 Kauri pine to be found near the coast, and 1 believe that the annals of almost 
 every English colony would repeat the tale of wilful wanton waste and improvi- 
 dence. On the other hand, in Frapce, Prussia, Switzerland, Austria, and Russia, 
 the forests and waste lands are the subjects of devoted- attention on the part of the 
 Government, and colleges, provided with a complete staff of accomplished 
 professors, train youths of good birth and education to the duties of state foresters. 
 Nor, in the case of France is this law confined to the mother country ; the Algerian 
 forests are worked with scrupulous solicitude, and the collections of vegetable 
 produce from the French colonies of New Caledonia, &c., in the permanent 
 museum at Paris contain specimens which abound in evidence of their forest 
 products being all diligently explored." 
 
 I accept the statement of what has occurred and of what is going on in 
 South Africa as a legitimate inference from what is stated in the reports in 
 question, by any one looking only to the effects of trees by retaining 
 humidity in the soil and atmosphere, and modulating the rainfall ; but I 
 hold that herbage and grass produce similar eifeots, less only in degree to 
 those produced by arborescent vegetation, which, I doubt not, will be 
 generally admitted ; and in accepting the statement cited, I do so on the 
 understanding that the effects referred to are attributable to the destruction 
 of indigenous forests, together with the destruction of herbage and grass, 
 effected both chiefly by fire — chiefly, but not exclusively, the axe having 
 aided the fire in the destruction of forests, and sheep having aided the fire 
 in the destruction of herbage and grass. 
 
 Besides the treatises mentioned, memoirs or treatises on the following 
 subjects have been placed at the command of the Government at the Cape 
 of Good Hope, any or all of which are forthcoming if ever publication 
 should be desired : — ■ 
 
 1. The Water Supply of South Africa : Its sources, its quantity, the modes 
 of irrigation required in different circumstances, the facilities for the adoption 
 of these in different districts, and the difficulties, physical and other, in the 
 way of works of extensive inigation being carried out at the Cape, and the 
 means of accomplishing these which are at command. 
 
 2. Forests and forest lands of South Africa. 
 
 3. South African trees, arborescent shrubs; and bushes described under 
 their popular names in English, Dutch, Kaffir, Seohuana, and Hottentot, 
 arranged alphabetically, with notices designed to present in phraseology 
 intelligible to readers unacquainted with botanic terms what has been 
 learned in regard to the natural history of each, and in regard to the 
 economical uses to which it is applied. 
 
 4. Arboriculture in South Africa, with details of what has been don€, and 
 of what might be done in planting trees in the Cape colony, with notices of 
 the natural history of Australian and European trees which have been 
 recommended by arboriculturists for plantation there. 
 
 5. Agricultural capabilities of the Cape of Good Hope, and measures 
 adapted to the development of these. 
 
 6. The Herbage and Grasses of the Cape of Good Hope, with notices of 
 economic uses to which many may be applied, and Guide to the Study of 
 Botany in newly-settled lands, 
 
 Haddington, JOHN C. BROWN. 
 
HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The conclusions at wMcli I have arrived, from a somewhat extensive know- 
 ledge of the physical geography and of the history of South Africa, is, that, 
 after having been long a portion of the basin of the sea, and after, it may 
 be, repeated upheavals and submersions of the land, in whole or in part, it 
 has been upheaved fromthe depth of the sea, drained, dried by evaporation, 
 and covered with vegetation, much of which has been destroyed by man, 
 and the removal of this has permitted a freer evaporation, the effect of 
 which has been a drying up of lakes, and a diminished flow of streamlets 
 and streams within the memory of the present inhabitants, with the some- 
 what frequent occurrence of destructive torrents carrying off to the sea 
 water httrriedly precipitated from the atmosphere in thunder showers, leav- 
 ing an arid atmosphere and a desiccated land. 
 
 The aridity which has been thus produced is unfavourable to the ciilture 
 of cereal and other plants, which those who now inhabit the land desire to 
 raise, and it is sought by artificial means to secure the moisture desired. 
 Experience has proved the efficiency of some of these, and it is proposed 
 greatly to extend the application of them. I think it probable that the 
 diffusion of the knowledge of observations by which the views stated have 
 been suggested, or confirmed, may tend to give confidence in the measures 
 proposed — suggest, it may be, modifications of these, whereby their efficiency 
 may be increased — and suggest the adoption also of other measures, whereby 
 the accomplishment of the end in view may be promoted. Under this 
 impression the following statements have been prepared for the press. I 
 do not consider a knowledge of the past former condition of the country 
 requisite to enable a man of intelligence to devise means of turning to 
 account, in horticultural or agricultural operations, what water and moisture 
 are still at command, or to enable legislators and others to form a trust- 
 worthy opinion in regard to the expediency of giving or withholding the 
 assistance of the Government, as representative of the community, in the 
 carrying out of measures of extensive application proposed as means of so 
 doing. But such knowledge, though not absolutely required, may be useful, 
 and, though not desired, it may be acceptable and valued when freely given ; 
 and provision having been made by Parliament for the employment of a 
 hydraulic engineer, with a view to irrigation works being afterwards under- 
 taken, I offer the information I possess as a contribution towards the 
 formation of an enlightened public opinion on the subject. 
 
 The information thus submitted should be tested by its accordance with 
 fact, and I have no desire it should be treated otherwise ; it is the truth 
 alone which I desire should be discovered. But in view of the importance 
 which I attach to the discovery of the tnith, whatever the truth may be, I 
 
? INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ■would fain secure for my statements an attentive perusal and calm consider- 
 ation ; and for the information of those who are interested in the measure 
 proposed but know me not, I shall state the circumstances in which I gave 
 attention to the subject, and thus indicate the oportunities I have had of 
 studying some of the phases which it presents. 
 
 In the autumn of 1844 I went to the Cape of Good Hope, at the instance 
 of the directors of the London Missionary Society, to take the pastoral charge 
 of a congregation in Cape Town, while passing through the transition from 
 their connection with that Society to a position of self-reliance and inde- 
 pendence which they wished to acquire — the Congregational Church now 
 meeting for worship in Caledon Square. 
 
 This being accomplished, I took occasion in 1847 to make the tour of the 
 Colony. While passing through the Karroo, I witnessed the privations to 
 which the inhabitants were subjected through the aridity of the climate. 
 
 My recollections of the journey call up vividly even now oft-recurring 
 visions of bones of oxen at varying distances along the road — ^the bones of oxen 
 which had succumbed by the way travelling "in a land where no water is. 
 And they call up incidents more definitely declarative of the characteristic of 
 the land, amongst which are the following : 
 
 At one place at which we arrived on a Saturday we learned that beyond 
 that place there was no water to be obtained within a distance of 84 miles 
 on the road to Beaufort — whither we were bound — and we found this to be 
 the case. Eesting the horses on the Sabbath, when we resumed our journey 
 we started before day-break, and managed by night-fall to reach the fountain, 
 but water the horses touched not by the way. 
 
 The day following we had at midday to send our horses six miles off the 
 road to slake their thirst while we rested, letting them brouse by the way 
 in going and coming, the achter reiters driving them slowly, very slowly 
 along, that they might not be unfitted for resuming the joui-ney on their 
 return. 
 
 At a farm house, at which towards evening we were, in accordance with 
 colonial hospitality, welcomed and served with tea, I, inconsiderately per- 
 haps, but stay-at-home travellers will say very naturally, said I would be 
 obliged if they would give me also a "little bread. "Bread," said the 
 farmer, " we have not seen bread for nearly three years." " AVhy, how is 
 that 1 " said I. " Because of the drought," was the reply, " we cannot raise 
 corn " (the name given in the Colony to wheat). " Then what do you 
 raise?" I asked, "Nothing," said the farmer, "we have occasionally had 
 showers, and after these we have sown beans and they grew ; but scarcely 
 were they above the ground when they died away." " Then what do you 
 eatr' " Mutton." "But what do you eat with the mutton." " Mutton." 
 " What do you mean V "I mean what 1 say, we eat the fat with the lean 
 and the lean with the fat, and so do the best we can." 
 
 A more extended acquaintance with the Colony showed me that though 
 such privations as thus indicated might be rare, they were not unknown in 
 other parts. From a missionary of the AVcsleyan body, who had been 
 stationed in Great Namaqualand, I learned that while he was there it was 
 only by a six weeks journey that he could procure flour for his family, and 
 that a journey made with difficulty. The statement with which this was 
 followed is now recalled, eight-and-twenty years after it was made, and 
 there may be slight inaccuracies in my report of it, though I do not see this 
 to be possible. It was substantially this, that they could not grow wheat 
 
INTEODUOTION. 9 
 
 and had to send into the Colony for flour, and in doing so their -waggons 
 had to be got across the Orange Elver, where there was neither ford nor 
 ferry. They sent on the waggon a boat ; the waggon was taken to pieces 
 on the bank of the river ; the boat was launched ; the waggon was carried 
 across piece by piece, and when reconstructed on the colonial side of the 
 river, the journey to the nearest village was resumed. Supplies having been 
 obtained, in returning the same operation had to be gone through in re- 
 crossing the Orange Eiver, and the supplies carried across in a similar way ; 
 six weeks in all being in general consumed in the journey to and from the 
 Colony. 
 
 Dry and arid as was the Karroo, I was told that within a few days after 
 a thundershower it is clothed with verdure on every spot on which this may 
 have fallen ; and if the rain were copious, within perhaps three weeks there- 
 after it would be studded with flowers, many of them of exquisite beauty, 
 delicate in structure, and brilliant in hue. So copious at times, I was told, 
 are the showers which fall in connection with a thunderstorm, that they 
 deluge the land. Shortly before it had happened, I was told, that the in- 
 habitants of a village which was named to me, but the name of which I 
 have forgotten, were roused during the night by the noise of a rush of 
 waters threatening to carry all before them, and one man stepping to the 
 door to see what it might be, found himself on crossing the threshold more 
 than knee deep in the stream, and scarcely able to maintain his footing 
 against its flow. And I subsequently witnessed what satisfied me of the veri- 
 similitude of what I had heard. I was on one of my journeys overtaken in 
 a Kloof by a thunderstorm, in little more than five minutes the road was a 
 river, the waters rushing along with a rapidity such as is seldom seen in a 
 river-bed, and from six to ten inches in depth from bank to bank. 
 
 In accordance with this is the testimony of others. The late Dr Eubidge, 
 of Port Elizabeth, in a paper on Irrigation and tree planting, which appeared 
 in a volume entitled The Cape and its People, published in 1869, says, " In 
 October 1866, I passed over the bare plains between the Milk Eiver and 
 Graaffreinnet just after a heavy shower of rain. The " by-road " was run- 
 ning knee-deep, in every hollow was a fine running stream, while the 
 gullies were great torrents now, which in a few hours you could pass dry 
 shod. Yet most of these channels presented spots where much of the 
 water that was rushing uselessly and destructively to the sea might have 
 been stored. 
 
 " It was sad to contrast the beautiful orchards, vineyards, and corn fields 
 we had just left with the dreary monotonous flats, and to reflect that all 
 that was wanting to convert that wilderness into a smiling garden, was 
 speeding away to swell the rivers into dangerous torrents, and carrying 
 along with it some of the most fertile soil of the country." 
 
 Similar were my feelings in witnessing what I did on the journey to 
 which I am now referring. While I witnessed what I have detailed, it ap- 
 peared to me, that it was quite practicable greatly to modify the condition 
 of the Colony and of its inhabitants, by a proper storage of the waters 
 which fell from the heavens during the rainy seasons in districts in which 
 these annually occtu, and the water which fell in thunder showers, and tro- 
 pical torrents of rain in districts in which annual rainy seasons were 
 unknown. 
 
 It seemed to me that the country offered considerable facilities for storing 
 up such waters. There might be difficulties to be overcome, but I knew of 
 
10 INTftODUCnON. 
 
 nothing great which has been accomplished by man without difficulty. It 
 might be difficult to get labourers ; it might be difficult to carry to them 
 needed provisions for their support while engaged in the work ; it might be 
 difficult to find the money required ; and it might be difficult to do a 
 hundred other things. But the practical questions resolved themselves into 
 two, Was it practicable 1 and, Would it pay 1 On the latter point I was 
 not then, nor am I now, in possession of the data necessary for a solution 
 of the question, and therefore I could not speak. But in answer to the 
 first I could say I see no physical hindrance which may not with reasonable 
 effort be overcome ; and on my return to Capetown I communicated to 
 others the impressions I had received of the practicability of greatly modi- 
 fying the effects there produced by the aridity of the climate. 
 
 It was known to many that I had given attention to several branches of 
 physical science, and before I left the colony I received a communication 
 from the Secretary of the South African College, stating that he was 
 instructed by the Committee of Council to offer to me the appointment of 
 intferim Professor in the College. The number and nature of my engage- 
 ments at the time prevented me from accepting the appointment ; but in 
 1863, on the death of the Colonial Botanist, who was also Professor of 
 Botany in the South African College, I was invited to return and undertake 
 the duties of these offices, which I did. 
 
 While in Scotland I had for years filled the chair of Botany in 
 University and King's College, Aberdeen ; and I was pleased to have an 
 opportunity of studying the rich flora of the Cape, with the facilities for 
 doing so which such appointments supplied. 
 
 I had scarcely entered upon the discharge of the duties of my office as 
 Colonial Botanist at the Cape, — which office, originally established in the 
 year 1858, was created with the two-fold object, 1st, Of ascertaining and 
 making generally known the economic resources of the Colony as regards its 
 indigenous vegetable productions and its fitness for the growth of valuable 
 exotic trees and other plants ; and 2nd, Of perfecting our knowledge of the 
 flora of South Africa, and thus contributing to the advance of botanical 
 science — when I found it necessary to make an extensive tour of observa- 
 tion, that I might acquire a general idea of the physical geography of the 
 Colony, its capabilities and its productions, make the acquaintance of 
 practical and scientific men resident in different districts, and endeavour to 
 raise up everywhere a body of intelligent observers of the vegetation of the 
 country. 
 
 In the course of this tour I passed through the divisions of Stellenbosch, 
 Paarl, Tulbagh, Caledon, Swellendam, Eiversdale, Mossel Bay, George, 
 Knysna, Humansdorp, Uitenbage, Albany, and Victoria East, British 
 Kaffraria, the divisions of Queen's Town and Burghersdorp, the landdrosdy 
 of Philippolis, and the divisions of Colesberg, Middlebiu-g, Cradock, Bedford, 
 Alexandria, and Port Elizabeth, whence I returned by sea, having been pre- 
 vented by the state of the Fish River from can-ying out arrangements I had 
 made for visiting Somerset East, Pearston, Graaff-Reinet, Aberdeen, Beaufort, 
 Dyselsdorp, Oudtshoorn, Amandelboom, Montagu, Robertson, and Worcester. 
 
 The villages, of which the three last named villages are centres, and the 
 district of Clanwilliam, I had afterwards an opportunity of visiting, some of 
 them ofterier than once, and most of the others I had previously visited. 
 
 In the course of that tour I found in veiy many places — I had almost 
 said everywhere — lamentations over the consequences of a severe and long- 
 
INTEODUOTION. 1 1 
 
 continued drought from which the Colony was suffering, though rain had 
 then fallen and was falling in torr ents, and reviving hope was beginning to 
 cheer the drooping spirits of the community. 
 
 Of this drought, which had reached its climax in the preceding year, I 
 received the most saddening accounts. It prevailed not only throughout 
 the Colony, but far beyond it. In the tropical regions of the Great Lalies 
 it was felt. In the district of the Lesuto, which is generally at stated 
 periods blessed with abundance of rain, it was severely felt, — -the vast 
 grassy plains being changed into deserts of sand. Clouds which appeared 
 passed away, and clouds of dust took their place. The largest streams 
 ceased to flow. At one place the Orange Eiver could be stepped across by 
 a child, and after a time it ran dry in some parts of its course, exposing in 
 its bed near Hopetown the remains of a waggon which had been lost in a 
 sudden flood while crossing the river some thirty years before. 
 
 Within the Colony cattle died by the thousand, and many of the farmers 
 had lost more than half their substance. I heard of lambs being killed in 
 hundreds, lest both they and the dams should perish if these were allowed 
 to suckle them. 
 
 At Colesberg cabbage was sold at a penny • the leaf; and there was 
 shown to me a bundle of fodder, which I grasped with my forefinger and 
 thumb, which was kept as a memorial specimen of what had been sold for 
 half-Orcrown each. I was there told of travellers — one of them a personal 
 friend of my own — having had, on a journey to Hopetown, to stop again and 
 again and rest, till by a few handfuls of grass roots, gathered from the 
 ground, the horses were refreshed. I was told that at Bloomfontein 
 emaciated horses had been seen — by my informant, if I remember aright, — 
 hanging about the doors of stores while the floors of these were being swept, 
 returning again and again when driven away, and afterwards tearing and 
 eating old gunny bags and sheets of paper swept to the street. 
 
 I was told that many were anticipating absolute ruin, and possibly death 
 by starvation, as the probable efiects of the drought, when the rain came to 
 their relief 
 
 My previous experiences in Africa enabled me to enter into the feelings 
 which were described to me ; and sometimes while listening to details of 
 privation and suffering I was reminded of the Word of the Lord that came 
 to Jeremiah concerning the dearth — " Judah mourneth, and the gates 
 thereof languish ; they are black unto the ground ; and the cry of Jerusalem 
 is gone up. And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters ; they 
 came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels 
 empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads. 
 Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the 
 plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. Yea, the hind also 
 calved in the field and forsook it, because there was no grass. And the 
 wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like 
 dragons ; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass." — Jer. xiv. 2-6. 
 
 At other times I was reminded of what is recorded of the sufferings 
 endured during the three years drought which occurred in the reign of 
 Ahab, illustrated, incidentally as they are, by the reply of the widow 
 woman whom Elijah saw gathering sticks, and to whom he called and said, — 
 " Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And 
 as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray 
 thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand, And she said, As the Lord thy God 
 
12 INTBODUOTION. 
 
 liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil 
 in a cruise : and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and 
 dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die." — 1 Kings_ xvii. 
 10-12. In connection with this we read that after three years and six 
 months of continued drought, during which there seemed to be neither rain 
 nor dew, " Ahab tlie king called Obadiah, who was the governor of his 
 hoLise, and said unto him, Gq into the land, unto all fountains of water, unto 
 all brooks ; peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules 
 alive, that we lose not all the beasts. So they divided the land between 
 them, to pass throughout it : Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah 
 went another way hj himself" — 1 Kings xviii. 5-6. These are life-pictures 
 to one who is conversant with farm life in South Africa, and with the 
 droughts wliich prevail ; and the narrative is suggestive of details of what 
 many a farmer at the Cape had to say to his sons, and his sons-in-law, and 
 his herds, during the drought to which reference is made. 
 
 But the similarity does not stop here. In the one case as in the other, 
 the long-continued drought issued in torrents of rain. In the one case, as 
 we read, in the hour of extremity " Elijah said to Ahab, get thee up, eat 
 and drink ; for there is a sound of abundance of rain. So Ahab went up to 
 eat and drink : and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel ; and he cast him- 
 self down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, and said to 
 his servant. Go up now look towards the sea. And he went up, and looked, 
 and said, there is nothing. And he said. Go again seven times. And it 
 came to pass, at the seventh time, that he said. Behold, there ariseth a little 
 cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said. Go up, say unto 
 Ahab, Prepare thy chariot and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. 
 And it came to pass, in the meanwhile, that the heaven was black with 
 clouds and wind, and there was a great rain." — 1 Kings xvii. 41-45. 
 
 So was it then, and so has it often been seen at the Cape, after the 
 drought, a deluge. Some cases of this I shall afterwards have occasion to 
 detail, at present I confine myself to what I experienced and witnessed on 
 the tour which I then made. 
 
 Everywhere I fotmd that there had been copious rains, in some places 
 torrents. For days I was confined to the house by drenching rains, which 
 made the roads rivers. I met the Government Kailway Engineer retiirning 
 from the Eastern Province, at a farm house near Caledon at which we both 
 outspanned, by whom I was told that I should find the roads in the Lang 
 Kloof impassable for the vehicle in which I travelled, the clay in many 
 places having been, converted into mud three feet deep, the surface of 
 which caked and hardened would in all probability, like rotten ice, again 
 and again give way, and my horses would be unable to drag out my convey- 
 ance. My informant had himself only got through by the strength of his 
 team, which was double that which I drove, and his vehicle lighter by one- 
 half 
 
 I did get safely through, but I saw evidence of the correctness of my in- 
 formant's observations. 
 
 At Eiversdale I was detained forty-eight hours by the state of the river. 
 The crossings of the Kroom Eiver I found to be not unaccompanied with 
 danger. 
 
 In approaching Van Staden's Pv,ivor I found one-half of the breadth of the 
 road converted into a deep gully, leaving not breadth enough for my cart ; 
 and we passed it by letting one horse drag the cart, with one wheel on the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 road, the driver and I holding it level by bearing up the other. The Van 
 Staden's Kiver I found in flood, and I got through only by the help of a 
 hired team. 
 
 At Grahamstown I was prevented day after day by rains from making ex- 
 cursions for botanical observations in the neighbourhood ; and I^learned 
 that the Fish Eiver Tvas so full that to go to Kaffraria by Fort Peddle, as 
 was my intention, was impracticable. 
 
 Leaving Grahamstown for Fort Beaufort I passed a streamlet where, 
 during my sojourn of a few days at Grahamstown, a post-rider had been 
 drowned in attempting to cross. 
 
 Further on my way, I found the Fish Eiver had so flooded the road by 
 its side that in the middle of the highway the water was some eighteen or 
 twenty inches above the axle of my cart. 
 
 The Buffalo Kiver I crossed with difiiculty at a ford where a few hours 
 before, and again a few hours later, it was impassable for man and beast. 
 
 Leaving Queenstown for Burghersdorp, I travelled over ground high and 
 dry, where within a few weeks before two farmers had been drowned. 
 
 I had adventures more ludicrous than perilous in the course of my tour. 
 One of these occurred shortly after this in my ascent of Pen Hoek. The 
 surface of the road was soft clay, which had been brought to something like 
 the consistency of cream, by the abundant or rather superabundant rain, 
 and some three inches deep covered clay, somewhat more tenacious but not 
 less slippery to the foot. Ere we reached the top of the pass, my horses, 
 tired of sprawling, the four feet of each going sometimes in as many direc- 
 tions, refused to go one step further. A friend from Queenstown, who had 
 kindly accompanied me so far, to see me beyond all danger, asked me to 
 mount his horse while he tried what could be done with mine. I had 
 scarcely mounted when his horse quietly and deliberately lay down on its 
 side, giving me time to withdraw my foot from the stirrup, but then throw- 
 ing me flat on my back in the mud. It was raining hard, and happily I 
 had on a waterproof topcoat and waterproof splatterdashes. But the horses 
 in the cart would neither be coaxed nor scolded, fondled nor flogged, to put 
 forth another effort ; and we made the hills around to ring again with the 
 noise of our laughter. " Stop," said my friend, " I'll make them go ! " and 
 tying the tail of his horse to the head of one of mine in such a way that if 
 his advanced mine must either follow or die ; causing my driver to mount 
 the cart and take the reins ; and taking his horses by the head, he and the 
 driver gave simultaneously a tremendous shout, shook'the reins and made 
 an unearthly commotion, under which the horses took to their feet as if the 
 cry had been, " Woe betides the hindmost ! " I followed, encased in clay, 
 and we stopped not till in this fashion we cleared the pass ! Whatever may 
 have been the drought and however long it may have lasted, there was no 
 lack of rain then ! At Burghersdorp I found the Civil Commissioner, after 
 having been twice to the river, had given up all expectation of my being- 
 able to cross it. 
 
 On my return from beyond the Orange Eiver, I re-crossed the Fish Eiver, 
 but within forty-eight hours after I had done so and was safely housed in 
 Cradock, it was tearing along full from bank to bank impassable. 
 
 In proceeding to Bedford I had to cross the Tarka. But on the banks of 
 the Tarka I was, along with many others, detained several days, the river 
 ■which the day before that on which I was to have crossed might almost 
 have been crossed diyshod, having come down in the afternoon, and con- 
 
* 1 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tinuing day after day to rush and roar and tear along in a torrent, ranging 
 in depth as shown by the figures on the unfinished bridge from twenty to 
 four-and-twenty feet. Not deeming it expedient to remain longer, I was at 
 length conveyed across in something like an old soap-box suspended from a 
 strong rope attached to trees on the opposite banks, and to which were 
 attached cords by which it could be drawn from the one bank to the other, 
 conveying the mails when the river was in such a condition. 
 
 My sensations, when suspended between heaven and earth above a roar- 
 ing torrent, were something different from any I had previously experienced. 
 But a gentleman well-known in the Eastern Province, who left Grahams- 
 town for King William's Town about the same time I did, but by another 
 route, must have had more to tell of his sensations than I, if what was told 
 me be true. I was informed that he had to cross the Buffalo in a way 
 similar to that in which I had to cross the Tarka; but there the 
 conveyance was a basket and not a box, and there were no cords attached 
 to it whereby it could be drawn from the one bank to the other, but the 
 passenger had by a hand-over-hand movement, on the suspending rope, to 
 pull himself and the basket across ; and this rope was not quite so tight as 
 that by which I was suspended. Getting into the basket and being some- 
 what corpulent, his weight distended the rope into a beautiful curve, and 
 the basket and he almost flew half way towards the further shore ; but 
 there it stopped ! the slope of the rope made it equally difficult to go for- 
 ward or to return, the weight of the aerial voyager, which so greatly facili- 
 tated his passage thither, seemed to say to his basket or to himself, what 
 Canute is said to have said to the sea, " Thus far but no further, and here 
 shall thy proud course be stayed." At length, by strenuous effort, the fur- 
 ther bank was reached in safety. My transit was comparatively a pleasant 
 flight ; but both speak of the abundance of rain which had faUen. 
 
 I proceeded to Adelaide and Bedford en route for Somerset and Graaff- 
 Keinet. But at Bedford I was again detained through the Fish Eiver being 
 again impassable. It had come down and had continued to flow for a great 
 many days, I think ten days or a fortnight, and that with a current so 
 impetuous that the ferrymen- had refused a fare of £10 to carry across a 
 medical practitioner, whose services were required on the further side ; and 
 there being no app earance of subsidence, I had to abandon my purpose of 
 crossing it, and to change entirely my route in returning to the Western 
 Province. 
 
 Hearing everywhe're of the drought, and seeing the deluges of water 
 rushing in torrents to the sea, I was often ready to cry out. Wherefore is 
 this waste 1 and the feeling prompting to this was the more intense that 
 almost everywhere I saw facilities for preventing this, and indications that 
 formerly the water was not so lost to the land. In elucidation of this 
 remark, I must state I had previously travelled both in Finland and in the 
 lake district of North America, and in many of the districts through which 
 I passed in the Colony of the Cape I was reminded by what I then saw of 
 what I had seen in these lands ; in these lands were lakes of water — some 
 of them like inland seas in extent, — in the country through which I was 
 passing there were none ; but there were what looked like basins of lakes, 
 which it required no effort of the imagination to pictm-e as fiUed with water, 
 though then drained and dry. 
 
 The lakes of North America cover an area of 84,000 square miles ; nearly 
 a fourth part of the whole area of Canada; and two-fifths of the whole area 
 
Introduction. l5 
 
 of Finland are covered by lakes, a hundred of which may sometimes be seen 
 in the course of a single day's journey. Lake Superior, in America, covers 
 an area of 31,000 square miles, the others are of corresponding extent. In 
 Finland — called by its inhabitants. The Land of a Thousand Lakes, and The 
 Lost Daughter of the Sea — they are smaller, but of a magnitude not to be 
 despised : one measures nearly 30 miles long by 30 miles broad, and Lake 
 Ladoga, through which its waters flow in their progress to the sea, covers 
 6190 square miles, an area equal nearly to the whole principality of Wales. 
 And such were the scenes recalled by what I saw of the general contour of 
 the colony as I journed from place to place ; but what was seen spoke of this 
 as having been the case long, long ago. Now all was changed ; the waters 
 had all escaped and the dry basin alone remained, with, in some cases, 
 gorges through which the waters had poured in seeking a lower level, and 
 finally made their escape. 
 
 I considered that it not only came within the sphere of my duties as 
 Colonial Botanist to give attention to such subjects, but that, in accordance 
 with the primary object for which that ofi&ce was created, as stated in the 
 communication made to me when I received the appointment, and which 
 I have quoted, — ^that " of ascertaining and making generally known the 
 economic resources of the Colony as regards its indigenous vegetable pro- 
 ductions, and its fitness for the growth of valuable exotic trees and other 
 plants," — the moisture and supply of water available, or which might be 
 made available, for agricultural and horticultural purposes, was one to 
 which, in the peculiar circumstances of the Colony, I ought to give special 
 attention ; and I did so in all my toxu:s in the Colony. 
 
 In my official report for 1866 I reported — "In my capacity of 
 Professor of Botany in the South African College, I am required to deliver, 
 annually, a course of lectures on Botany at that season of the year which is 
 least favourable to the prosecution of my other official duties. I have 
 twice in the course of the year reported myself ready to do this if a class 
 could be formed ; but on neither occasion did a class offer. I also publicly 
 intimated during the severe drought which prevailed in the beginning of the 
 year that I was prepared to lecture in any place in the Colony, however 
 remote it might be, on the causes of the aridity of South Africa, and on the 
 remedies which could be applied, and to hold conferences on the subject, 
 either in the lecture-room or on the veldt, on condition that my travelling ' 
 expenses should be met, either by several applicants for my services 
 conjointly, or by one and another as I moved from place to place. This 
 measure was carried out in whole or in part at Capetown, Wynberg, Koeberg, 
 SteUenbosch, Frensche Hoek, Worcester, Eobertson, and Montag-u. 
 
 " At Cradock and some other places my services were desired if I should 
 come within the bounds of the Eastern Province. Arrangements were 
 made for my free conveyance through the district of Namaqualand, if I 
 could get to Clanwilliam. An offer was made to me of free conveyance 
 throughout an extensive tour from Mi>ssel Bay, if I could find my way 
 thither. And on the occasion of a conference on irrigation being held at 
 George a letter was addressed to the Colonial Office by the Civil 
 Commissioner of Mossel Bay, in which that officer wrote as follows : — 
 
 " ' By a resolution of the Mossel Bay Agricultural Society I have been 
 desired to solicit the official attendance of Dr Brown, the Colonial Botanist, 
 if he would kindly come, at the meeting of delegates from other societies at 
 George, invited for the purpose of discussing a scheme for irrigation, and 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 model farms which the Mossel Bay Society intends to offer f'F/'^^°^T 
 and improvement. This meeting will take place about the 7th ^J^^'^'^' 
 during the combined agricultural show for George, Oudtshoom, and JMossei 
 
 Bay divisions. , i • e +-u„+ 
 
 "'Such a suitable opportunity rarely occurs for the hearmg ot tnat 
 gentleman's scientific views and suggestions for the increase of products 
 founded on the practical observations of others. Considermg that many of 
 the farmers from four important divisions wiU be congregated on the ocoa. 
 sion, the committee trust that the general benefit to be derived will justify 
 His Excellency the Governor in graciously acceding to the request, and in 
 incurrino- the small expense which will be incurred thereby. The committee 
 had hop°8d to be in a position to afford the expense, but unfortunately find 
 that the show will necessitate again an extra subscription on the part of 
 the members. The hospitality wliich will be gladly shown to Dr Brown 
 will hmit his expenditure to the transport alone between Capetown and 
 Mossel Bay. 
 
 " ' In my official capacity I am of opinion that incalculable advantage to 
 the central part of the Colony is likely to be derived from his viva voce 
 lectures by the agriculturalists, who are keenly alive to their present criti- 
 cal' state, and anxious for some practical scheme whereby labour will be 
 made remunerative in the production of better and other articles for export 
 and for home consumption.' 
 
 " It was intimated, in reply from the Colonial Office, that no provision 
 was made for meeting such expense. And having thus an opportunity of 
 showing what I have experienced in many other ways, that the salary and 
 allowance of £400 per annum is insufficient to meet the expenses which are 
 necessarily incurred in the discharge of the duties to which I have been 
 called as Colonial Botanist, I presented to the Honourable the House of 
 Assembly a petition, praying that adequate provision migTit be made for the 
 discharge of these duties ; but it was deemed more expedient, with a view to 
 retrenchment, to abolish the office. 
 
 "In the report of the Colonial Botanist for 1863 in reference to a 
 lengthened tour through the Colony which had been made that year with a 
 view to the study of the physical geography of the Colony, and to the 
 raising up everywhere a body of intelligent observers of the vegetation of 
 the country, and of phenomena connected with agriculture, it is stated that 
 having visited the more populous districts of the Colony, it was my inten- 
 tion to visit also the more sparsely peopled districts, and some of the mis- 
 sionary stations beyond the Orange Eiver, in accordance at once with my 
 own views of what was desirable, and with the corresponding views of the 
 late Dr Harvey communicated in letters quoted in that report ; but that the 
 outlay I had incurred in making the tour then completed would prevent me 
 from carrying out my intention at that time. 
 
 " When the recommendation of the select committee on retrenchment 
 appointed by the Plonourable the House of Assembly, that the office I hold 
 should be abolished, was adopted by the House, I was engaged in corres- 
 pondence relative to a journey towards the Limpopo, to be undertaken in 
 like manner, at my own expense, in the beginning of the year, provided His 
 Excellency the Governor should approve my going so far beyond the 
 boundary of the Colony. This journey would have taken me throuo-h the 
 Karroo, the country intermediate between that and the Orange River the 
 Orange River Free State, the State of the Transvaal Republic to' the 
 
ItfTBuDUO'i'WN, 
 
 1? 
 
 advanced northern limit in lat. 22° S., and either through the colony of 
 Natal or through the country of Moselekatze and the district of the 
 Kuruman on my return to the Colony. 
 
 " The proposed object of this journey was to obtain verifications or cor- 
 rections of observations and conclusions embodied in the memoranda pre- 
 pared on the Hydrology of Southern Africa, on the forest and forest lands 
 of Southern Africa, and on the natural history of South African trees, before 
 these should be published, and at -the same time to secure a more extensive 
 observation of South African flora. But the resolution of the Assembly to 
 abolish, at the close of the year, the office of Colonial Botanist rendered it 
 necessary for me to abandon at once all thoughts of prosecuting this enter- 
 prise." 
 
 Appended to this report were abstracts of several memoirs on subjects 
 connected with the development of the agricultural capabilities of the 
 Colony, and amongst these one on the Hydrology of South Africa, — the sub- 
 stance of this recast, with the addition of details of facts which have subse- 
 quently come under my notice, constitutes the substance of the following 
 treatise. 
 
PART I.-FORMER HYDROGRAPHIC CONDITIONS 
 OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TESTIMONY SUPPLIED BY THE PHYSICAL GEOGEAPHY OF SOUTH AFRICA TO 
 THE FOBMEE HYDEOGEAPHIO CONDITION OF THE COUNTEY. 
 
 By physical geograpliy I understand the general contoiir and superficial 
 condition of the face of the country, marked as this is by hills, and kloofs, 
 and pl6,in8, passes, forests, and watercourses, or what may be remarked by 
 an intelligent traveller, — ^though, on the one hand, he may know nothing of 
 geology or the structure of the earth's crust, and, on the other hand, know 
 nothing of botany or of the characteristics of the vegetation with which it is 
 clothed, — ^travelling, it may be, in pursuit of health, or in pursuit of wealth, 
 or in pursuit of pleasure, or in pursuit of game, and of nothing else, but 
 travelling with his eyes open and looking intelligently upon what he sees. 
 
 To derive from the physical geography of South Africa, or of any land, 
 all the information it may be made to yield in regard to the previous 
 hydrographic condition of the country, it is necessary to look upon it in the 
 light of observations previously made — made, it may be, in childhood, on 
 the muddy basin of a tidal harbour emptied by the ebb of the tide — or made, 
 it may be by others and read of in advancing youth, or at a riper age. 
 But there is much that is told by physical geography which may command 
 the assent of one who has not consciously gone through any such training 
 when what is seen is read off by another ; and this is what I propose to do. 
 
 In my mind, and in the minds of many others, what is chiefly and most 
 powerfidly associated in thought with the mention of South Africa is the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and associated with this Table Mountain, and the Devil's 
 Hill, and the Lion's Head. We must commence our survey at some point, 
 and we may as well commence at this point as at any other. 
 
 The tabular outline of the summit of Table Mountain, and the conical 
 outline of the summit of the Lion's Head, as these are seen from Table Bay, 
 are characteristic of the summits of many other isolated mountains through- 
 out extensive districts of South Africa. 
 
 The summits of such mountains, and the summits of mountain ranges 
 ten, twenty, or forty miles distant, are not unfrequently found to be, or 
 they appear to be, of the same deposit. In some instances — as is the case 
 with the so-called Gates of the Oomzimvooboo and the next mountain range 
 beyond — they are either at the same elevation or at an elevation indicative 
 of a continuous dip. All of these appearances are suggestive of the land 
 having been tilted up in a mass from a subaqueous depth, the stratification 
 or other indioations of deposit from water being strongly marked, and of the 
 
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 19 
 
 intervening level valleys having been, either previously or subsequently, 
 scooped out by the erosive action of currents. 
 
 Besides linean level valleys of great extent, there are numerous level val- 
 leys of circular outline of considerable extent, from which there is a narrow 
 cleft-like outlet as in Tulbagh Kloof, or one less marked as at Colesberg. 
 
 These, together with much more extensive beds of deposit characterised 
 by fossil remains of the Dicynodon, speak of the subsequent silting up or 
 escape and drying up of lacustrine sheets of water. 
 
 By Bain, who gave much attention to the geology of South Africa before 
 it commanded the attention which it has received of late years, the 
 Bicynodon beds were conjectured to have been the bottom of an ancient 
 lake or inland sea, which extended north as far at least as the Zambesi ; 
 and this now is supposed to have been one of the outlets by which its waters 
 escaped. According to Professor Owen, there are good reasons for referring 
 this formation to the age of the New Eed Sand Stone, of which age I shall 
 afterwards have occasion to speak. 
 
 But the draining off of the waters from the estuaries between the 
 mountain ranges in the south, and the drying up of the lakes and filling 
 the level valleys of circular outline, to which reference has been made, may 
 have occurred — the former perhaps, but the latter certainly — long subse- 
 quent to that remote era. On these points we may afterwards enquire 
 what may be learned from the records to which we are directing our 
 attention ; but that pertains to geology, and it is physical geography alone 
 with which we have at present to do. 
 
 Dr Livingstone has read off for us much of what may be learned from the 
 country further to the north ; and there is a pleasure in being able to cite 
 the observations of such a man. 
 
 One supposition in regard to the general contour of Southern Africa is, 
 that it is a succession of table-lands, at several successive elevations, from 
 the coast to the interior of the continent, where level deserts of sand, dry 
 as dust through the effects of torrid heat, bid defiance to vegetation. But 
 of late years this supposition has been by many abandoned, and by others 
 it has been modified to bring it into accordance with the recorded observa- 
 tions of travellers and the reasonings of men of science. 
 
 Dr Livingstone, in his Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its 
 tributaries, describing what he saw in the district of Lake Nyassa at Ndonda, 
 where the boiling point of water showed an altitude of 3440 feet above 
 the sea, says — " Looking westwards we perceived that which from below 
 had the appearance of mountains was only the edge of a table-land, which, 
 though at first undulating, soon became smooth and sloped towards the 
 centre of the country." 
 
 Of the country in that district, after discussing the water-shed as indicated 
 by the alleged and by the observed courses of known rivers, he says — " Some 
 parts of the continent have been said to resemble an inverted dinner-plate. 
 This portion seems more of the shape, if shape it has, of a wide-awake hat, 
 with the crown a little depressed. Tlie altitude of the brim is in some 
 parts considerable, in others, as at Tetle and the bottom of Murchison's 
 Cataracts, it is so small that it could only be ascertained by eliminating the 
 daily observations of the barometer by simultaneous observations on the 
 coast and at points two or three hundred miles inland. So long as African 
 rivers remain in what we may call the brim, they present no obstructions ; 
 but no sooner do they emerge from the higher lands than their utility is 
 
20 HYDHOLOaY OF SOUTH AFBIOA. 
 
 impaired by cataracts. The low-lying belt is very irregular, at times sloping 
 up in the manner of the rim of an inverted dinner-plate, while in other 
 cases a high ridge rises near the sea, to be succeeded by a lower district 
 inland before we reach the central plateau. The breadth of the lowlands is 
 sometimes as much as 300 miles, and that breadth determines the limits of 
 navigation from the seaward." 
 
 Dr Livingstone was very careful to ascertain as certainly as possible the 
 fact of the inclination or dip of the land towards the interior of the conti- 
 nent. 
 
 Not only does he record the observation made from the summit at 
 Ndonda, where the boiling point of water showed an altitude of 3440 feet 
 above the sea, that looking westward they perceived that what from below 
 had the appearance of mountains was only the edge of a table-land, which, 
 though at first undulating, soon became smooth, and sloped towards the 
 centre of the country ; " but," he subsequently writes, " We have taken 
 pains to ascertain from the travelled Bapessa and Arabs as much as possible 
 about the country in front, which, from the lessening time we had at our 
 disposal, we feared we could scarcely reach, and had heard a good deal of 
 a small lake called Bemba. As we proceeded west, we passed over the 
 courses not only of the Loangwa, but of another stream called Moitawa or 
 Moitala, which was represented to be the main feeder of Lake Bemba. 
 This would be of little importance but for the fact that the considerable 
 river Luapula, or Loapula, is said to flow out of Bemba to the westward, and 
 then to spread out into another and much larger lake, named Moero, or 
 Moelo. Flowing still further in the same direction, the Loapula forms 
 Lake Mofue, or Mofu, and after this it is said to pass the town of Cazembe, 
 bend to the north, and enter Lake Tanganyika. Whither the water went 
 after it entered the last lake, no one would venture an assertion. But 
 that the course indicated is the true water-shed of the whole country, we 
 believe from the unvarying opinion of native travellers. There could be no 
 doubt that our informants had been in the country beyond Cazembe, for 
 they knew and described Chiefs whom We afterwards met about thirty-five 
 or forty miles west of his town. The Lualaba is said to flow into the 
 Loapula, and when, for the sake of testing the accuracy of the native tra- 
 vellers, it was asserted that all the water of the region round the town of 
 Cazembe flowed into the Luambadzi, or Luambezi (Zambesi), they remarked 
 with a smile, " He says that' the Loapula flows into Zambesi — did you ever 
 hear such nonsense," — or words to that eifect. We were forced to admit, 
 that, according to native accounts, our previous impression of the Zambesi's 
 draining the country about Cazembe's had been a mistake. Their geogra- 
 phical opinions are now only stated, without any further comment than that 
 the itinerary given by the Arabs and others shows that the Loapula is twice 
 crossed on the way to Cazembe's. We may add that we have never found 
 any difficulty from the alleged incapacity of a negro to toll which way a 
 river flows. 
 
 " The boiling point of water shows a descent, from the edge of the plateau 
 to our farthest point west, of 170 feet; but this can only be considered as 
 an approximation, and no dependence could have been placed on it, had we 
 not had the courses of the streams to confirm this rather rough mode of 
 ascertaining altitudes. The slope, as shown by the water-shed, was to the 
 Loangwa of the Maravi, and towards the Moitala, or south-west west, and 
 north-west. After we leave the feeders of Lake Nyassa, the water drains 
 
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 21 
 
 towards the centre of the continent. The course of the Kasai, a river seen 
 during Dr Livingstone's journey to the west coast, and its feeder, was to the 
 north-east or somewhat in the same direction. Whether the water thus 
 drained off finds its way out by the Congo, or by the Nile, has not yet been 
 ascertained." 
 
 The question thus raised has commanded the attention of others besides 
 that noble man ; and perhaps there has not been an observation in connection 
 with its solution which does not add to data which may be used in 
 determining the former hydrographioal condition of South Africa, but in what 
 has been cited there is enough for the purpose for which this has been done. 
 
 In accordance with the illustration of the contour of South Africa, as 
 observed by Dr Livingstone, is much which may be seen within the colony 
 of the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 In almost every map of the colony may be seen indications of the position 
 of successive mountain ranges, more or less parallel to one another, and 
 more or less parallel to the coast. Between these lie plateaux of seeming 
 level ground ; and it may have been remarked, or it may be recollected 
 when mentioned, that the mountain ranges are frequently precipitous on the 
 seaward side, but much less, if at aU; on the further side, — sometimes 
 slanting away or sloping gradually towards the level land beyond. 
 
 Thus it is with Table Mountain — almost perpendicular where it faces 
 Table Bay, and scarcely less so where it overlooks the camp-ground, 
 Rondebosoh and Newlands, but sloping away towards False Bay. Thus it 
 is with the Hottentot Holland range of mountains — somewhat precipitous 
 towards False Bay and the Atlantic, much less so towards the interior. 
 Thus is it with many of the mountain ranges in the colony. Thus is it 
 with the mountain range carried across the mouth of the Oomzimvooboo, in 
 Kaffir land. The celebrated Gates of thp Oomzimvooboo, or the St John's, 
 through which the river emerges from the country behind, rise almost 
 perpendicularly by two successive precipices of 600 feet each, to a height 
 ascertained by measurement to be 1263 feet, but the land behind is only 
 1000 feet above the level of the sea, while beyond it stretches away a broken 
 mountainous country, varying in elevation above the sea from 1000 to 800 
 feet. And from the descriptions I have had of mountain ranges in Natal I 
 am led to conclude that so is it also with these. In all this there is much 
 which is in accordance with the idea gained by Dr Livingstone from more 
 extensive observations. 
 
 At present this is adduced as in accordance with the illustration of a 
 wide-awake hat with the crown slightly depressed, to which I shall afterwards 
 have occasion to revert, and which I therefore deem it expedient thus to 
 nail down for future use, while I proceed to make another use of some of 
 the corroborative observations which I have cited. 
 
 In all the regions near to the colony, as in the colony itself, we find the 
 rivers flowing from the interior of the country to the sea, and there is no 
 truer indication of the comparative elevation of land than is afforded by the 
 waterflow, as it always flows from a higher to a lower level. But when, as 
 is the case with the Oomsimboovoo, the river flows through an opening in a 
 mountain range, while this gives proof that the shore is at a lower level 
 than IS the land behind, it afi^ects not the evidence otherwise supplied that 
 the summit of the range is at an elevation still higher than is the country 
 through which that river has flowed in its course to the sea, and higher even 
 than are the mountains there, 
 
22 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFBIOA. 
 
 Ere that riTer fell into a course leading directly towards the sea, many a 
 streamlet flowing into it must have flowed in what seemed a landward 
 direction; and but for this outlet by the Gates, as they are called, the 
 waters must have accumulated behind that mountain range, forming a vast 
 inland lake, rising and increasing in depth till it began to overflow some 
 mountain neck, when, abrading and washing away, and thus, as it were, 
 sawing down, as doth the overflowing water of a reservoir the dam by which 
 it is confined, and, it may be, undermining by the swirl of its waters at the 
 outer base of the neck over which it flows — as the waters of the Niagara 
 have done through many miles of rock — ^the barrier was lowered, whereby a 
 freer and yet freer and more destructive flow of water was allowed, to the 
 still further lowering of the restraining neck at that part over which the 
 water flowed, and the consequent lowering of the water behind, until the 
 barriers being swept away — ages, it may be, being required for the work — 
 the lake became drained and its basin converted into dry land, through 
 which the river-bed sufiiced to carry off the superfluous rainfall of the 
 district ; and there is nothing improbable in the supposition that what it is 
 likely would have been the case . if this outlet had not existed may have 
 been what actually occurred in the formation of this outlet — a lake or 
 inland sea shut up behind finding here a way of escape, lowered the level 
 of the outlet, and silted up the basin till the sheet of water disappeared. 
 
 The contour of many, if not of all, the plateaux lying between the 
 mountain ranges of the Cape presents indications of something similar to 
 this having given to them their form. I say something similar, for in many 
 of them are indications of oceanic — as well as of lacustrine sheets of water 
 — -Jioes — as well as lakes, having at sometime filled these vales, indications 
 of the draining off' of the ocean from these ocean beds, and of the silting up 
 of the lacustrine beds till the raising of the bottom of the lake by earthy 
 deposits met the fretting away of the confining neck of land, and of the 
 level required for the conversion of the lake into dry land having thus 
 been produced. 
 
 And here a more detailed reference to the lake district of North America 
 and to Finland may illustrate both what may temporarily — ^though for 
 centuries — have been the condition of the country, and the operations or pro- 
 cess by which this state of things was changed. 
 
 In the lake country of America to which I have referred, we have Lake 
 Superior pouring its waters through a somewhat leng-theued vale into Lake 
 Huron, into which flow also the waters of Lake Michigan with its Green 
 Bay — itself a lesser lake, — the waters of Nipissing Lake, and the waters of 
 Lake Simcoe. From Lake Huron, the superabundant waters flow by the 
 Eiver St Clair into Lake Erie ; whence, with such accessions as they have 
 there received, they pour themselves over the falls of Niagara and flow by 
 the Niagara River into Lake Ontario, and thence passing through the midst 
 of the Thousand Islands, aad through successive rapids in the upper bed 
 of the St Lawrence, they find their way by that river to the sea. 
 
 These Lakes, as has been stated, cover an area of upwards of 84,000 
 sqiiare miles, which is nearly one-fourth of the entire area of Canada : Lake 
 Superior alone having an area of 31,000 square miles. 
 
 The elevation of this lake is about 627 feet above the sea. The eleva- 
 tion of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie, is not much less ; 
 the difference of level between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario is considerable, 
 and at the Falls of Niagara the waters are precipitated to a depth of 163 feet. 
 
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 23 
 
 The upper Lakes are of considerable depth, but Lake Erie is shallow and 
 it is slowly, but gradually, becoming shallower still. 
 
 In Finland— called by its inhabitants The Land of a Thousand Lakes, and 
 The Lost Daughter of the Sea — two-fifths of the country is covered by lakes, 
 a hundred of which may often be met with in the course of a day's journey, 
 and beautiful and picturesque they are. They constitute some five distinct 
 series or water systems, the lakes and lakelets .of which flow one into 
 another as do those of the lake district of America, and they thus pour their 
 waters through successive basins into the sea. One of these, after passing 
 through numerous lakes and gorges in the mountains, spreads itself out into 
 the lake of which I have spoken as being nearly 30 miles long and 20 miles 
 broad, from which the waters flowing onward in successive rapids some few 
 miles further down precipitate themselves through the falls of Imatra into 
 another lake below, and find their way to Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in 
 Europe, having, as I have stated, an area of 6190 square miles, and being 
 nearly as large as the whole principality of Wales. Into this lake flow also 
 the waters of Lake Onega and the waters of Lake Ilmen, while the northern 
 extremity of Lake Onega almost connects it with Lake Sigh and the White 
 Sea. By the Neva, which flows through St Petersburg, the waters of these 
 lakes empty themselves into the Gulph of Finland, and the Baltic, and the 
 ocean beyond. 
 
 Both in America and in Finland are indications of the waters having for- 
 merly stood at a higher level than they do now. At the falls of Niagara 
 may be witnessed the comparatively recent results of the operation of the 
 waters in eating away retaining barriers.* And the cataract is said to have 
 
 * Of the fall of Table Rock the following graphic picture was given in the 
 Philadelphia Bulletin. George Wilkes writes : — 
 
 " I said I had something to do with the fall of Table Rook, that broad shell on 
 the Canada side, which in 1850 looked over the very cauldron of the seething 
 waters, but which tumbled into it on a certain day in the month of June of that, 
 by me, well remembered year. About noon on that day 1 accompanied a lady 
 from the Clifton House to the Falls. Arriving at Table Roek, we left our carriage, 
 and as we approached the projecting platform I pointed out to my companion a 
 vast crack or fissure which traversed the entire base of the rock, remarking that it 
 had never appeared to me before. The lady almost shuddered aa she looked at 
 it, and, shrinking back, declared that she did not care about going near the edge. 
 ' Ah,' said I, taking her hand, ' you might as well come on, now that you 
 are here. I hardly think the rook will take a notion to fall merely because we 
 are on it.' 
 
 " The platform jutted from the main land some sixty feet ; but, to give the 
 visitor a still more fearful projection over the raging waters, a wooden bridge, 
 or staging, had been thrust beyond the extreme edge for some ten feet. This ter- 
 minated in a small box for visitors to stand in, and was kept in its position, and 
 enabled to bear its weight, by a ponderous load of stone heaped upon its inner 
 ends. The day was very bright and hot, and, it being almost lunch time at the 
 hotels, but very few visitors were out, so we occupied the dizzy perch alone. We 
 gazed fearfully out upon the awful waters, we stretched our heads timidly over 
 the frightful depth below, and we felt our natures quail in every fibre by the 
 deafening roar that seemed to saturate us, as it were, with an indefiable dread. 
 
 " ' This is a terrible place,' said I. ' Look under there, and see on what a mere 
 shell we stand. For years and years the teeth of the torrent, in that jetting, 
 angry stream, have been gnawing at that hoUow, and some day this plane must 
 fall.' 
 
 " My companion shudderer), and drew herself together in alarm. Our eyes 
 swept the loaiing circle of the waters once again ; we gazed about iu fearful 
 
24 HyDEOLOGY OF SOUXH APEIOA. 
 
 receded 50 yards since tlie commencement of the present century. Below the 
 falls, the river flows in a channel upwards of 150 feet deep, and 160 yards 
 wide, which has been thus formed. And at the Falls of Imatra, in Finland, 
 may be seen the waters tearing along through a narrow gorge to reach a 
 lower level. 
 
 Niagara has been often described — not so the Falls of Imatra. These I 
 visited in company with a party of friends. We reached the Falls about 
 three o'clock in the morning. It was the last day of July, and being near 
 the summer solstice, it was light all night. We had travelled through a 
 lovely country ; there was hiU and dale, woods and water ; and we had good 
 horses and excellent roads. 
 
 After a hurried look at the Falls, I went to bed, and by six o'clock I was 
 again at the water side. The forenoon was given to botany, to entomology, 
 and to rest, some of us gathering flowers, while one, with the occasional aid 
 of others, was catching butterflies, and another was taking pencil sketches of 
 the scenery around. In the afternoon we visited a waterfall about four 
 miles lower down, where the river empties itself into a lake. After tea, we 
 drove to a ferry some three miles above Imatra, where we crossed the stream 
 oaleche, and horses and all, and we drove along the other side of the river 
 to see the Falls from that side, whence only a sight of the whole at once 
 can be obtained. 
 
 The river is like the Niagara, a stream carrying the water from an upper 
 to a lower lake, and these parts of a chain of lakes, the level of each of 
 which is lower than the one immediately above it. Here the upper lake is 
 the Zydersee, an immense inland lake, which, with its ramifications and con- 
 nected lakelets, may be said to divide with the land and share between them 
 
 fascination, when suddenly turning our looks upon each other, each recognized a 
 corresponding fear. ' I do not like this place ! ' exclaimed 1, quickly. ' The 
 whole base of this rock is probably disintegrated, and perhaps sits poised in a 
 succession of steps or notches, ready to fall out and topple down at any unusual 
 perturbation. That fissure there seems to me unusually large to-day. 1 think 
 we had better leave, for 1 do not fancy such a finish ! and, besides, my paper 
 must be published next week.' 
 
 "With these very words — the latter uttered jocosely, though not without 
 alarm — I seized my companion's hand, and, in obsolute panic, we fled as fast as 
 our feet could carry us towards what might be called the shore. We first burst 
 into a laugh when we gained the laud, and, jumping into our carriage, felt actu- 
 ally as if we had made a fortunate escape. We rolled back towards the Clifton, but, 
 before we had proceeded two minutes on our way, a thundering report, like the 
 explosion of an earthquake, burst upon us, and with a loud roar the ground 
 trembled beneath our wheels. We turned to find that Table Rock had fallen. 
 We were the last upon it, and it was doubtless the unusual perturbation caused 
 by our flying footsteps that disturbed the exactitude of its equilibrium, and threw 
 it from its final poise. 
 
 " In a minute more the road was filled with hurrying people, and during the 
 following half -hour we were told a hundred times in advance of the next morning 
 journals, that a lady and gentleman who were on the Table Rock had gone down 
 the Falls. We are told that the trot of a dog would shake old London Bridge 
 from end to end, when it would not be disturbed by the rolling wheels of heavily 
 loaded trains. Table Rock had not been run upon in the way I have been de- 
 scribing for years — perhaps never — and therefore, whenever I hear it spoken of 
 I always shadder and feel as if I had something tj do with its faU." * 
 
 Leaving this to speak for itself, I may state that I have witnessed the effect 
 produced by the fall of this rook, having visited the Falls in 1836, and again ia 
 1873. 
 
PHTSIOAL GEOGEAPHT. 25 
 
 the whole extent of Finland. The lower, as has been intimated, is con- 
 nected with Lake Ladoga, whence flows the Neva into the Gulf of Finland, 
 which opens into the Baltic. 
 
 Like the Falls of Niagara, the ' Falls of Imatra present an appearance 
 differing greatly from the conception generally formed of a waterfall ; but 
 this it does in a different way. In the Falls of Niagara the immense stretch 
 of the fall in breadth, and the great excess of this above the height of it, 
 occasions to many a feeling of disappointment on its first being seen, which 
 continues until the spectator is enabled to realize what the height of the 
 fall actually is, and then what the immensity of the flow must be, seeing that 
 it is a fall of such a breadth and of such a height. In the Falls of Imatra, 
 we have what the spectator is at first disposed to call a rapid, rather than 
 a waterfall; but sMcAarapid! The falls reminded me of the Falls of Clyde; 
 but while there is a similarity, what a difference I Here you have Corralinn, 
 and Stonebyres Linn with its upper and its lower fall, and much more, all com- 
 bined into one continuous plunging, dashing, foaming, pouring torrent, rushing 
 through a rocky defile, apparently exceeding half-a-mile in length. There 
 is on the eastern side a table-rook, whence the whole can be seen in one 
 ccmp d'oeil — or rather, I should say, whence the whole can be traced with a 
 continuous sweep of the eye — for this cannot take in the whole at one 
 glance. Bu.t view it whence you may there it is, the torrent like a charge 
 of cavalry, the cavalry rushing onward — broken — trying to re-form, aU the 
 while pushmg on — failing to form — rushing and plunging, dashing, foaming, 
 roaring on, on, still on. I have seen it in sunshine and rain, at sunrise and 
 at sunset, by moonlight and in darkness, such darkness as there was when 
 dawn and dusk constitute a single twilight, in clear light, and with an over- 
 cast sky, and I was filled with a growing and continually expanding idea 
 which 1 received of the Falls. 
 
 The vegetation of the whole locality was luxuriant. Amongst its pro- 
 ductions were many of my countrymen — plants with which I at once 
 claimed acquaintance, as often do townsmen and even fellow-countrymen 
 when they meet in a strange land, though, perhaps, had they met at their 
 home they might have passed without even a look of recognition — and with 
 these were many which told of a foreign land, and this gave a peculiar 
 rehsh to the enjoyment experienced in recognising the former by the assur- 
 ance they gave that we had met in what was really a land of strangers. 
 Amongst the most luxuriant were wild Canterbuiy bells, and other species 
 of campanula, agrimony, golden roci, shepherd's rod, willow herbs great 
 and small, tormentil, silverweed, mHfoi) cranberries, blaeberries, goloo- 
 bitza, broosnika, and sweinelange, in abundance. I'erns were not awant- 
 ing, and mosses there were in plenty, and lichens — but such lichens ! — 
 in number, variety, magnitude, coloaring, beauty of form, and height of 
 growth far surpassing everything in that class of plants I could previously 
 have imagined. There were rocks — and roclcs of sach magnitude ! — enam- 
 elled with them as is a field in Tritain with buttercups and daisies. I 
 brought away a Ganina peltidea, 12 inches in diameter. With the flowers 
 named, there were very line knapweeds, St John's Worts, chrysanthemums 
 in considerable variety, and exquisitely fo.-med blue com flowers, and 
 cow- wheat; but the campanules and lichens were what arrested the eye — the 
 campanules on this side, the lichens on yonder. 
 
 The village in the vicinity of the Falls is a wretched ruckle of old houses, 
 inhabited apparently by the poorest of the poor ; but I have seen more 
 
 C 
 
26 HTDBOLOGT OP SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 than one peasant — apparently, however, peasants from a distance and 
 Russian — not Finnish — enjoying the scenery as much as did I ; one pear 
 sant I still see, now launching trees into the torrent, witnessing their 
 sudden disappearance, watching for their reappearance, tracing their pro- 
 gress with the rapidity of arrows, which told of the velocity with which 
 they were carried down the stream, and of the desire of the observer to 
 catch yet another sight of the Sea-Serpent-like body rushing on — now 
 standing in silent amaiae : I sympathized with his feelings, both in the one 
 case and in the other. 
 
 Not the least exciting of the adventures of the day was the crossing of 
 the ferry, in a smooth reach between two rapids, in a large boat with trees 
 for oars — trees cut at one end into oar-lite blades, and at the other cut so 
 as to allow of their being held and plied. There, was the rapid above 
 threatening to come down and engulf us ; and there, was the rapid below, 
 from which, had it caught us, there was no escape, and the Falls apparently 
 but a little way, though really some two miles, below the ferry. 
 
 Next morning I was up by six o'clock as usual, and down to the Falls ; at 
 eleven we started for Willmann Strand, distant some forty versts, on our re- 
 turn to the coast by another route. The scenery was lovely ; it was like 
 that of the Trossacks and that of the Cumberland Lakes combined, with 
 some resemblance to the Thousand Isles in Lake Ontario — Chills wooded to 
 the water-edge. Such land may be unproductive to the inhabitants, but to 
 the tourist it is most delightful to see. • 
 
 Such, it seemed to me, must have been the appearances presented by 
 what is now the Colony in some bye-gone time. Friths and inland seas 
 converted into lakes, from which water flowed from higher to lower levels, 
 in some places in torrents like those of the Falls of Imatra, precipitating 
 themselves through gorges like Tulbagh Kloof, Cogmans Kloof, Dunkel 
 Kloof, and maiiy more ; and some eating away the restraining rock as do 
 the Falls of Niagara — ^lowering thus the level of the lake above, while its 
 basin was also being silted up by the deposit of earthy matter brought from 
 a higher level. 
 
 There remain now only the lake basin and the torrent bed, but these 
 have a tale to tell ; and I would find it difiicult to read off the physical 
 geography of the Colony without seeing the hydrographic records with which 
 in many places it is interlined, and which in places compose the text — ^the 
 geography or contour of the country, telling what it is — these records telling 
 what has been, and in some places telling how the had been had been trans- 
 formed into the is. 
 
 But many, perhaps most — nor would I greatly err if I were to say all — 
 of the mountain ranges by which these extensive valleys are surrounded 
 are capped with sand in regular strata, or bear other indications that they 
 themselves must have been under water, and that for long, a part it may 
 have been of the ocean bed, from 'which the whole land has been upheaven, 
 taking in the process the peculiar contour which Livingstone has sug- 
 gested. And not a few of them show in the contour of their sides such 
 lines of slope, surmounted by precipitous cliffs, as may be naturally sup- 
 posed to be the effect of the retirement of the water and the consequent 
 withdrawal of the lateral support it had supplied. This also demands our 
 attention. 
 
 It may have been remarked that the slope at the base of some mountains 
 
PHYSICAL GEOGBAPHY. 27 
 
 and mountain ranges present an outline similar to that which earth rolling 
 or falling from a height to the base of a precipitous cliff or of a wall would 
 assume ; while the country beyond presents the appearance of the comparar 
 tive level assumed by the basin of a frith or bay of the sea, suggestive of the 
 thought that the valley may have, at a period subsequent, and it may be long 
 subsequent, to the deposit of the strata capping the mountain summits, and 
 after these were exposed high and dry, remained filled, or have been again 
 fiUed with water which was subsequently drained off by the outlet ; and as it 
 subsided, the mountain sides, being deprived of the support which it afforded, 
 scaled off, and the debris not washed away, feU into the shape of these 
 sloping masses, filling up the angle formed by the base of the precipice 
 and the level ground beyond. 
 
 There rise before me as I write the appearances presented by the sides of 
 the mountains extending from Table Mountain towards Kalk Bay as some- 
 thing similar to what I woiild fain describe. 
 
 In such slopes we seem to hav^ indications of an earlier hydrographio 
 condition of South Africa than was that when it was a land of lakes — -that 
 of a time when it was extensively covered by the sea. It requires no great 
 effort of imagination to picture the Flats between False Bay and Table 
 Bay so covered, and the Table Mountain range an island ; and while it re- 
 quires no great effort of imagination to picture this, nothing seems more 
 natural when we look upon the scene from an elevation on either side than 
 to conclude that at one time — and that a time perhaps not very remote — it 
 must have been so. Something similar to this may have been, and appar- 
 ently must have been, the case with some, if not with aU of those plateaux 
 or elongated plains to which reference has been made, they appearing as 
 marine lochs, or friths, or elongated bays, if not as straits by the shores of 
 which the mountain ranges appeared as islands separated thus from the 
 mainland ; and the strata of sand with which many of these mountains are 
 capped teU that they also must have been at one time covered by the sea, 
 more, it may be, than "twenty fathoms deep." 
 
 Such are some of the teachings of physical geography, and the testimony 
 supplied by the general contour of South Africa in regard to the previous 
 hydrographic condition of the country. It tells of the whole as having formed 
 part of the ocean bed ; it tells of a time when the mountains towered above 
 the surface of the sea while the valleys were covered by its waters ; it tells 
 of a time when what is now so arid and dry was once a land of lakes and 
 torrents, with all the aspects beautiful and sublime of a land which might 
 be characterised as a land of mountain and of flood. But we have come to 
 a point which seems to mark the transition from testimony supphed by the 
 Physical Geography of South Africa to the previous hydrographic condition 
 of the country, to that afforded by Geological discoveries. We are, how- 
 ever, still some way from the boundary line beyond which lie the domains of 
 geology, and of geology — pure and simple geology — -alone. Though we may 
 have, in proceeding thus far, learned a good deal of the previous hydro- 
 graphic condition of South Africa, we have not exhausted the testimony on 
 this subject supplied by the physical geography of the country, or learned 
 all that may be learned in the course of a leisurely tour, or even in the 
 course of a rapid and somewhat hurried tour, through the Colony of the 
 Cape of Good Hope. There, as elsewhere, there is much to be seen by 
 those who have eyes to see it, which speaks of the past, and which may, if 
 
28 HYDEOLOGT OP SOUTH APEIOA.. 
 
 questioned, tell much more of primeval times than many dream of, adding to, 
 if not extending, our information in regard to that past. 
 
 Before the voyager making for Table Bay has reached port and has landed 
 from his ship, he has, it may be, looked with excited feelings at what have 
 been called the twelve apostles, on the Lion's Head, on the Devil's Hill, and 
 last of all, as he enters the Bay, on Table Mountain, with its precipitous 
 front facing the ocean and sheltering the town, which nestles at its base. 
 
 Reference has already been made to similarity of strata, capping moun- 
 tains widely separated by intervening plains, indicating that these strata 
 were once continuous, and to correspondence of elevation, being indicative of 
 the intervening plain having been scooped out by ocean currents. And thus 
 does it appear to have been the case with the valley separating the Table 
 Mountain range from the Hottentot Holland range of mountains beyond. 
 
 It may be new to some of my readers to read of mountains being re- 
 mains of elevated plateaux, indebted for their mountainous character to the 
 washing away of the ground once continuous with them in height, leaving 
 them a mountain ridge lining a valley, or leaving a mountain standing by 
 ^itself alone in the midst of a plain; and it may seem to them incredible 
 that it can be true. 
 
 But I have found it impossible to look upon some of the mountain ranges 
 of South Africa without seeing that it must have been so with them. 
 Since this observation was made, I have been informed the Professor 
 Geikie has shown that thus have been formed many of the mountain 
 ranges in the Highlands of Scotland ; and when a boy I have seen in the 
 mud-banks of a tidal harbour the counterpart to the process in several 
 of its stages. 
 
 The water draining off from the mass of mud and from little basins at a 
 higher elevation made cuttings in the level mass — like to the deep and pre- 
 cipitous beds of many South African rivers. But as the sides were under- 
 mined they fell ; a part of what had thus fallen was carried away, but part 
 remain in the corner between the precipitous bank and the bed of the drain; 
 — more fell in, and more, and yet more — raising and extending the sloping 
 mass resting against the precipitous bank by which it was sxirmounted, the 
 precipitous portion being ever diminished in height and removed to a 
 greater distance from the opposite bank. And sometimes the process went 
 on until all trace of the surmounting precipice had disappeared, and a 
 rounded bank separated one vunnel from the next adjacent. 
 
 Often since this was observed, in the days of my childhood, have I 
 looked from some little eminence and seen the exact counterpart on a 
 larger scale at some parts of its course in the banks of the Tyne which 
 flows through East Lothian, and in some of its tributaries ; I see something 
 similar in many a map which represents a chain of hills flanked by spurs ; 
 and while I have seen in the deep precipitous banks of many a river at the 
 Cape what looks like the first stage of what is a comparatively recently 
 commenced water-drainage, I have seen in many of the mountain ranges of 
 South Africa what appear to me to be obviously the production of the latter 
 stages of such a drainage on a stupendous scale. 
 
 The magnitude of the scale upon which this presupposes that the current 
 must have flowed may itself suggest as an objection to the supposition 
 that it is incredible ; but this objection can easly be met. 
 
 First, as to the quantity of water required for currents such as are indi- 
 cated. There are in round numbers about 50 millions of square miles of 
 
PHYSICAL GEOGEAPHY. 29 
 
 the earth's surface dry land, but about 150 millions of square miles are 
 covered with water, and observations have been made which lead to the 
 conclusion that the average depth of the sea must be between four and five _ 
 miles. There are numerous instances of lines measuring 10, 20, 30, and 
 even 40 thousand feet having failed to give distinct evidence of their having 
 reached the bottom. Assuming then the average depth to be four miles, 
 there must be in the ocean 788 or nearly 800 millions of cubic miles mea- 
 surement of waters, and if these cover 150 millions of square miles of the 
 earth's surface to an average depth of between four and five miles, they 
 would suffice to cover the whole 200 millions of square miles to a depth of 
 between three or four miles — a depth amply sufficient to meet the demands 
 of all that is required by the observations which have been now advanced. 
 
 And again, while the average depth of the ocean now is between four and 
 five miles, there are depths in the ocean bed, and these in connection with 
 ocean currents, far in excess of the difference between the elevation of linear 
 valleys and adjacent hills. The Commander of the United States steamer, 
 " Tuscarora," engaged in deep-sea soundings in the Pacific, reported to the 
 secretary of the navy at Washington, under date of June 26, 1874, that the 
 difference between two of the soundings made by him, about 100 miles east 
 by south from Kinghasan or Sendai Bay on the east coast of Japan, was 
 1594 fathoms ! The height of Table Mountain above the Flats is short of 
 4000 feet ; but the next cast showed a depth beyond that which I have 
 mentioned of upwards of 1216 fathoms ! 
 
 One sounding gave a depth of 1833 fathoms, the next a depth of 3427, 
 and in the third, " the sinker carried the wire down 4,643 fathoms without 
 reaching the bottom, and the report states that — 
 
 " On this occasion, when some 500 fathoms of wire had run out, the 
 sinker was suddenly swept imder the ship's bottom by the strong under- 
 current, and all efforts to get the wire clear and keep it from tending under- 
 neath were unavailing, the difficulty being increased by a fresh breeze and a 
 moderately heavy sea. Finally, when 4,643 fathoms of wire had run out, and 
 only 150 fathoms of wire were left on the reel, it broke close to the surface, 
 and about five miles of wire were lost. 
 
 " The strain on the reel was very great, and notwithstanding a weight of 
 130 lbs. on the pulley line, it took three men to check and hold the drum, 
 and the wonder was that the wire had not parted sooner. This gxeat 
 strain must have been due to the action of the strong undercurrent upon 
 the sinker, sweeping it with great force from the ship, as since that cast we 
 have sounded repeatedly in depth of more than 4,000 fathoms, and had no 
 trouble in reaching the bottom." 
 
 It must be mentioned that there was a distance of 30 miles between the 
 first cast and the second, and of 45 miles between the second and the 
 third ; but these distances are not greater than the distance between the 
 Bosjesveld and the Caledon valley, and the Flats between the Hottentot 
 Holland range and Table Mountain. And it is not unreasonable to suppose 
 that the strong current reported by Captain Belknap had had something to 
 do with the scooping out of the ocean valley to the depth of upwards of 
 2,800 fathoms more than the depth of the sounding 75 miles distant; 
 compared with such erosion — ^the erosion indicated by the low level of the 
 Flats compared with the elevation of Table Mountain and that of the 
 Hottentot Holland range beyond is little — ^but though comparatively little, 
 it must have been effected by a current of tremendous force ! 
 
30 HTDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 It may be new to some of my readers, I have said, to learn that there are 
 mountain ranges which have not been thrown up in their existing form, but 
 are only the remains of land of the elevation they have, much of which has 
 been swept away by ocean currents, leaving them standing where they are — 
 and that they owe their mountainous character, not to their elevation above 
 the bounding valleys, but to the scooping oiit of these. But it is only in 
 accordance with what is going on even now, both on a scale, which, com- 
 pared with what must have occurred here, may be called infinitely less ; 
 and on a scale, which, compared with that, may be called infinitely greater. 
 The abrupt termination in Table Mountain of that southermost range 
 of elevated ground, remains of ground not washed away by the ocean cur- 
 rent which scooped out the portion between it and the Hottentot Holland 
 range, leaving only the Flats and some little mounds, such as Blueberg, &c., 
 on the valley, and to some extent lowered even this mountain range, tells 
 its own tale in addition to what has already been learned ; and in doing so 
 it tells of a change in the ocean current, of a cessation, or of a new set of 
 an old current which had left upon it and upon the land behind its mark ; 
 or it tells of either a subsidence of the sea or of an elevation of the land, 
 which took place either while this current was in flow, or which itself occa- 
 sioned the new current, and gave to this current a new set and direction, 
 as well it might with the extent of ocean bed affected by it, or terminated 
 the flow by raising the land above the ocean's surface. That you may be 
 prepared to receive and enabled to understand and to appreciate testimony 
 on these points which it has to give, look to any little taO. of sand behind 
 a shell or pebble on the beach, and study its direction and appearance. 
 That you may do so the more thoroughly, study the formation of others 
 even now under the waters of a receding wave ; that wave as it advanced 
 in its pomp and grandeur like a great sea-horse with flowing mane, with 
 dappled neck of foam, and snorting spray, levelled and washed away a 
 hundred such; but its strength e^austed, it returns to the ocean still 
 strong in its weakness, and restores again, as it returns to the ocean whence 
 it came, the little hills it had washed away in the moment of its fury and 
 its pride, or it replaces them by others scarcely to be distinguished from those 
 it destroyed, either in form, direction, or position. And mark how this is done. 
 Look to the little ridge. What is its form ? a precipice in miniature, 
 with a lengthened tapering prolonged declivity behind. Are the prolonged 
 declivities in the same or in difi'erent directions in relation to this Lillipu- 
 tion precipice ? Generally the same, and those which are otherwise may be 
 said to be also the same ; but the same with a difierence. And what is 
 that direction in regard to the land, or the sea, or in regard to the flow of 
 the receding wave by which they are formed ? Always in the line of the 
 flow of the receding wave, heading towards the land, tapering towards the 
 sea. Mark, then, how it is formed. The current washes away and bears 
 away all sand from the front, but leaves what is behind, and deposits there 
 also in the long tapering line much that it has brought along. The shell 
 or stone seems to break the cun-ent, the two halves of which, separated, 
 meet again beyond, leaving still water immediately behind the obstruction, 
 and in this still water the sand is left, or deposited; and it seems as if what 
 takes place on either side of the obstacle takes place over its top, or say 
 ra,ther, all over it, leaving not a triangular but a rounded conical-shaped 
 BtiU water beyond, in which the tapering tail of diminishing height finds its 
 resting place. And here ! see where the shell has fallen; the current of 
 
PHYBIOAIi GBOaEAPHT. 31 
 
 the returning wave is ■washing away the mound, but it is doing it retaining 
 the same fashion of the little mound, undermining the front, and as the 
 superincumbent sand falls down washing it away, and in part depositing it, 
 in a prolongation of the tail ! Well, so it is ; and if you go to any stream- 
 let you may find many little eminences of similar formation always heading 
 up stream or against the current, with the tail in the direction of the cur- 
 rent's flow. And something similar may be seen upon a comparatively 
 gigantic scale in the rocks and ridges surmounted by Stirling Castle, in 
 Stirlingshire, and surmounted by Edinburgh Castle, in Mid Lothian. 
 Some similar current — an ocean current — four thousand feet in depth, at 
 the very least, must have formed this. A new current in the primeval 
 ocean, or an old current, with a new direction given to it — a current diverted, 
 it may be, by what is now called Eiebecks Casteel — ^then anotherlike thing 
 than it is now — dashing direct on the face of what is now Table Mountain, or 
 rather of what stood before, pouring along over it, on either side and above 
 it, undermining, washing away the debris as ■ it topples down, the divided 
 current pouring over and washing into shape the irregular prolonged tail 
 beyond into the original form of the outline which it now presents, a division 
 of the current falling over the Kloof, and threatening to level down the 
 whole ridge, as it did that, — the remains of which form Blueberg. 
 
 But it is stopped ; a new direction is again given to the current. How, 
 we need not now enquire; or the whole was elevated above the ocean surface; 
 and there is the work left — left as it was when this occurred. I write from 
 memory, and there may be points on which I am in error ; but I doubt not 
 my statement on the whole is correct. 
 
 Looking thus at the physical geography of South Africa, we learn not 
 only of the existence of a primeval ocean covering deep the land, and what 
 are now the highest mountains of the land, but we learn also of ocean cur- 
 rents in that primeval deep, scooping out valleys, reducing mountains to 
 the level of the plain, and of these currents diverted into new directions, 
 leaving traces of their effects, and in these traces of their effects records of 
 their history, which he who is learned therein may be able to read, and 
 understand, and explain. 
 
 But we have not yet done with the lessons to be read from Table 
 Mountain as she stands there inscribed with records, crossing each other in 
 different directions, which tell of what occurred in those old-world times. 
 Look at her as she stands there magnificent and glorious, whether covered 
 with fleecy cloud, or rejoicing in the sunshine which is ever bringing out new 
 lights and shadows, every one of which is beautiful ! Look at her ! she ex- 
 hibits in herself a section of the crust of the earth between 3000 and 4000 
 feet in thickness, such as it then and there was, placed in a light and in a 
 position which reveals far more of its structure than could have been 
 learned by sinking a shaft or pit to a corresponding depth from the surface. 
 There it is the whole breadth of the ridge, with an outlying flank on either 
 side, the whole exposed to the light of day — and what do we see ? Layers 
 or strata of sand at the top, with the stratification distinctly marked ; 
 underlying these well-defined strata a mountain mass of matter, with 
 indications of its having been deposited from and under water, resting upon 
 granite which presents indications of its having been projected from below in 
 a state of fusion and of intense heat through the then existing crust. And 
 resting on the sides of this upheaven granite, w& see slaty matter with well- 
 
32 HTDEOLOGT OF BOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 marked indications in its slate-like structure — it also having been de- 
 posited from water like the impalpable dust bom by the wind far from the 
 spot from which it had been brought, but deposited at last. But these 
 strata could not have been deposited on the granite with such a dip or in- 
 clination as they have, which leads us to conclude that this must have con- 
 stituted a portion of the solid crust through which the granite was 
 protruded. The superincumbent mass seems to rest on the uptilted edge 
 of these slaty strata, and the granite protruded throughout them suggests 
 the conclusion that these strata were deposited from water before, and 
 the overlying deposits after, the upheaval and protrusion of the granite. 
 
 We are thus introduced into acquaintance with another set of phenomena 
 which have also their testimony to give in regard to the Hydrology of 
 South Africa, and if we would make a precognition of all the testimony- 
 tendered in regard to this matter ; to this also we must attend. To do this 
 fully, it is necessary that we proceed from what is known as Physical Geo- 
 graphy into the domains of Geology. Physical geography has to do with 
 the surface, and the contour of the earth's surface ; geology has to do with 
 the structure of what has been called the crust of the earth, and with the 
 operations by which it has become what it is ; and we are trenching appar- 
 ently upon this in advancing to the consideration of what is taught in re- 
 gard to the former hydrographic condition of the land by what is seen of 
 the structure of Table Mountain. But as the border land of separation 
 may, without impropriety, be considered as in some measure common to 
 both, there is no imperative necessity why we should not read off the 
 lesson from the position we have reached, and return to the record, if neces- 
 sary, after we have entered on the consideration of the testimony in'regard 
 to the former hydrographic condition of the country supplied by geological 
 observations. 
 
 We scarcely need the geologist to tell us, while we look at Table Moun- 
 tain as a monument of the past, that the underlying slate tells of a slow 
 deposit of slaty matter in minute sub-division from water scarcely coloured 
 by it, so small the quantity, so minute the particles, and so diffused ; and 
 of the water being there then still and motionless as it was limpid and 
 transparent. Nor can the time have been short during which such a 
 thickness of slate was so deposited. How long it was, we cannot now enquire. 
 
 The superincumbent mass of hardened mud, thousands of feet in thick- 
 ness, tells another and a different tale : it tells of muddy waters and of mud 
 borne by the water from a distance greater or less from the spot where it 
 has been deposited and hardened into rock. And if, as we have been led to 
 conclude, the bed of this deposit extended continuously to the mountain ranges 
 beyond, the intervening Flats being the result only of the washing away of 
 what had then been deposited, what a quantity must have been suspended 
 in the waters, and what a length of time must have been occupied 
 in the deposit of such a mass ! Language fails — thought fails — we can only 
 muse and be silent. 
 
 And the strata of sand capping Table Mountain and the Lion's Head 
 have also their tale to tell. It has been observed, that as in motion 
 communicated to a quantity of loose matter in sieve or in a vessel more 
 confined, the larger pieces came to the surface, so is it also with the 
 shingle put in motion by a stream or by waves on the shore, and that some- 
 thing similar occurs wijih a mixture of- sand and mud when subjected to 
 movements in a similar way. 
 
PHYSICAL GBOQBAPHT. 33 
 
 Looking at the strata of sand in the light of these observations, and iu 
 view of the. fact that the mass of the mountain is composed of a mixture of 
 sand with some iinpalpable matter, the thought is suggested that the 
 strength of the current which bore thither that mass of matter suspended ' 
 in J its waters may have become relaxed, with the result that the sand Was 
 dropped, and the bulk of the more impalpable matter carried further. Or, 
 either through the silting up of the basin or some other means, the mud de- ' 
 posited there may have been brought so near to the surface of the water as 
 to be subjected to such movements by its waves as led to a separation of the 
 sand from the more impalpable matter with which it was co-miiigled, a 
 large portion of this being either washed away and deposited elsewhere, or 
 allowed to fall through the interstices between the grains of sand allowing 
 these to come to the surface. This seems to be the more plausible con- 
 jecture of the two, but in either case the production of sand tells of the 
 depth of water being diminished, and so diminished that the bed of the ocean 
 is moved by the movement of the waves. 
 
 Thus are we able to carry our study of the former hydrographic condi- 
 tion of what is now the southern extremity of South Africa back ages be- 
 yond those in which, by denuding currents, the plains which now separate 
 mountaiii ranges were scooped out. We touch upon a time when the depth 
 of water covering what is now Table Mountain was not so deep as it had 
 been previously, but what was there the surface of the ocean basin was sub- 
 jected to movement with the movement of its waves. We look through 
 earlier ages during which, at a greater depth, was deposited the mass of 
 underlying mud, to a period also, it may be, extending over ages, during 
 which in perfect stillness was deposited from comparatively pellucid waters, 
 the slaty matter underlying that mass of mud and resting on the sides of 
 protruded granite, the protrusion of which may have been, and probably 
 was, connected with what led to be the vast deposit of superincumbent 
 mud. 
 
 Thus far have we gone, and thus much have we learned, without leaving 
 the border land common to physical geography and geology. To go further 
 and take up the question which has thus been mooted would take us into 
 the domains of this latter science, which has also its tale to tell, and revel- 
 ations to make, in regard to the distant past ; and the question which here 
 presents itself for consideration is, Shall we, or shall we not advance ? 
 
 For myself, I may state I am not a geologist, nor do I make any preten- 
 sions to be such ; but I have heard what geologists have to say. I have 
 looked at what I have seen in South Africa as I have looked on what I 
 have seen elsewhere, in the light of what they have said. I have found 
 what I have seen to be in wonderful accordance with what they have said ; 
 and it seems to me, in this case, that the geological formations at the Cape, 
 when viewed in connection with the conclusions to which geologists have 
 come after careful observation, study, comparison and reasoning on pheno- 
 mena brought under their consideration in the course of their investigations, 
 supply important testimony to the primeval hydrographic condition of this 
 part of the earth's surface, supplying indications of the following succesive 
 positions and conditions of the land : — 
 
 First. The whole under water at the bottom of the sea. 
 
 Next. An upheaval of it till portions rose above the ocean surface. 
 
 D 
 
34 HYDROLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Then the submersion of the whole again for ages. 
 
 The subsequent upheaval of it again to a greater elevation, and for a time 
 so protracted that for ages the projecting islands were covered with 
 arborescent vegetation. 
 
 And the continued upheaval, until in the course of ages what was at first 
 a thousand isles became a continent studded with lakes and inland seas ; 
 and the continued upheaval until these were drained, and the continent pre- 
 sented the appearance it has now assumed — but not so arid as it now is. 
 
 To the study of the geological formations which are indicative — or, if I 
 must so limit my phraseology, which are alleged to be indicative — of all this, 
 I would invite such of my readers as may be willing to place themselves 
 under my guidance in the study of the same. Others may, if they be so 
 disposed, cross the ' ridge by the mountain path while we are working our 
 way through it, and await or meet us on our arrival at the other side, when 
 we can proceed to what may form a more interesting subject of study than 
 this would prove to them. In other words, let them pass the next chapter, 
 and take up the study of the subject at the beginning of the chapter which 
 follows. 
 
 To those who are williiig to go with me I would say, Come along ! Now 
 for it ! Hard work it may be ; but hard work has its rewards. 
 
 " Life is real 1 Life is earnest I 
 Let us then be up and doing, 
 With a heart for any fate ; 
 Still achieving, still pursuing, 
 Learn to labour and to wait." 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 35 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 TESTIMONT IN EEGAED TO THE FOEMEE. HYDEOGRAPHIO CONDITION OF SOUTH 
 AFRICA SUPPLIED BY GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 The historical records of South Africa are aU of them of modern date, and 
 they do not embrace a very lengthened period ; with the physical geography 
 of the country it is otherwise, and the superficial aspect of the country, 
 its mountains and its plains, with their arborescent productions, enable us 
 to carry our study of the Hydrology of the country back to a period very 
 remote from the present ; if we wish to carry our enquiries still further 
 back into the distant past the means are at command. The geologist is 
 ready to read off for us, what we may nof be able to read for ourselves, of 
 the records of the rocks — either leaving us, if we so desire, to draw our own 
 conclusions, or stating conclusions at which his fellow-students have arrived 
 in regard to the length of the eras embraced by these records. This 
 may perhaps make us feel as if the records of physical geography were but the 
 records of what occurred yesterday, and we had got back to the times of 
 which Wisdom spoke some 3000 years ago from the mountains of Palestine, 
 the times " When there were no depths, . . . when there were no 
 fountains abounding with water ; before the mountains were settled, and 
 before the hills ; . . . while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the 
 fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world ; when he prepared the 
 heavens ; . . . when he set a compass upon the face of the de^h : 
 when he established the clouds above : when he strengthened the fountains 
 of the deep : when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not 
 pass his commandment ; when he appointed the foundations of the earth." 
 — Prov. viii. 24-29. 
 
 My attention was given those matters from a bias in favour of such studies, 
 and a feeling that he who would tender to others counsel which is not 
 sought, ought to see to it that' he has not wittingly overlooked any of the 
 circumstances of the case in regard to which he desires to speak, bi^t has 
 studied it thoroughly it all its aspects. But, it may be, that to some this 
 chapter on the testimony in regard to the former hydrographic condition of 
 what is now known as South Africa, supplied by geological obsei;vations, 
 and not a little of what has been stated in the chapter relating to that 
 supplied by the physical geography of the country, may be uninteresting ; 
 and being uninteresting to them, it may be deemed by them to be 
 unnecessary ; and I have intimated that I do not consider that it is 
 necessary to the formation of an intelligent judgment in regard to 
 the adaptation of remedial means, which may suggest themselves, or may 
 be proposed, as means of counteracting the desiccation which has taken 
 place and the aridity of climate and of soil which in consequence exists, 
 that the matters therein discussed should be clearly apprehended. Bui I 
 
36 HTDBOLOSY or SOUTH AFEICA. 
 
 consider them to be matters deserving the attention of any students of 
 the subject who may desire to have it before them in its entirety. 
 
 In writing what I have written, or rather in determining and pre- 
 paring to do BO, I have been reminded of what is recorded of David having 
 in the uprightness of his heart made every preparation for the buildii% of 
 the temple which it was in his power to ipake, though to him was denied 
 the honour of laying so much as the corner-stone of the building. But there 
 exists no necessity for anyone perusing all that has been written, and with- 
 out detriment to the opinion to be formed in regard to the practical 
 measures to be adopted in existing circumstances, any reader may pass over 
 all and confine his reading to what is said in Part II. relative to the 
 different causes of the aridity of South Africa, leaving others to read, if 
 they will, what is written in the chapters preceding. 
 
 Chaucer has said lo his readers in a prologue to one of his Canterbury 
 Tales,— 
 
 " And therefore whoso list it not to heerS, ' 
 
 Turne over the leef and cheese another tale, 
 For he shall find enow bothe gret and small 
 Of storial thing that toucheth gentillesse, 
 And eke moralite, and holinesse^ 
 Blame ye not me, if that ye cheese amis." 
 
 So would I say to rny reader here ; and follow up what is said with the 
 counsel with which it was followed up by the poet, 
 
 " Avise, ye now, and put me out of blame." 
 
 Physical Geography I have used as a term applicable to the superficial 
 aspect of the country. The term Geological Observations I employ as a 
 term applicable to observations made upon the substance and structure of 
 what gives to it its superficial aspect, and of what lies under, observations 
 ■similar to those with which the latter portion of the preceding chapter was 
 occupied, but prosecuted to a somewhat greater depth. 
 
 In places innumerable in which the structure of the superficial portion 
 of the earth has been examined, there have been found a greater or less 
 number of strata of homogeneous or heterogeneous, of the same or of different, 
 kinds of matter, lying upon a kind of stratified granite, and this upon a 
 granite in which no indication of stratification are observable, and through 
 which we cannot penetrate to ascertain what is enclosed therein, or beneath 
 iti Whatever that which it covers may be in its composition, it is con- 
 jectured by many that it must be in a state of fusion, and therefore is it 
 tha.t the name of crust has been given to that of which we have spoken. 
 
 None of these strata, it may be remarked, go completely round the earth 
 as do the coats of an onion around the parts they enclose ; through friction 
 or abrasion many of them have become fragmentary, if ever they were more 
 extensive than they now are. Neither are they of uniform thickness either 
 throughout their extent or throughout their succession ; some are compara- 
 tively thick, others are comparatively thin ; while some are thick in one 
 place and thin at another, and some thick throughout one portion of their 
 extent . diminish in thickness more or less gradually towards the edge 
 of the mass. Neither is there any part of the earth's crust in which the 
 whole of them exist superimposed one upon another ; sometimes not more 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 37 
 
 than one is to be found lying on the granite ; nor is this always the same, 
 but sometimes one and sometimes another, and sometimes when there are 
 more, it is with a similar variation. This only has been observed, where- 
 ever they are found it is always in the same succession, which, excepting 
 by those who in ignorance of the discoveries of modem science suppose the 
 world was created so, is believed to have been the succession in which they 
 were deposited on the spot from water by which it was covered, in which 
 the matter had been suspended or by which it was borne along, with the 
 exception of some strata-like beds of matter which appear to be solidified 
 matter, which, expelled by some orifice in a state of fusion from below, had 
 spread itself out as does the molten lava from a volcano, and some few 
 similar beds. 
 
 So familiar is the experienced practical geologist with the appearance and 
 composition of these strata, that he can often tell as easily to which of 
 them a stone which he finds in the field belongs, as you, my reader, can dis- 
 tinguish the fruits of an apple tree or a pear tree, a quice or a pomegranate, 
 an apricot or a peach, a fig or a grape. 
 
 But though the deposits are always, when found, found in the same 
 succession, the first above and not below any of the others in connection with 
 which it may be found : the sixth always below the first, second, third, 
 fourth and fifth, if found in connection with any of these, and always above 
 and not below the seventh, eighth, (fee, with which it may be found, they 
 are sometimes so contorted that one portion may seem to be otherwise 
 situated, but even then the seeming exception is easily reduced to accordance 
 with the rule. Thus : 
 
 Not unfrequently they are found not in a horizontal position, but in a 
 position more or less inclined to the vertical or upright, through disturb- 
 ances to which they have been subjected after deposit. The protrusion of 
 matter from below, for instance, may bend them as one may with the thumb 
 bend up the whole of the leaves of a book lying flat upon a table. By 
 lateral compression some have been crushed up to such a degree as to form 
 a loop, a section of which at some places may give us the strata so com- 
 pressed in their regular ordfer, then these in their reverse order, and then 
 again the same strata in their natural order, while a horizontal section may 
 show them m a vertical, or more or less inclined position. 
 
 Section I. — Geological formations of Table Mountain. 
 
 It matters Uttle where we commence our examination of the geological 
 formations of South Africa, everjrwhere they tell the same tale — a tale of 
 deposit from waters of great depth — and they confirm all that is indicated 
 by the physical geography, or general contour of the superficial aspect of 
 the country. There exist what may seem to be exceptions to what I have 
 stated ; but even these, when examined, corroborate the general testimony. 
 It happens that Table Mountain supplies in succession some of the earliest 
 indications which are to be found of the primeval state of what is now the 
 dry land of Southern Africa, corresponding with corresponding iadications 
 existing elsewhere, but existing here in such collocation as facilitates the 
 investigation upon which we are about to enter ; and with these we may 
 commence. 
 
38 HYDBOLOGY OF SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 The vertical section of the mountain range presented by Table Mountain 
 as it faces Table Bay enables us without difficulty to" examine its structure. 
 At Sea Point we see granite upon which the mountain has been deposited ; 
 we find leaning upon this, as it were, a. slate-like rook, to which I have had 
 occasion to refer, presenting the appearance of having been uptilted, and 
 having had the irregularities of edge, which might have been occasioned by 
 any such process, planed down ; and above we see a mountain of hardened 
 mud and sand, which, in the Lion's Head and the upper portion of the fiice 
 of Table Mountain, presents a very distinctly marked stratified structure. 
 And we have to enquire what may be learned from what we thus see in 
 regard to the particular subject of our inquiry. 
 
 In doing this we may commence with the granite. From the presence of 
 this we learn first of all that we have reached the foundation of the conti- 
 nent, and we are thus enabled to commence our studies as far back as it is 
 necessary to go. 
 
 There is reason to believe that everywhere, underlying all stratified 
 formation, there is granite. It is too hard to be penetrated that we may- 
 see what lies beneath, or lines its under surface ; but there is truth in the 
 truism if we only penetrate all stratified formations to sufiicient depth, we 
 shall come at length to granite, or to gneiss which is something like it. 
 We have thus, it would appear, reached the bottom — the foundation — the 
 hard interior shell of the crust of the earth. 
 
 Besides the granite found at Sea Point and other places around the base 
 of Table Mountain, and penetrating that mountain, granite is found at 
 different places in the districts of the Cape — ^the Paarl, Malmesbury, and 
 George, and in Namaqualand in abundance. And the conclusion to which we 
 come is, that either no deposits of such stratified deposits as are found else- 
 where have ever taken place on some spots, or, what is much more probable, 
 that similar deposits have been deposited there, but these deposits have 
 been planed down by such oceanic currents as by partial denudations have 
 scooped out the valleys between the mountain ranges, and this to have 
 been the case, whether th'e granite exposed on the surface at such places has 
 retained there its original place, or has been protruded, as has been that at 
 the base of Table Mountain, through a superincumbent deposit covering the 
 sheU of granite around. 
 
 In Namaqualand, in Bushmanland, in the Kalahari Desert, and in various 
 parts throughout the interior of South Africa, is found a granite-like 
 substance, varying in its composition, and in regular beds of more or less 
 stratified layers, — rocks, known to geologists as granitic-gneiss, as gneiss, 
 and as metamorphic schists, with some of which are found, and that very 
 abundantly, in the Kalahari Desert, what is known as metamorphic lime- 
 stone. And the mention of these renders necessary a description of granite, 
 and also of these in so far as they resemble and in so far as they differ froir 
 this, that we may learn what they teach in regard to the hydrology of the 
 district in which we are interested. 
 
 Granite sometimes consists of felspar and quartz and mica, sometimes ot 
 felspar and quartz and hornblende, sometimes of felspar and hornblende 
 alone, and otherwise of various combinations of these several minerals. 
 
 It does not come within the scope of this treatise formally to teach geo- 
 logy, and I stop not minutely to describe the appearance and constitution 
 of these different substances, as it is the constitution and appearance of the 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 39 
 
 composite mass of granite which concerns us chiefly in our special enquiry ; 
 but I may mention briefly that quartz is a very hard crystaline substance 
 — so hard that it cannot be scratched with a knife. Felspar is like quartz, 
 but softer, and is easily scratched with a knife, and the. other constituents 
 of the granite are imbedded in this as the fruit of a plum-pudding is im- 
 bedded in the bread or dough of its composition. Hornblende is a black or. 
 dark-gTeen mineral, which fractures like horn, from which circumstance it 
 has received the name it bears. Mica is a glistening transparent or trans- 
 lucent substance, in scales apparently homogeneous in structure, very thin, 
 or capable of being split up into very thin subdivisions. 
 
 Mica is sometimes found in sheets of considerable size and thickness. In 
 Siberia such sheets are used as window panes. In England they have been 
 used in place of glass or horn in the construction of lanterns, with the 
 advantage that they are less liable to crack and break than is glass, and 
 less likely to be burned than is horn. In America they are used in the 
 construction of doors for Chamber stoves, allowing the cheering light of the 
 fire to be seen while the door is kept closed. The thin laminae of which 
 they are composed being easily separated, scales of Mica have been em- 
 ployed in covering objects mounted for examination with a microscope, and 
 sparkling shining sand often owes its sparkling shining metallic-like lustre 
 to small fragments of Mica.* 
 
 There is much in the general appearance of the granite to suggest that 
 felspar, the imbedding material, must have been fused, and from this state 
 of fusion crystallized around unfused crystals and angular fragments of the 
 imbedded material ; but it is alleged that there are amongst these minerals 
 some which fuse at a much lower temperature than does the imbedding 
 felspar; and it is conjectured that had the felspar been in a state effusion 
 these also would have been fused, and the non-solidification of the felspar 
 before them in the process of cooling would have prevented them from 
 assuming the forms in which we find them. From this it is inferred that 
 the felspar must not have been solidified from a state of fusion, but de- 
 posited from a state of solution. And in our ignorance of the existence at 
 that time of other solvents, it is natural that it should be supposed that the 
 solvent was water. 
 
 * Mr Barnabas Shaw, who was honoured to establish the first Wesleyan Mission in 
 South Africa, tells of the commencement of his work at Wynberg, in the rear of Table 
 Mountain : — 
 
 " On my first going thither, I met with a few soldiers who regularly assembled for 
 religious worship. They had erected for themselves a small chapel in the midst of a 
 forest, which was beautifully adorned with flowers, by the taste of corporals Tate and 
 Kirby, and in this delightful spot 1 opened my commission among them. Previously to 
 the erection of this chapel, they had built one in the village, which, by the order of the 
 colonel of the regiment, had been burned to the ground. An officer, however, of the same 
 regiment, Captain Proctor, then gave them liberty to build on his own private property, 
 of which offer they willingly availed themselves. While digging for a foundatiop, they 
 found a number of shining particles, both white and yellow, from which circumstance they 
 conceived that they had ciiscovered a silver or gold mine. Mrs Tate, the wife of one of 
 the corporals alluded to, a pious and active woman, immediately filled her apron therewith 
 and hastened to exhibit the treasure to Capt. P., saying, at the same time, 'Look here. 
 Captain Proctor, the Lord is blessing you for allowing us to build upon your ground. We 
 have found a mine ! ' As it had been reported that a s'lver mine was discovered during 
 the time of the Dutch Government, and as there is a place not very far distant still called 
 by that name, it was natural enough for the soldiers to suppose that they had hit upon a 
 rein. The shining particles were well examined, and although better informed persons 
 than the corporal's wife thought them valuable, after all, instead of gold or silver, they 
 proved to be but pieces of common quartz and granite I" 
 
40 HYDEOLOQT OP SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 It may be felt to be an objection to this supposition that granite does not 
 appear do dissolve in water now ; but neither does lime, or stucco, or roman 
 cement after it has once set ; it is alleged that even quartz is dissolved in 
 minute quantities in water, that constituents of the constituents of granite 
 may be fully soluble, that the solution in water of some other substancfe' 
 than the salt which gives to the water of the sea its present characteristic 
 may have modified its solvent powers in primeval times, and that these 
 solvent powers may have been modified by pressure and by heat, either, or 
 both, apart, or combined, as is often done in the laboratory of the chemist, 
 all which allegation, though not advanced as fact, theory, or conjecture as to 
 what actually occurred when advanced thus, seems to me satisfactorily to 
 meet the objection. 
 
 There are spots covered with material which has been protruded from be- 
 neath, but with the exception of these, wherever the superficial strata have 
 been removed or penetrated to their lowest depth, there granite, or one or 
 other of the modifications of granite which have been mentioned, or some 
 corresponding composite rock, has been found. From which it seems to 
 follow, if felspar be a crystallization from a state of solution, and not from 
 one of fusion, that we have in this everywhere existing granite indications 
 of the various parts of the world in which it exists, and South Africa 
 amongst the rest, having been at the time — or the times of its formation — 
 covered with water, though water, perhaps, of a temperature much higher 
 than that at which water under the existing atmosphere is converted into 
 vapour. 
 
 The structure of granite, it is remarked, is always massive and irregu- 
 lar ; its texture is of various degrees of fineness from a hard and close- 
 grained rock, to a coarse and loose aggregation of primary crystals. 
 
 Gneiss, like granite, consists of felspar, quartz, and mica, and sometimes 
 hornblende and garnets enter into its composition. But in granite, the 
 crystals of felspar, quartz, mica, and hornblende are entire and distinct, in 
 gneiss their faces are broken as if water-worn. It is alleged that in granite 
 there are no traces of a laminated or stratified structure ; in gneiss this 
 structure is evident, even when the strata are most indurated and con- 
 torted. 
 
 The metamorphic schists differ from gneiss chiefly in the degree of appar- 
 ent attrition, to which the minerals of which they are respectively composed 
 have been subjected and reduced ; and the different names given to the 
 schists indicate only this, and the characteristic constituent of each. Mica 
 schist consists of mica and quartz, with hornblende and garnets imbedded 
 in it. Talcose schist has talc instead of mica combined with the quartz, and 
 differs only in this respect from the mica schist. Hornhlende schist consists 
 of hornblende and quartz, and is occasionally found with actypolite in it. 
 Chlorite schist consists of chlorite and quartz. 
 
 The designation metamorphic is given to sedimentary deposits, which, 
 subsequent to their deposition, have undergone a metamorphosis or change 
 in their sedimentary appearance by fusion or otherwise, so that they mani- 
 fest indications of igneous action. Talc, which gives its designation to tal- 
 cose schist, is a transparent mineral like mica, but softer and not elastic as 
 it is. 
 
 Actynolite is a crystalline body of a greenish-gray colour, which has ob- 
 tained its name from the pointed thorn-like appearance of its crystals. 
 
GEOLOGIOAL OBSEBVATIONS. 41 
 
 Chlorite is found sometimes of a crystallized and sometimes of a foliated 
 or scaly structure ; it is of a greenish-black colour, and from this it has got 
 its name. It is this which gives colour to a greenish slate called chlorite 
 slate. 
 
 Greenstone is what is known as whinstone, which is composed principally 
 of felspar and hornblende, with a mixture frequently of a substance called 
 hypersth6ne. It is a rock of igneous formation. 
 
 Whatever other end may be subserved by these explanations, it is deemed 
 necessary that the reader, whenever and however situated, may be able to 
 carry with him a definite idea of the formation spoken of The characteristic 
 feature of these formations to which attention is specially called is the in- 
 dications of attrition and of stratification, which seem to tell of the action 
 and consequently of the presence of water, and, I may add, of the depth of 
 water covering at the period of their formation the places where now they 
 are. I do not deem it necessary to distract the attention of my readers by 
 adducing other hypotheses which have been advanced in connection with 
 the subject. 
 
 The strata of gneiss are sometimes so thick as to render it difiicult for an ' 
 unexperienced observer to determine whether the material be granite or 
 gneiss, and the difficulty is increased if the oonstiluent minerals have been 
 but little abraded. Thus is it with what is spoken of as granitic gneiss ; and 
 connected with this or near to it is sometimes found what is called quartz 
 rock, which consists chiefly of quartz, but has generally hornblende or mica 
 irregularly imbedded in it. 
 
 It may be mentioned that it is in connection with quartz rock that gold 
 has been found, in connection with gneiss that copper has been found in 
 Namaqualand and in mountain ranges further inland, and in connection with 
 schist that tin has been found in the neighbourhood of Swellendam. 
 
 The late Dr Eubidge, who at the instance of a mining company visited 
 Namaqualand in 1854, to examine and report upon its metal-producing 
 capabilities, states that at Namaqualand he found the g-neiss assumed so 
 granite-like an appearance that the dip and the strike were scarcely 
 distinguishable. " I find it,'' says he, " a matter of great practical difficulty 
 often to say whether a rock is gTanite or gneiss — therefore I call these rocks 
 'gneiss-like granite' or 'granite-like gneiss,' according to the appearance." 
 
 Elsewhere he writes : — " The centres of the axes are very frequently 
 composed of granite, but this is not always the case ; and I do not know 
 any mine in which granite is not to be found in the works, though the gneiss 
 may meet in well-defined character and with an opposite dip over it. In 
 this country I have stood on granite with gneiss forming the sides of a 
 ravine on either hand, with continuous dip. I have also seen hornblende 
 schist (felspar and hornblende) passing, insensibly as it were, into syenite 
 and greenstone of perfectly well marked characters near Pella. The ravine 
 just noticed is between Pella missionary station and a detached station 
 called Klein Pella." 
 
 Dr Eubidge found the veins of ores on what seemed axes of dislocation, 
 though not on all such axes; and he found the axes numerous, often 
 coinciding with the dip of the country, or nearly so, but occasionally at 
 angles to it interrupting the main dip for from 5 to 50 or 100 paces, and in 
 these axis were the metalliferous deposits. The surface of these metalliferous 
 veins he found to be much fissured in the direction of the magnetic 
 meridian, or near thereto, as well as in others. Some fine lumps of oxide, 
 
 E 
 
42 « HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFE^OA. 
 
 containing as much as 60 per cent, of copper, were found in the fissures or 
 on the surface. When these were followed downwards they often widened at 
 first into good-sized veins, which gave promise of a rich return of ore, but 
 when a depth varying from 4 or 5 to 25 feet was reached they were gener- 
 ally found to contract, and sometimes they terminated abruptly. In either 
 case they were rarely traced beyond that depth, though occasionally the dip of 
 the rook carried them somewhat further. At a greater depth purple 
 sulphurets are found, and these give way to pyrites which are contained 
 either in fissures between masses of slightly 'decomposed felspathic granite 
 or diffused in grains in the substance of the granite. 
 
 " In fact the formation of all these ores,"he writes, " appears to be the result 
 of a process of infiltration" — and thus do his observations become serviceable 
 to us — " infiltration by which the original constituents of the rock are 
 gradually removed, and their place occupied by silicates, oxides, or purple 
 and yellow sulphurets, as the case may be — the silicates and oxides 
 generally occurring on the surface, the sulphurets below. Masses of oxide 
 of iron, in a state to be acted on by the magnet, are often found on the 
 surface of these metallic axis. Sulphuret of molybdenum is found accumu- 
 lated with copper pyrites at Concordia and at Kildunern ; and tungstate of 
 lime in a lamp of about a pound weight was found enclosed in a mass of 
 red oxide of copper in Springbok mine. Manganese, too, has been found in 
 various parts of the country ; and near Gams I found green oxide of chrome 
 accumulated in small quantities between the layers of gneiss in an axis of 
 disturbance." 
 
 This term he uses to designate axes which do not permanently change 
 the dip of the gneiss, in contradistinction to those of dislocation, on either 
 side of which the dip sometimes continues nearly the same for miles. 
 
 Some of the other terms employed in this statement may require explana^ 
 tion to make them perfectly intelligible to all. 
 
 Oxides are combinations of the substance named with oxygen, the 
 constituent of the atmosphere by which life and combustion are sustained. 
 Eust is an oxide of iron, or of some other metal, and such also are many of 
 the ores. 
 
 Pyrites is a compound of sulphur and iron found often in cubic crystals 
 in slates, of a bright yellow metallic colour. It occasionally produces 
 spontaneous combustion, and from this it has obtained its name, which is 
 derived from "pyr, the Greek word for fire. 
 
 Sulphurets is the name given to combinations of sulphur with metals. 
 Sulphuret of molybdenum is such a combination of sulphur with a metal 
 of that name. 
 
 Silicates are combinations of what is called silicic acid with other 
 substances, and silex miy be considered the principal constituent of fl.int 
 and of quartz. 
 
 Garnet is a reddish or iron-coloured mineral found in some mica slates 
 and volcanic rocks. 
 
 Keturning to the subject under consideration, it appears from observations 
 cited, that in the metallic deposits in the copper districts^as there is in 
 much besides connected with gneissic and schistose rocks — ^there are indi- 
 cations of their being composed of material supplied by the disintegration 
 of granite or other primitive rooks, and indications of aqueous action in the 
 deposit of the metalliferous ores, which fit in with the evidense otherwise 
 obtained of the hornblende, quartz, and felspar, kz., havin^j been deposited 
 
OEOLOGIOAL OBSBEVATIONS. 43 
 
 from water, movements occasioned by -which caused the abrasion of angular 
 projections, both of fragments and of entire crystals, by the friction of these 
 upon one another. The suspension in the water, together with the movements 
 of this, allowed the larger and heavier fragments first to find a resting-place, 
 after which the lighter, together with material resulting from the further 
 disintegration of these, would be deposited, and possibly raised again by a 
 disturbance of the waters following such convulsions as produced those 
 changes in the continent, and the dip of the granite gneiss and other rocks 
 of which Dr Eubidge speaks. 
 
 We shall afterwards find that there occiured many such disturbances of 
 the indurated crust, occurring, it may be, sometimes after protracted periods 
 o'f repose, and sometimes in rapid succession. At present, it is the order 
 in which these difierent formations ' occur here and elsewhere, and the 
 indications thus supplied of the former hydrographic condition of the 
 country with which we have to do. 
 
 " There is nothing hke a regular order of succession among the primary 
 strata," says Page in his Eudiments of Geology, published in Chambers' 
 Educational Course, which I quote here, and shall have frequent occasion 
 to quote again, as supplying the very information I wish to communicate. " It 
 may be stated generally, however, that gneiss underlies mica schist ; that 
 mica and other crystalline schists are the lowest in the system, and that 
 quartz rock, primitive limestone, and clay schist, make their appearance to- 
 ward the upper part of the series ; " and, otherwise than we find to be the 
 case with higher lying strata of what are known as secondary rocks, in the 
 primary system to which these belong, " the" strata thicken, thin out, and 
 disappear in a very capricious manner, aiid most of these rocks pass in- 
 sensibly into each other, and thus many compounds are formed of which 
 the student can only obtain a knowledge by the study of actual specimen." 
 As to the origin of the gueiss and mica schist systems, he goes on to say, — - 
 " As to the origin of the gneiss aiid mica schist systems, it is abundantly 
 evident that the materials of which they are composed were derived from 
 the underlying granite. It has been stated that this rock forms a solid 
 and irregular basis, on which all the sedimentary strata rest ; and if this be 
 true, it is evident that its surface must have been partly under and partly 
 above water, and subject to the degrading influence of atmospheric, aqueous, 
 and chemical agencies. Moreover, if the granitic crust was formed by the 
 cooling of an originally fased globe, the waters resting in the hoUows must 
 have been heated to a high degree, and the air must have been loaded with 
 vapours. All this would further tend to hasten the degradation of the 
 granite ; the runnels and streams would carry down the loose particles, lay- 
 ing down the heavier first, and carrying out the lighter and smaller to 
 deeper water. In process of time the loose matter would get consolidated 
 by the pressure of its own mass ; the high temperature then pervading the 
 globe, together with chemical agency, would assist in producing the crystal- 
 line texture ; and thus a variety of schistose rocks might be formed at one 
 and the same time. That a high temperature existed during the formation 
 of the primary rocks, we have ample evidence, not only in their hard and 
 crystalline texture, and in the absence of all organic remains, but in the 
 occurrence of certain minerals, such as garnet, whose presence denotes that 
 the rooks in which it is found have experienced a degree of heat sufficiently 
 high to form such a fusible mineral, but not enough to melt the other con- 
 stituents of which they are composed." 
 
44 HTDEOLOOY OF SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 There is a wide field for the exercise of the imagination in picturing what 
 the effect of this heat on the water above may have been ; but it is evidence 
 of the previous existeHce of water above the land, now known as South Africa, 
 which is alone at present under consideration. And it may be borne in mind 
 that a different hypothesis than that of subterranean heat to account for the 
 crystalline texture of the rooks has been proposed, and has commanded the 
 attention of many geologists. 
 
 The mountain limestone of the Kalahari, associated with the metamor- 
 phic schists, has also its tale to tell ; but the slate-like rock leaning upon 
 the granite at Sea Point demands at this stage of our enquiry our first at- 
 tention. Sea Point is not the only spot in the Colony in which such beds 
 of slate-like flakes and other form of slates are found. In some places they 
 are associated with grits or coarse sandstone, and both grits and slates are 
 found, both of a greenish gray, and of a brown or brownish colour. 
 
 These have been identified by Mr Wyhe, formerly Government Geologist 
 at the Cape of Good Hope, with the so-called Silurian deposits of Europe 
 and other lands — deposits which have received that designation from a dis- 
 trict in England in which the same formation exists having been known in 
 ancient times as the land of a people called the Silurii. They are fovmd 
 extending over regions of vast extent, and are much better known than ever 
 the Silurii were in their day, and are more extensively known than but 
 for this circumstance the Silurii ever would have been. 
 
 Subsequent to the deposit of the material constituting now the meta- 
 morphic rocks, and prior to the deposit of the Silurian, there occurred in 
 England the deposit of what has became known as the Grauwacke system. 
 This is a term used by German miners, signifying Gray rock ; but that to 
 which it is applied in Germany is better known to English readers as the 
 Cambrian system, so designated by English geologists from its covering a 
 large portion of Wales — the ancient Cambria. 
 
 According to Mr Wyiie, no trace of this is found at the Cape of Good 
 Hope, but a reference to it is necessary as supplying an indication of the 
 lapse of time which may have occurred between the deposit of the gneiss 
 and schists, and the deposit of the slates and grits to which attention is now 
 directed ; in England the Cambrian rocks, including the Bala limestone, and 
 the Festiniog and Bangor slates, show a verticle depth of some 26,000 feet, 
 or about five miles ! What time would be required for a series of deposits 
 five miles in thickness, I must leave my readers to conjecture, only remind- 
 ing them that this should be taken into account in all conjectures relative 
 to the primeval hydrographic condition of the country. The deposits which 
 have to be considered are records, not only of what materials have been 
 deposited, and of how this was done, but also of the period in the world's his- 
 tory in which it occurred. 
 
 The succession of strata in the clay slate grauwacke or Cambrian, and 
 the Silurian systems have not been veiy clearly ascertained. But an 
 approximate classification of them may be formed, in doing which important 
 assistance is given by fossil remains of vegetable and animal structures 
 found imbedded in them. 
 
 We have no evidence that any organic structures — vegetable or animal 
 or aught other, if aught other there have been or can be— did exist in the 
 times of earher formations ; but neither have we evidence that they did 
 not. And it is alleged, though perhaps prematurely, that we are not likely 
 ever to obtain any evidence on the subject, as the fusion of which the 
 
GEOLOGICAL 0B8EEVATI0NS. 45 
 
 granite and the gneiss and others of the metamorphic rocks give indications 
 indicates a temperature which must have destroyed all traces of organic 
 structures, if such had existed at the time of their deposit, whether from 
 solution or suspension ; or if this be disproved, the changes issuing in crys- 
 tallization, whether effected by heat or by chemical action, ,by electric or 
 magnetic, or any other form of these correlated forces, may have been fatal 
 to their preservation. 
 
 In the clay state, which is the lowest lying formation of the older palae- 
 zoio rocks, or rocks in which are imbedded remains of primeval animated 
 organic structures, and in the grauwacke, which is the next in succession, 
 it is alleged that no trace of vegetable organisms have been found, but 
 there have been found fossils of animal structures. And the existence of 
 these may be considered indications of the contemporaneous existence of 
 also the others, for animals require food, and if these animals, were con- 
 stituted as are the animals with which we are acquainted, they could not 
 find food in inorganic matter. If any of these were carnivorous, as are many 
 now, the animals on which they preyed must have lived on something else, 
 and if they also preyed on other animals, and these again on others, foUow 
 back the train of thought, and we are brought to the conclusion that the 
 last, if not many besides, must have lived on vegetable diet, so that the ex- 
 istence of animal remains in the deposit from that waste of waters supplies 
 evidence of the contemporaneous existence of vegetable structure, floating, 
 it may be, in the same. 
 
 It is well known that wherever animal remains have existed, the fact, 
 although not the least visible trace of them may remain, is cognizable to 
 the chemist by the presence of phosphoric acid in the soil, and I find it 
 stated that the late Dr Daubeny, Professor of Botany and of Chemistry in 
 the University of Oxford, with a view to ascertain the prevalence of this 
 in different beds, sowed a certain number of grains of barley in each, and 
 compared the amount of phosphoric acid in the crop with that in the seed. 
 As this substance does not exist in the atmosphere, it was supposed that any 
 excess which might be found must have been taken up by the roots of the 
 plant. When the experiment was tried with earth derived from any one of 
 the fossiliferous strata, an excess appeared ; but when with that supplied by 
 the Cambrian foimation, this was not the case ; and it is alleged that 
 nothing can be more conclusive than this ingenious experiment, as to the 
 absence of animal life on the earth or in the ocean during the period in 
 which the sedimentary deposits in question were formdi ; and it furnishes 
 a striking instance of the way in which evei-y branch of knowledge will 
 sooner or later be brought to bear upon every other. 
 
 Against this, however, must be set the alleged fact that fossil remains have 
 actually been found in such deposits. I accept both testimonies, and infer 
 that organised beings, both vegetable and animal, did at the period of these 
 deposits people the waters in certain localities at least, but that they may 
 have been limited both in number and in their diffusion. 
 
 Mr Wylie describes the Silurian rooks of the Cape Colony as slates and 
 grits, usually of a greenish-grey or brownish colour, in beds which as 
 usually seen are vertical or at high angles, broken through and altered by 
 granite. The designation grits employed in this description is one 
 generally given to hard sandstones, in which the grains of quartz are sharp 
 and angular, such as may be seen in what are designated millstone grit and 
 grindstone grit, &c. Such particles must have been subjected to less 
 
46 HYDBOLOGY OF SOUTH APEIOA.. 
 
 abrasion by friction and long-continued moyement in the water than those 
 ■which are more rounded, and they thus seem to speak the strata in which 
 they are to be found of a -very early formation; and that they and the slates 
 were formed by deposit from suspension in water no one who carefully 
 examines them without prejudice in favour of the views formerly prevailing, 
 that they were created so by God out of nothing, by the word of his power, 
 can for a moment doubt. The evidence is unquestionable, and conflicting 
 evidence of igneous agency there is none, excepting in circumstances in 
 which, according to the popular use of a trite saying which has a very 
 different import, the exception prove the rule. 
 
 And thus we are brought to feel in the study of these that we are almost 
 if not altogether clean escaped from the difficulties connected with the 
 study of what I have likened to the early fabulous history of nations, and 
 entered upon the study of the records of that which, in contradistinction to 
 the other, may be called the historic period, though in this we are studying 
 formations deposited ages — and ages upon ages — anterior to the appearance 
 of man upon the globe. 
 
 Occasionally we find — and may find at Sea Point, where granite in a state 
 of fusion has been protruded through superincumbent stratified rocks — for 
 some distance, an inch, six inches, or more from the protruded granite, the 
 stratified rock shows evidence of having been there fused by the heat, while 
 all beyond retains unchanged its stratified appearance of deposit, indicative 
 of its aqueous origin. 
 
 Mrs Somerville, in her treatise on Physical Geography touching on this 
 subject, wrote :■ — " According to a theory now generally adopted, which 
 originated with Mr Lyell, the metamorphic rocks, which consist of gneiss, 
 micaschist, statuary marble, <fec., were formed of the sediment of water, in 
 regular layers, differing in kind and colour ; but, having been deposited 
 near the places where plutonic rocks were generated, they have been 
 changed by the heat transmitted from the fused matter ; and in coming 
 under heavy pressure, and at great depths, they have become as highly 
 crystallized as the granite itself, without losing their stratified form. An 
 earthy stratum has sometimes been changed into a highly crystallized rock 
 to a distance of a quarter of a mile from the point of contact by transmitted 
 heat, and there are instances of dark-coloured limestone, full of fossil shells, 
 that has been changed into statuary marble from that cause ; and similar 
 alterations may frequently be seen to a small extent in rocks adjacent to a 
 stream of lava." 
 
 The animal remains which have been found in the clay slate are corals 
 and shells, and with them remains of Crustacea, which are organically allied 
 to the lobster, have been found in the Grauwaoke. But in what is more 
 strictly called the Silurian, with corals, shells, and Crustacea, fish bones and 
 teeth have been found ; and it has been alleged that there have been found- 
 some fragments of sea-weeds, and algo fragments of equisitacete and 
 of ferns, belonging to the period of this formation ; but on this point 
 doubts exist. 
 
 I have spoken of equisitacese. The English designation of the different 
 species of equisita, from which the order is named, is horse-tails. I 
 hesitated to use this term, lest the expression " fragments of horse-tails " 
 should have conveyed an erroneous idea whether that term were associated 
 with the mare's-tail — a y^ry different plant, hippuris vulgaris — or with the 
 animals from which both botanic designations have been borrowed. 
 
GBOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.' 47' 
 
 Whatever opmion may be adopted in regard to the terrestrial origin* and 
 the period of the formation of the fossils resembling the structure of the 
 equ.isitace8B and the ferns, it wiU be admitted that all the others speak of an 
 ocean home. 
 
 Land there may have been somewhere or other above the surface of the 
 ocean, but the rocks of the Colony all tell only of sea — if not of a sea 
 without a shore — of a deep sea, at the bottom of which they found a 
 resting-place after suspension and transport in its waters. This is indicated 
 most distinctly — indicated in the lamination seen in the rooks of fine 
 argillaceous composition, and in the stratification of the arenaceous or 
 sandstone and the limestone formations. 
 
 Of the systems of rock now under consideration Page says, — 
 
 " The clay-slate system presents a vast thickness of fihe-grained fissile 
 argillaceous rook, of considerable hardness, varying in colour, and of 
 glistening aspect. The prevalent colours of slate are black, green, bluish, 
 purplish, and mottled ; some varieties being hard and splintery, others soft 
 and perishable. The character of any particular slate is, however, very 
 persistent ; the accidental or imbedded minerals are few — ^these being 
 chiefly cubic-iron pyrites, and crystals of chiastolite and hornblende. 
 
 " The composition of the grauwache is much more varied and irregular. 
 As sandstone may be said to be consolidated sand, and conglomerate 
 consolidated gravel, so may grauwacke be defined to be an aggregate of 
 clay, grains of quartz, felspar, and mica, with fragments of jasper and other 
 minerals. The cementing material is clay, which often constitutes the 
 greater portion of the rock, and in such cases the texture differs little from 
 that of clay-slate : but in many strata fragmentary ingredients prevail, so 
 that the texture varies in fineness from that of a coarse slate to a 
 conglomerate of pebbles more than an inch in diameter. Like clay-slate, 
 grauwacke presents various degrees of hardness, though, generally speaking, 
 it may be described as a highly indurate conglomerate — indicating most 
 clearly its origin from the waste of earlier siliceous and argillaceous forma- 
 tions. Associated with the slates and grauwackes are occasional beds of 
 concretionary limestone, which partake of the argillaceous character of the 
 rocks with which they are associated. 
 
 " In the Silurian system limestones occur more frequenily, so that the cal- 
 careous type, or, at all events, an intimate blending of argillaceous and 
 calcareous compounds, may be said to prevail. Until a recent period, this 
 system was considered as a portion of the grauwacke group, and as marking 
 its passage into the grey micaceous beds of the old red sandstone. Merely 
 looking at cabinet specimens, it would be impossible to distinguish between 
 many of the grauwacke and Silurian rock, but taking them in the mass they 
 are readily distinguishable. In the first place, their sedimentary character' 
 is very marked ; they present more rapid alternations from one kind of strata 
 to another ; they have undergone fewer changes by heat ; and are generally 
 looser and more earthy in their texture. The -limestones are less cyrstalline 
 than those of the early grauwackes ; the arenaceous beds are also less 
 silicious, and more closely resembling ordinary sandstone, while the abund- 
 ance of organic remains justifies their arrangement in a separate system." 
 
 In clay slates we find, besides the lamination, a cleavage, or tendency to 
 cleavage, which facilitates or occasions its spliting up into thin plates ; but 
 these, it may be observed, are generally at right angles, or nearly so, to the 
 bed of stratification, and this is attributable to some change which has 
 
48 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 taken place in the matter of which, it is composed subsequent to its deposit 
 in laminae, and which must not be confounded therewith. 
 
 The thickness of the deposits of the greenish-gray and brownish-coloured 
 slates and grits at the Cape of Good Hope have not, so far as I am aware, 
 been ascertained. In England they constitute an aggregate thickness 
 measured by miles. I have already spoken of the Cambrian formation, 
 including the Bala limestone, the Festiniog, and Bangor slates, &o., as 
 estimated to be 26,000 feet in thickness. Above this in the series is the 
 Lower Silurian, 1,500 feet ; the Caradoc sandstone, 2,500 feet ; the Upper 
 Silurian, embracing the. Ludlow and Wenlock rocks, the Woolhope lime- 
 stone, &c., 5,000, or in all 9,000 feet deposited, apparently subsequent to the 
 deposit of the 26,000 feet; of the Cambrian deposit, and supplying in like 
 manner an indication of the lengthened duration of the period of deposit 
 brought under consideration, throughout the whole of which, it may be, 
 what is now called South Africa was at the bottom of the sea, making its 
 emergence as dry land but an event of yesterday when compared with its 
 previous service as a part of the ocean bed. 
 
 And here I would meet a dif&culty which may present itself to some 
 entering upon such studies for the first time. 
 
 It may be asked. How can such measurements be determined ? The 
 answer is ready. It has been stated that in the Colony the beds under 
 consideration are usually seen vertical, or at high angles, broken through 
 and altered by granite. By measuring across the upturned edges, and 
 noting the angle at which they are inclined, the actual thickness may be 
 easily determined. The experiment may be made by attempting thus to 
 determine the thickness of the upturned bed of slate reclining upon the 
 base of the Lion's Head above low-water mark at Sea Point. I do not 
 remember whether their aspect indicates lamination or cleavage ; my 
 recollection of the appearance presented by them inclines me to conclude 
 the former ; but the purpose now in view may be accomplished whatever 
 may be the case in regard to the origin of the appearance referred to. 
 
 The slate-like layers in question have apparently yielded to the force by 
 which the granite was protruded. They have thus been thrown into a 
 position such as the leaves of a book are made to assume by running the 
 thumb across them. In this position they may present a greater breadth 
 of surface than they would of thickness if they had been completely tilted 
 up into a vertical position, or had been allowed to retain their original 
 horizontal position, which is their true thickness. But by determining the 
 angle at which they are inclined, we are enablgd, from the measurement of 
 their breadth of surface, to calculate exactly their thickness ; and thus it is 
 that the thickness of some of the thicker layers have been determined. 
 
 At the high rocks on the sea shore at Sea Point these uptilted strata of 
 laminated structure may be distinctly seen, and from them not a little may 
 be learned. If my memory serves me right, they may be seen again in 
 some of the roads skirting the base of the Lion's Eump. By the removal 
 of a little soil they may probably be traced from the rocks at Sea Point to 
 a considerable distance. It is the upturned edges of them which are seen, 
 and the cause of the upturning appears to have been the protrusion of the 
 granite on the sides of which the strata at Sea Point are seen to rest. If 
 my recollection of the appearance they present be correct, it is natural to 
 conclude from what is seen and from what is known that originally they 
 must have lain in a horizontal position, and from this they have been 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 49 
 
 thrust by the protrusion of the granite in question. If so, a vague idea 
 may be obtained of the force with which that granite was protruded, and 
 from the distance to which this eiFect of the protrusion may be traced. 
 But we are thus supplied also with the means of ascertaining the thickness 
 of the bed of strata thus disturbed. This is not the measurement of the 
 distance from the granite at Sea Point to where they terminate. It would 
 have been this had they been vertical. The thickness of the seam of the 
 leaves of a book is the same whether the |30ok lie upon the table or stand 
 upon its edge ; but when, by the thumb being passed over the edges of the 
 leaves while they are held against the iingers near to the binding, they are 
 spread out, and they measure across the edges double or triple what they 
 do in an undisturbed horizontal position : so is it with the strata in 
 question. But with the measurement of the extent of these, and of the 
 angle of inclination, we have all the data required for a trigonometrical 
 calculation of their original thickness. And thus are we supplied with an 
 indication, if not with a measurement, of the l9,pse of time, and of the lapse 
 of time during which there was here a continuous calm — ^unbroken, 
 undisturbed. 
 
 During the protracted era of the deposit of the gneiss and schist forma- 
 tion there were probably numerous disturbances of the deposit. But 
 dnring the deposit of the clay-slate there may have been — must have been 
 — in this locality at least, a long-continued quiet. 
 
 It has been shown by geologists that though identity of strata indicates 
 identity of circumstances, they do not necessarily indicate cotemporanecus 
 formation or identity of time of deposit ; for a deposit commencing near the 
 locality of disintegration may be there abundant, while as yet it is only 
 slowly extending, and that perhaps by the continuous re-transport of the 
 deposited matter. Should these coloured slates be identified with the 
 coloured clay-slate found elsewhere, immediately overlying the granite or 
 tTie gneiss, it may be that the deposit of these clay-slates may have 
 extended throughout a great portion, if not the entire period, of the time 
 occupied in the deposit of the superior lying grauwacke or Cambrian 
 formation, measuring in England 26,000 feet in thickness ! It is only 
 towards the close of the period required for this that we have any indication 
 of the existence of dry land supphed by fossil plants of terrestrial produc- 
 tion, and it has been questioned whether what have been deemed such in 
 some of the upper strata should be so considered. 
 
 Let an estimate be formed of the length of time requisite for the deposit 
 of such an accumvdation of flaky strata in the calm depth of a deep, deep 
 sea, and it will appear that for a long, long period indeed this land must 
 have been covered with a waste of waters — a shipless, shoreless sea, 
 countless fathoms deep — where in its depths, whatever storms agitated the 
 surface, raising billows, aU was calm and peaceful as the waters of a 
 mountain lakelet on a summer's eve. 
 
 But long-continued as this calm had been — and how long none but 
 a student of geology can imagine — it was not to continue for ever. These 
 beds of greenish, gray, or brownish coloured grits and slates, it has been 
 stated, are in the Colony usually seen in a vertical position, or at high 
 angles broken through and altered by granite, as may be seen at Sea 
 Point. This appears to have been effected from beneath by a protrusion of 
 granite in a viscid semi-fluid state of fusion, as was the granite seen in 
 connection with these slaty, flaky strata at Sea Point, where several 
 
 F 
 
50 HTDBOLOOT OP SOUTH APBIOA, 
 
 phenomena arising out of this protrusion of granite, which was probably 
 of a high temperature, may be studied. 
 
 It is not necessary that I should «top to discuss at length how this 
 upheaval and protrusion of granite came about. It may suffice to state in 
 passing that it is not improbable it was effected by some such operation as 
 in later times produced earthquakes and Tolcanoes, and that these have 
 been attributed to the percolation of water through cracks in the basin of 
 the earth, which, when it came into contact with the heated material at 
 some depth below, was converted into vapour, and by its expansion heaved 
 up the earth under which it passed towards a rent which already existed, or 
 which it could make for itself, blowing up the viscid fused material before 
 it. Or it may have been protruded by a more steady pressure on the 
 somewhat elastic crust of the earth under the sea, occasioned by the 
 accumulated deposit of matter measuring miles in depth. The phenomena 
 is not peculiar to South Africa, and we have here ordy a representation in 
 miniature of what, about the same time was occurring on a scale of 
 tremendous magnitude. 
 
 It is said — "There is scarcely a development of the clay-slate or 
 grauwacke systems without associated granitic rocks ; and the greater part 
 of the Silurian strata are thrown into inclined and contorted positions by 
 the same agency, while effusions of trap make their appearance among the 
 later strata. 
 
 " The Grampians, the Welsh range, the Pyrenees, Hartz mountains, 
 Dofrafelds, Uralian, Himmaleh, Atlas range, Mountains of the Moon and 
 other African ridges, the Andes, and Alleghanies all seem to have received 
 their elevation at the close of the' transition period " — the period now 
 engaging our attention. 
 
 Captain Hall, in his Manual of South African Geography, commends the 
 geological appearances on the flank of Table Mountain as supplying a good 
 study for any one commencing the study of geology and desirous of 
 extending his acquaintance with that science. " He will there," says he, 
 " find the clay-slate rocks, once probably lying horizontally, violently 
 upheaved, and standing, as it were, on edge against the mass of granite 
 which appears to have been protruded in a state of fusion through the 
 same, as will be seen in the line of junction on the beach near Sea Point, 
 and above the gardens on the Kloof road — the clay-slate being intercepted 
 by veins of the granite in every direction, and a band of rock alternately 
 changing from clay-slate and granite into gneiss." 
 
 The gneiss, it is alleged, has been produced by the heat of the granite 
 having sufficed to fuse portions of the material broken through and left 
 reclining upon it. And the cleavage of the clay-slate has been attributed 
 to the same cause. 
 
 "The peculiarities of this structure," says Page, "have given rise to 
 many speculations and experiments. Mr E. W. Fox submitted a mass of 
 moist clay, worked up with acidulated water, to a weak electric action for 
 several months ; and it was found at the end of that time to present traces 
 of cleavage, the laminee being at right angles to the electric forces. Others 
 are of opinion that cleavage is superinduced, when considerable chemical 
 action takes place in any finely pulverised substance as clay — cleavage 
 being thus regarded as a species of rude crystallisation. Another class of 
 theorists, from observing that slaty cleavage occurs among the shales of the 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 51 
 
 coal measures, when these are in the neighbourhood of igneous rocks, 
 attribute the structure to heat. It is not unlikely that aU, these causes 
 may have been concerned in producing cleavage ; for, when better under- 
 stood, it is more than probable that heat, electricity, and chemical action, 
 are only modifications of one universal agency." 
 
 The granite appears to have been here protruded to a considerable eleva- 
 tion. A continuation of that seen at Sea Point may be seen on the Wynberg 
 side of Table Moxmtain ; and it continues to appear along the beach on both 
 sides of the peninsula to its termination at Cape Point. Perhaps this mouny 
 tain range owes its preservation to resistance presented by the granite to 
 the ocean current, by which the land along its sides was washed away. 
 But the point to which I wish to call attention is, that while there are 
 indications of this granite having been protruded through the clay slates, 
 everything seen goes to show that the Silurian deposit, of which the bulk of 
 Table Mountain and the mountains beyond are formed, was deposited around 
 and above the protruded granite, and consequently, after its protrusion, 
 supplying us with a measurement of time elapsing after that protrusion, 
 during which what is now a dry land was then the bed of an ocean a 
 thousand fathoms deep. 
 
 Capping this deposit, thousands of feet in thickness, may be seen on 
 Table Moimtain and on the Lion's Head well defined horizontal strata, 
 differing in substance as well as appearance from the mountain mass which 
 they cover. This is characterised by abundance of clay, these by being com- 
 posed in a great measure of sand, and all round the flanks of the mountain 
 are beds of what is called ironstone gravel — indurated clay — ^the debris, it 
 may be, of the sandstone cliffs which have been undermined, and of the 
 schistose beds of clay slate by which they were sustained. It is said that 
 many of the mountains both in Great and Little Namaqualand show hori- 
 zontal beds of sandstone or quartzite, identical, seemingly, with that which 
 overlies the clay slate and granite of Table Mountain ; and it is probable 
 that the extensive plateau of Bushmanland is practically composed of beds 
 of the same rock, covered with deposits of tufaceous limestone ; and it is 
 alleged that similiar deposits in patches of various size are found surmount- 
 ing all of the rocks which have been previously described — in some cases 
 with peculiarity of inclination which wiU call for subsequent remark, — and 
 that they have few or no fossil remains, and that they are principally com- 
 posed of silica, which is often stained with oxide of iron, corresponding 
 with the descripting given by Wylie of strata examined by him. 
 
 Thus the sandstone of Table Mountain was identified by Mr Wyhe, when 
 he was Geological Surveyor to the Colony, with some of the lower strata of 
 what is called the old red sandstone, which, having been found in Devon 
 shire, has come from this circumstance to be known as the Devonian 
 formation, though it is also found on extensive districts elsewhere ; and such 
 also are the sandstones of what he calls the , fibular range of mountains. 
 He describes these as "gray sandstones, conglomeritic. at base, with 
 reddish shaly sandstone below." He visited the Knysna, and though he 
 mentions he had very little opportunity of seeing much of the geology, he 
 says, " The hard, yellowish, iron-stained sandstone of the Heads appeared 
 to me to belong to the Table Mountain sandstone, or Lower Devonian. In 
 all probability it is a continuation of the sandstone of Cape St. Blaize ani 
 the Aasvogelberg, near Eiversdale." And he subsequently says, " Ongoing 
 
52 HYDEOLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 ashore for a few minutes at Mossel Bay, I could see that the sandstone there 
 and at Cape St. Blaize was the same as that of Table Mountain." 
 
 lu aU of these observations we find indications of the extent, though not 
 of the limits, of the deposit, and indications of all the spots named haTing; 
 been at the time of their deposit a portion of the ocean bed. 
 
 The question. Whence came all' the material covering to such thickness 
 areas of such extent? may press upon some who feel disposed to crave an 
 answer before proceeding further. A question more pertinent to the; 
 subject imder consideration is. How came the material to be deposited 
 there? But this is no reason why a reply to the other should either be 
 withheld or postponed. 
 
 In all the deposits which have been under consideration we have foimA 
 no materials but what exist as constituehts of granite ; and this is sugges- 
 tive of the alternate conclusions that either granite may have been formed 
 from a solution or fusion of these and other deposits, or that these all are 
 the products of the disintegration and decomposition of granite. 
 
 There are those who are inclined to adopt the former of these hypotheses 
 — ^the latter has commanded more general attention. 
 
 The various schists pi'esent us' with constituents of granite in various 
 degrees of disintegration ; quartzite, or quartzose sand, appears to be 
 quartz in a state of greater or less comminution ; clay is an abundant product 
 of the decomposition of felspar, &ci ; and gneiss appears to be only 
 another form of granite itself. 
 
 The opinion has been advanced that the gneiss seen at Sea Point has been 
 produced by the effects of heat on the stratified rocks, through which the 
 granite in a state of fusion was protruded ; and a friend of my own, a 
 German Professor of Physical Science, whose scientific attainments I highly 
 respect, maintains that all granite is the product of the fusion or solution of 
 materials which at one time composed stratified rocks, similar in every 
 respect to those of what are now superincumbent strata. Such are not my 
 views. But be the case as it may in regard to the formation of granite", 
 there is much in the general appearance of the superincumbent strata to 
 favour the supposition that gneiss is composed of disintegrated granite ; 
 schists, of the same, with the process of disintegration carried somewhat 
 further ; sandstone formations, something of the same ; and clay, one of the 
 products of the decomposition of felspar, or of some of the other primary 
 minerals in the composition in which it takes part. 
 
 The appearance of the gneiss and of the schists is indicative of the 
 possibility and to some extent probability of the material of which they are 
 composed having previously existed in the same locality. But it is not so 
 with the superincumbent stratified rocks. The material composing these 
 may have been conveyed to the spot in which they are found from a con- 
 siderable distance, and there are not awanting indications of the deposit of 
 some having followed an arrest, sudden or gradual, of the velocity in the 
 ocean current by which they were being suspended and borne along ; and it 
 is at this point of the history of these deposits that' they become more 
 particularly interesting to the student of Hydrology. 
 
 It has been observed — ^the observation has been tested and illustrated by 
 experiment, and the fact has been turned to practical account in washing 
 for gold and in many other operations besides — ^that a current of force 
 sufficient to carry with it heterogeneous matter, when weakened, aUows the 
 heavier materials to dropj and bears along only the lighter to a greater dis- 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSEfiVATIONS. 53- 
 
 tance. And from the size and weight of stones which have apparently been 
 thus deposited, some idea may be formed of the force of ocean currents 
 which existed in the locahty at the time of their deposit. 
 
 The strata of sandstone capping Table Mountain and the Lion's Head 
 have been identified with the so called Devonian or Old red sandstone 
 deposits in Britain; amongst these are beds of conglomerates in which 
 stones of considerable bulk are found. I use with reluctance a phrase so 
 vague, but I have not the means of ascertaining their magnitude. Stones 
 of a corresponding magnitude have been found in conglomerates at the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and these supply indications of what must have been 
 the rapidity of the current by which they were borne along. 
 
 Deposits of conglomerate speak of the rapidity and consequent force of 
 the ocean currents, and they tell at the same time in some cases of the 
 depth of the ocean at the time of their deposit, and of the length of time 
 throughout which that deposit was going on ; they leave however much to be 
 imagined. Let the reader imagine the depth of an ocean in which a deposit 
 could go on until it had attained a thickness of 4000 feet, which is the 
 thickness of some of these deposits, and the length of time which must have 
 been required for such a deposit ! 
 
 Such may have been the time represented by these stratified Old red sand- 
 stone deposits capping the Silurian deposits, some 3000 feet in thickness, 
 previously deposited. But that sand has also another tale to tell. Allusion 
 has already been made to its tale of diininished depth of ocean. 
 
 Of this shallowing of the water, in whatever way it may have been 
 brought about, we have also other indications — indications as instructive as 
 was to Noah the indication afforded by the olive leaf in the mouth of the 
 dove — that the waters were abated. 
 
 Besides these mountain-capping strata, th^re are in the district over 
 which they extend strata which have been identified with strata of the 
 same system in other lands, and these of an aggregate thickness of 1100 
 feet. These are described by Mr Wylie as consisting of "dark-gray and 
 brownish shades, with fossils abundant-^of a Devonian or carboniferous lime- 
 stone type, — and of beds of brown rippled sandstone with long winged 
 sperifers." 
 
 These are of a later formation than the strata on Table Mountain, but 
 they confirm their testimony — they tell of shallow water, if not also of adjacent 
 land. We are approaching the time of which it is written, " And God said, 
 Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and 
 let the dryland appear, and it was so." 
 
 The ripple mark so common on the surface of sandstones of aU ages, and 
 which is so often seen on the searshore at low-tide, seems to originate in the 
 drifting of materials along the bottom of the water. But it is by no means 
 confined to the beach between high and low water ; it is also produced on 
 sands which are constantly covered with water. Similar undulatory ridges 
 and furrows may also be sometimes seen on the surface of drift-snow and 
 of loose sand. Sir Charles Lyal informs us he had once an opportunity of 
 observing how the wind produced this effect on a large extent of level 
 beach exposed at low-tide near Calais. The following is the account which 
 he has given : — 
 
 " Clouds, of fine white Band were blown from the neighbouring downs, so as to 
 cover the shore, and whiten a dark level surface of sandy mud ; and this fresh 
 coTering of sand was beautifully rippled- On levelling aU the small ridges and 
 
54 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 furrows of this ripple over an area several yards square, 1 saw them perfectly 
 restored in about ten minutes, the general direction of the ridges being always at 
 right angles to that of the wind. The restoration began by the appearance here 
 and thei'e of small detached heaps of sand, which soon lengthened and joined 
 together, so as to form long sinuous ridges, with intervening furrows. Each 
 ridge had one side slightly inclined and the other steep, the lee-side being always 
 steep and the windward a gentle slope. 
 
 " When a gust of wind blew with sufficient force to drive along a cloud of 
 sand, all the ridges were seen to be in motion at once, each encroaching on the 
 furrow before it, and in the course of a few minutes filling the place which the 
 furrow had occupied. The mode of their advance was by the continual drifting 
 of grains of sand up the slopes — many of which, on reaching the summit, fell over 
 the scarps, and were under shelter from the wind, so that they remained stationaiy, 
 resting, according to their shape and momentum, in different parts of the descent, 
 and a few only rolling to the bottom. 
 
 " Occasionally part of a ridge, advancing more rapidly than the rest, overtook 
 the ridge immediately before it, thus causing those bifurcations and branches 
 which are so common. We see this configuration in sandstones of all ages ; and 
 in them also, as now on the sea-coast, we may often detect two systems of ripplea 
 interfering with each other — one more ancient and half effaced, and a newer one, 
 in which the grooves and ridges are more distinct and in a different direction. 
 This crossing of two sets of ripples arises from a change of wind and the new 
 direction in which the waves are thrown on the shore." 
 
 Thus is the ripple mark produced, and in the ocean-bed it tells in 
 general of a rising beach, though it may be below low-water mark. At 
 the Cape such indications of a shore are found, and if of a shore then of 
 dry land behind. We are now in sight of land — ^not that cloud-land or bank 
 by which a landsman might be deceived, but firm land, and no mistake. 
 
 " Beds of brown rippled sandstone ?" Yes ! these ripples on the sandstone 
 tell of ripples on the wave, and teU of a shore on which the waves rolled 
 playfully — as they may be seen now to roll in seeming sport and play on 
 the beach half-way between Sea Point and Camp Bay beyond. 
 
 If the "beds of brown rippled sandstone" have been covered with other 
 matter conformed to their shape, this shows that they may have been at 
 some later time again submerged, and, it may be, submerged to a consider- 
 able depth ; but these ripples show that they have been near, or at, or 
 above the level of the sea, on a gently inclined, almost horizontal, shore. 
 
 We are then brought to land at last ! 
 
 Thus by the study of the granite, such as is seen at Sea Point, and the 
 gneiss and the schists which elsewhere axe associated with it, we are carried 
 back to a time when " the earth was without form and void "• — ^no earth, 
 no sea, as these designations are generally understood— a lurid, incandes- 
 cent mass — ^viscid and plastic — cooling down till the incandescence dis- 
 appeared, "and darkness was upon the face of the deep." What now 
 exists as water, if existent then, existed as vapour and cloud — ^thick clouds 
 and dense, impervious to the solar ray. " And the Spirit of God moved 
 Upon the face of the waters " — the breath of God, a mighty wind — which 
 might be described in the language of the psalmist David as raining snares, 
 or as it reads in the margin, quick-burning coals, fire and brimstone, and an 
 horrible or burning tempest — thunder, and lightning, and storm. " Then," 
 to quote again from the sweet singer of Israel, "the earth shook and 
 trembled ; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, . . 
 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth 
 devoured ; coaJa were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came 
 
GBOIiOGIOAL OBSBBVATIOirB. 
 
 55 
 
 down : and darkness was under his feet. And lie rode upon a cherub, and 
 did fly ; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his 
 secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick 
 clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before hin: his thick clouds 
 passed; hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the 
 heavens, and^he Highest gave his voice; hailstones and coals of fire." 
 
 Such are the phenomena suggested by what is learned of the primitive 
 condition of the earth from the appearance of the granite. 
 
 As the world cools down the violence of the tempest, the duration of 
 which, it may be, far transcends our wildest dreams of duration and time 
 is allayed ; the clouds condensed into rain become translucent, " And God 
 said Let there be light, and there was light." The process proceeds, and 
 much of the moisture is precipitated while the clouds float aloft. " And 
 God said, Let there be a firmament," or, as is stated in the margin it reads 
 in the Hebrew, " Let there be an expansion in the midst of the waters, and 
 let it divide the waters from the waters." And God made the [expansion 
 or] firmament, and djvidedthe waters which were uider the firmament from 
 the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so." And this is the 
 era of the world's history to which we are led back by the study of the 
 gneiss and the schists, and other so called primary rocks. 
 
 The hydrologic records of the granite and the so-called metamorphic 
 rocks are, as has been said, in some respects like unto the fabulous chapters 
 of the early history of many nations, in which fi-agments of pure history are, 
 in minute fragmentary portions, imbedded, and conglomerated by much 
 which is other than history pure and simple, but in which again there are 
 often more minutely comipinuted portions of fact. Even from such 
 fabulous history the true may, by careful study, be eliminated, and even 
 from these metamorphic rocks generally considered to be manifestly igneous 
 formations, may be produced evidence of a cotemporary or prior state and 
 condition of things in which they were in their structure the consequences 
 of aqueous action. 
 
 The gneiss and the schists are apparently composed of disintegrated granite, 
 and it may be the disintegration took place ere water was precipitated from 
 the atmosphere ; it may be that the materials of which they are composed 
 were deposited where we find them by the mighty rushing winds, which it 
 is possible may have been what was spoken of as the Ruach of the Hebrew, 
 and the Pneuma of the Septuagent, which moved upon the face of the deep ; 
 it may be that the water-worn appearance of their constituents was produced 
 by trituration and friction occasioned by the wind ; but the preponderating 
 evidence is in favour of the supposition that the materials in question were 
 deposited where we find them by the agency of water. But while the 
 solvent power of water, pure, or in combination with other matter, at a 
 higher temperature than that at which water now becomes vapourous and 
 boils, and which might be the case if the pressure under which it lay were 
 greater than is that of the atmosphere at present — ^while the solvent ppwer 
 of the water in such circumstances might be such as to hold felspar in 
 solution, the preponderating evidence seems to be considered in favour of 
 the supposition that these metamorphic rocks must have been subsequent 
 to their deposit in an incandescent state ; and by much which is seen in 
 these rocks we are led, whatever may have been the facts of the case in 
 regard to these particulars, to think of the primeval ocean as difiering in 
 temperature, if not in other respects, from the ocean of the present, and to 
 
56 HrDEOLOGT OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 conclude, that possibly there may have have been local if not uni- 
 versal conversions of the water of the ocean into vapour, to ^e p-gain 
 deposited from the atmosphere ; and that that may have occurred oftener 
 than once. 
 
 It seems to be generally accepted as indicated by the appearances of 
 these so-called metamorphic rocks— the gneiss and the schists — ^that the 
 places in which they are found must have been at the time of their forma- 
 tion covered, and covered deeply, by the primeval ocean. If the crystalliz- 
 ation of these rocks was a crystallization from a state of fusion, this fusion 
 seems to indicate incandescence, and consequently a temperature sufficient 
 to convert the ocean, if subjected only to such pressure as that of the 
 atmosphere now, into vapour, and that a vapour in quantity sufficient, 
 when condensed in the atmosphere into cloud, to cause darkness again to 
 cover the face of the deep, until again, after a lapse of time for which I have 
 no measurement, the coohng of the molten mass — effected, it may be, by th^ 
 continuous influx and evaporation of surrounding water (if the incandescence 
 were only local) — allowed of the condensation and deposit of the watery 
 vapour ;' and there, as elsewhere, the waters under the firmament were 
 again divided from the waters which were above. But even then the 
 temperature of the ocean, as at first, may have been, and probably was; 
 far above the temperature of the present sea — approximating at first the 
 temperature of the boiling point of water — if not rising above even this, and 
 far above it. 
 
 It was shown at the meeting of the British Association for the promotion 
 of Science, held at Brighton in 1872, that while a red-hot baU. of iron intro- 
 duced into a vessel of pure water was quickly quenched, a similar red-hot ball 
 of iron introduced into a vessel of water holding soap in solution continued 
 incandescent for a length of time, and was seen through the water to be so. 
 The rational^ is, a film of vapour formed around the ball was retained there 
 through the stronger cohesion of the saponaceous water, and prevented for 
 a time the closer approach of the water around to be, as ia the case of the 
 pure water, converted into steam, though after a time this failed, and an 
 explosion followed. 
 
 Dismissing all thoughts about this, but that of the phenomenon of an in- 
 candescent mass surrounded by water, I avail myself of this to suggest the 
 possibility of what may be considered a wild dream having been actually the 
 case, though I do not consider this to be probable. It is conceivable that 
 the pressure of the then existing atmosphere, and of the waters of the sea, 
 and the mechanical constitution of these, might possibly have been such as to 
 prevent the evaporation and escape of water heated by the fused mass ; and 
 that, had there been eye to see it, there might have been seen through the 
 depths of the ocean the glowing incandescent ocean-bed imparting a lurid 
 hue to the thick cloud above impervious to solar ray ; while tempestuous 
 storms swept the face of the deep as the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the 
 face of the waters ! 
 
 This weird dream I give as one which possibly might be descriptive of 
 what occurred; but the views I entertain are more in accordance with 
 what is previously stated. 
 
 So much for the testimony in regard to the early or primordial hydro- 
 graphic condition of what is now known as South Africa, supphed by the 
 granite, the gneiss, and the schists there found. 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 57 
 
 In the Kaleghari there is fotmd what is called mountain limestone, 
 associated with metamorphic schists such as we have had ynder con- 
 sideration. 
 
 The designation mountain limestone is given to limestone strata, which 
 are generally found flanking or crowning trap hills, intermediate in age be- 
 tween the Old Red Sandstone and the so-called coal measures, and presenting 
 bold escarpments. Sometimes it consists of two, four, or six beds divided 
 by portions of clayey matter ; at other times the beds are separated by 
 layers of calcarious sandstone and shale ; while not unfrequently it occurs 
 in one mass of vast thickness, flanking some trap hills precisely after the 
 manner in which a coral reef skirts the island around which it is forming. 
 
 The organic remains in the mountain limestone are evidently marine. 
 The occurrence in some strata of seams of coal attest the presence of 
 terrestrial plants which must have drifted into the sea of deposit. There 
 is some doubt among geologists as to the origin of certain limestones in the 
 lower strata ; but laying these aside, the whole character of the group is as 
 decidedly oceanic as is that of the living coral reefs of the Pacific. 
 
 The zoophites, by which the limestone was produced there, may have 
 lived subsequent to the deposit of the sandy strata capping Table Mountain 
 and the Lion's Head ; and if so, if the metamorphic character of the rock 
 and of the schists with which it is associated be the result of fusion, we are 
 led to conclude that the phenomenon of fusion must have occurred, in the 
 places in which they are found at a period subsequent to the deposit of the 
 whole of the material of which Table Mountain is composed. 
 
 These strata belong to what is known as the Old Red Sandstone formation. 
 There is no one whose name is so intimately and extensively associated with 
 the name of this formation as is the name of the honoured and lamented 
 Hugh Miller. Amongst writers who have attempted reproductive descrip- 
 tions of former aspects of the earth, few have approached him, and I know 
 of no one who has excelled him in the combination of graphic description 
 with scientific truth. 
 
 He thus writes of the phenomena of the earlier eras of which we have 
 hydrographic records at the Cape of Good Hope— the eras during which 
 were deposited or formed the granite, the gneiss, the mica and talc schists, 
 the clay slates, and other so-called primary rocks : — 
 
 " At this time,'' says he, " the temperature of the earth's crust seems to have 
 been so high that the strata, deposited at first in water, passed into a semi-fluid 
 state, became strangely waved and contorted, and assumed in its composition a 
 highly crystalline structure. Such is peculiarly the case with the fundamental or 
 gneiss deposits of the period. In the overlying mica schist there is still much of 
 contortion and disturbance, whereas the clay-slate which lies over all gives 
 evidence, in its more mechanical texture and the regularity of its strata, that a 
 gradual refrigeration of the general mass had taken place, and that the close of 
 this period was comparatively quiet and cool. • ,, 
 
 " Let us suppose that during the earlier part of this period of excessive heat 
 the waters of the ocean had stood at the boiling point, even at the surface, and 
 much higher at the profounder depths ; and further, that the half-molten crust 
 of the earth, stretched out over a molten abyss, was so thin that it could not 
 support, save for a short time after some convulsion, very small islands above the 
 sea-level. What, in such circumstances, would be the aspect of the scene 
 optically exhibited from some point in space elevated a few hundred yards over 
 the sea ? It would be simply a blank, in which the intensest glow of fire would 
 fail to be seen at a few yards distance, 
 
 a 
 
68 HTDEOLOQT OF SOUTH APBIOA. 
 
 " An inconsiderable escape of steam from the safety-valve of a railway engine 
 forms BO thick a screen, that, as it lingers for a moment in the passing opposite the 
 carriage windows, the passengers fail to discern through it the landscape beyond. 
 A continuous stratum of steam then, that attained to the height of our present 
 atmosphere, would wrap up the earth in darkness, gross and palpable as that of 
 Egypt of old— a darkness through which even a single ray of light would fail to 
 penetrate. Beneath this thick canopy the unseen deep would literally ' boil as a 
 pot,' wildly tempested from below ; while from time to time more deeply seated 
 convulsions would upheave sudden to the surface vast tracks of semi-molten 
 rook, soon again to disappear, — from which waves, of bulk enormous, would 
 roll outwards to meet in wild conflict with the giant waves of other convul- 
 sions, or return to hiss and sputter against the intensely heated and fast 
 foundering mass whose violent upheaval had first elevated and then sent 
 them abroad. 
 
 " Such would be the probable state of things during the times of the earlier 
 gneiss and mica schist deposits — times buried deep in that chaotic night which 
 must have continued to exist for mayhap many ages after that beginning of things 
 in which God created the heavens and the earth. 
 
 " To a human eye stationed within the cloud all, as I have said, must have been 
 thick darkness. To eyes divine, that could have looked through the inveUing 
 haze, the appearance would have been that described by Milton as seen by angel 
 and archangel at the beginning of creation, when from the gates of heaven they 
 looked down upon chaos : — 
 
 " ' On heavenly ground they stood, and from the shore 
 They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss, 
 Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild, — 
 Up from the bottom turned by furious heat, 
 And surging waves as mountains to attack 
 Heaven's height, and with the centre mix the pole.' " * 
 
 The Scripture record is, " In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth. And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was 
 upon the face of the deep." 
 
 It is added to this description of the then chaotic condition of the earth, 
 " And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." I have indi- 
 cated my opinion to be, that in this there is a reference to mighty rushing 
 winds which then prevailed. 
 
 A statement made by Ruskin, another master in the art of word-painting, 
 enables me to give some idea of what I suppose to have been then the state of 
 the atmosphere in proximity to the waste of waters covering the earth 
 whilst such commotions and darkness prevailed. It occurs in a work on a 
 very different subject from that of Hugh Miller, but it is not the less suit- 
 able for my purpose. It is given in ilhistration of the power of representa- 
 tion manifested by painters : — 
 
 " There are comparatively few people," says he " who have seen the eftect 
 produced on the sea by a powerful gale, continued without intermission for three 
 or four days and nights, and to those who have not it must be unimaginable, not 
 from the mere size or force of surge, but from the complete annihilation of the 
 limit between sea and air. I'he water from its prolonged agitation is beaten, not 
 into mere creaming foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast, which hang in 
 ropes and wreathes from wave to wave, and when one curls over to break, they 
 form a festoon like a drapery from its edf;e ; these are taken up by the wind, not 
 in dissipating dust, but bodily, in wreatljiug, hanging, coiling masses, which 
 make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long 
 each; the surges themselves are full of foam in their very bodies underneath, 
 
 * Testimony of the Bocks, Pages 176-177. 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 59 
 
 making them all white through, as the water is under a great cataract ; 
 and their masses being thus half water and half air, are torn to pieces 
 by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away in roaring smoke, which chokes 
 and strangles like actual water. It seems also as if the spray of the sea were 
 caught by air and covered the surface of the sea, not merely with the smoke of 
 finely divided water, but with boiling mist ; and the low rain clouds brought 
 down to the very level of the sea may be seen whirling and flying in rags from 
 wave to wave. And finally, the surges themselves are to be seen in their utmost 
 pitch of power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lifting themselves through all 
 this chaos in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent. 
 
 _ " Realize all this, and you will understand that in such a scene there is no 
 visible distinction left between the sea and the air, that no object, nor horizon, nor 
 any landmark or material evidence of position is left, that the heaven is all spray, 
 and the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no further in any direction than 
 you could see through a cataract. 
 
 " Few people have had an opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and 
 few when they have can face it. To hold by a mast or a rock and watch it is a pro- 
 longed endurance of drowning which few people have courage to go through. To 
 those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons of nature. 
 
 " The following passage from Fennimore Cooper describes such a scene, and it 
 may be depended upon as entirely free from exaggeration : — 
 
 " ' For the first time I now witnessed a tempest at sea. Gales and pretty hard 
 ones I had often seen, but the force of the wind on this occasion as much exceeded 
 that in ordinary gales of wind as the force of these had exceeded a wholesale 
 breeze. The sea seemed crushed ; the pressure of the swooping atmosphere, as the 
 currents of the air went howling over the surface of the ocean, fairly preventing 
 them from rising ; or, when a mound of water did appear, it was scooped up and 
 borne off in spray, as the axe dubs inequalities from the log. When, the day re- 
 turned, a species of lurid sombre light was diffused over the watery waste, though 
 nothing was visible but the ocean and the ship. Even the sea birds seemed to 
 have taken refuge in the caverns of the adjacent coast, none reappearing with 
 the dawn. The air was full of spray, and it was with difiiculty that the eye could 
 penetrate as far as half-a-mile into the humid atmosphere.' — Miles Wallinyford. 
 Half-a-mUe is an over estimate in coast. 
 
 " Turner has attempted to represent the ocean, after such a storm, in the Slave 
 Ship : — It is sunset on the Atlantic, after prolonged storm ; but the storm is 
 partially lulled, and the torn and streamy rain -clouds are moving in scarlet lines to 
 lose themselves in the hollow of the night. The whole surface of the sea 
 included in the picture is divided into two ridges of enormous swell, not high nor 
 local, but a low broad heaving of the whole ocean, like the lifting of its bosom by 
 a deep drawn breath after the torture of the storm ; between these two ridges 
 the sunset falls along the trough of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but a glorious 
 light, the intense and lurid splendour which burns like gold and bathes like blood. 
 Along this fiery path and valley the tossing waves, by which the swell of the sea 
 is restlessly divided, lift themselves in dark, indefinite, fantastic forms, each 
 casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along the illumined foam. They do 
 not rise everywhere, but three or four together in wild groups, fitfully and furiously 
 as the under strength of the swell compels or permits them ; leaving between 
 them treacherous spaces of loose and writhing water, now lighted with green and 
 lamp-like fire ; now fiashing back the gold of the decliniog sun ; now fearfully 
 dyed from above with the indistinguishable images of the burning clouds, which 
 fall upon them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and givint; to the reckless waves 
 the added motion of their own fiery flying. Purple and blue the lurid shadows of 
 the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of the night, which gathers cold and 
 low, advancing like the shidow of death upon the guilty ship as it labours amidst 
 the lightnings of the sea — its thin masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, 
 girded with condemnation in that fearful hue, which signs the sky with horror, and 
 mixes its flaming flood with the sunlight, and casting this far along the desolate 
 beare of the eepulchral waves, IncarnadiaeB the moltitadinous sea." 
 
00 HTDEOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 To any one who can divest his mind of the anachronisms of a sunset while m 
 yet no sun had been seen, and a slave ship while as yet man was not, the 
 triple picture supplied by what is said by Turner, Cooper, and KusMn, may 
 suggest some idea of what may have been the state of the atmostphere while 
 darkness was upon the face "of the waters, and the granite and the gneiss 
 were being formed below. 
 
 Again I betake myself to Hugh Miller's Testimony of the Hacks. At the 
 place at which I broke off my quotation he goes on to say :— 
 
 "At length, however, as the earth's surface gradually cooled down, and the 
 enveloping waters sank to a lower temperature, let us suppose, during the later 
 times of the mica schists and the earliar times of the clay slate, the steam atmos- 
 phere would become less dense and thick ; and at length the rays of the sun would 
 struggle through, at first doubtfully and confused, forming a faint twilight, and 
 gradually streiigthening, as the later age of the slate formation passed away, until 
 at the close of the great primary period day and night — the one still dim and gray, 
 the other wrapt iu a pall of thickest darkness— would succeed each other as now, 
 as the earth revolved on its axis, and the unseen luminary rose high over the 
 cloud in the east, or sank in the west beneath the undefined and murky horizon." 
 
 Turning to the Bible we read, " And God said, Let there be light : and 
 there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good : and God 
 divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and 
 the darkness he called Night. . . . And God divided the waters which 
 were under the iimament from the waters which were above the fimament : 
 and it was so." 
 
 Then followed the deposit of the Cambrian, the Silurian, and Devonian 
 systems, the grauwackes and sandy slates, the Silurian limestone, and the 
 Old Eed Sandstone : the first of which has been found 26,000 feet in thick- 
 ness, and each of the others upwards of 8,000 feet : the first equivalent to 
 about five miles, and each of the latter to about a mile and a half in 
 measurement, — of which some idea may be formed from seeing in the face 
 of Table Mountain a Silurian deposit upwards of half a mile in thickness. 
 
 To prevent misapprehension, I may mention that the masses presenting 
 such measurement represent local accumulations and not the thickness 
 of deposits the whole world round ; and that they are referred to now, only 
 as supplying rough measurements of the lapse of time. 
 
 In all of these we find organic remains. Those found in the first 
 mentioned stand low in the order of organic structures, those in the second 
 stand somewhat higher in the order of classification generally adopted, and 
 those in the third stand higher still. In the first, remains of mollusks — 
 invertebrate animals — and fishes are found ; in the second appear remains 
 of land animals ; and in the later deposited strata of the last are found 
 remains of ferns — lepidodendra — and coniferous trees, and of amphibious 
 animals which lived in the water but breathed air ; of none of which 
 organic structures are remains found in the earlier deposits. Of what 
 occurred in the course of the long vista of ages through which we thus look 
 back to the periods of the deposit of gneiss, and schists, and slates, Hugh 
 Miller writes : — 
 
 " The invertebrate life of the Silurian period, or even the ichthyic life of the 
 earlier Old Red Sandstone period, must have been comparatively inconspicuous 
 from any sub-serial point of view, elevated but a few hundred feet over the sea 
 level. Even the few islets of the later ages of the period, vpith their ferns, lepido- 
 dendra, and coniferous trees, forming as they did an exceptional feature in this 
 
GBOLOQIOAL OBSERVATIONS. 61 
 
 age of vast oceans, and of organisms all but exclusively marine, may have well 
 been excluded from a representative diorama that exhibited optiodlly the grand 
 characteristics of the time. 
 
 " Further, it seems equally probable that the introduction of organised 
 existences on our planet was preceded by changes -in the atmospheric condition 
 which had obtained during the previous period in which the earth had been a 
 desert and empty void. 
 
 " We know that just before the close of the Silurian ages terrestrial plants had 
 appeared, and that before the close of the Old Red Sandstone age air-breathing 
 animals had been produced, and we infer that the stmosphere in which both could 
 have existed musi have been considerably different from that which lay dark and 
 heavy over the bare hot rocks and tenantless steam-emitting seas of the previoui 
 time. 
 
 " Under a gray opaque sky in which neither sun nor moon appear, we are 
 not unfrequently presented with a varied drapery of clouds — a drapery varied in 
 form though not in colour — a bank often seems placed over a bank, shaded 
 beneath and lighter above; or the wbole breaks into dappled cloudlets which 
 bear, to borrow from the poetic description of Bloomfield, the 
 " Beauteous semblance of a flock at rest." 
 
 And if such aerial draperies appeared at this early period, with the clear space 
 between them and the earth, which we so often see in gray sunless days, the 
 optical effect must have been widely different from that of the previous time in 
 which a dense vapourous fog lay heavy upon earth and sea, and extended from 
 the earth's surface to the upper heights of the atmosphere." 
 
 He expresses the opinioii — " It is certainly possible that in a vision of 
 creation the atmospheric phenomena of the second great act of the creation 
 drama might have stood out with much greater prominence "... than 
 any of its other appearances." And likening the record of ancient cosmo- 
 gony in the beginning of Genesis to a vision in which, " as in the vision of 
 St John in Patmos, voices were mingled with scenes, and the ear aa 
 certainly addressed as the eye," he goes on to say :— 
 
 " A ' great darkness ' first falls upon the prophet, like that which in aa earlier 
 age fell upon Abraham, but without the ' horror ;' and, as the Divine Spirit moves 
 on the face of the wildly-troubled waters, as a visible aurora enveloped by the 
 pitchy cloud, the great doctrine is orally enunciated, that ' In the beginning God 
 created the heavens and the earth. ' Unreckoned ages, condensed in the vision 
 into a few brief moments, pass away ; the creative voice is again heard, ' Let 
 there be light,' and straightway a gray diffused light springs up in the east, and, 
 casting its sickly gleam over a cloud-limited expanse of steaming vaporous sea, 
 journeys through the heavens towards the west. Oae heavy, sunless day is made 
 the representative of myriads; the faiut light waxes fainter, — it sinks beneath 
 the dim undefioed horizon; the first scene of the drama closes upon the seer ; and 
 he sits awhile on his hill-top in darkness, solitary but not sad, in what seems to 
 be a calm and starless night. 
 
 " The light again brightens, — it is day ; and over an expanse of ocean without 
 visible bound the horizon has become wider and sharper of outline than before. 
 There is life in that great sea, — invertebrate, mayhap alsoichthyic life ; but, from 
 the comparative distance of the point of view occupied by the prophet, only the 
 slow roll of its waves can be discerned, as they rise and fall in long undulations 
 before a gentle gale; and what most strongly impresses the eye is the change 
 which has taken place in th^ atmospheric scenery. That lower stratum of the 
 heavens occupied in the previous vision by seething steam, or gray, smoke-like 
 fog, is clear and transparent ; and only iu an upper region, where the previously 
 invisible vapour of the tepid sea has thickened in the cold, do the clouds appear. 
 
 But there, in the higher strata of the atmosphere, they lie, thick and manifold, 
 
 an upper sea of great waves, separated from those beneath by the transparent 
 firmament, and, like them too, impelled in rolliag masses by the vrind. A miglttf 
 
62 HTDBOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 advance has taken place in creation ; but its most conspicuous optical sign is the 
 existence of a transparent atmosphere, — of a firmament stretched out over the 
 earth, that separates the waters above from the waters below. But darkness 
 descends for the third time upon the seer ; for the evening and the morning have 
 completed the second day." 
 
 Thus are we brought ou to the period of the formation of the Old Red 
 Sandstone, during which^was deposited the strata capping Table Mountain 
 and the Lion's Head, — designated old in contradistinction to a later 
 stratification of red sandstone, designated new. 
 
 Section II. — Geologic Formations less aiwient than those of Table Mountain. 
 
 The gneiss and schistose deposits, associated with granite such as is seen 
 at Sea Point, and the slate and clay and sandstone deposits, of which Table 
 Mountain and other mountains once connected with it are formed, teUofthe 
 whole district having been for ages — for untold ages — covered by a deep, 
 deep sea — ^with, it may be, an occasional temporary elevation of it, or of 
 some portion of the ocean bed near it, above the surface of the waste of 
 waters only to be again submerged — ^but to establish this the evidence is 
 defective. But the later formed deposits, with others of apparently a similar 
 character and of the same age, seem to bring us within sight of what we 
 may call dry land ; and that dry land studded, if not clothed and covered, 
 with vegetation appearing above what erewhile may have been a shoreless 
 ocean. And of this elevation of the land, " standing," according to the 
 statement of the apostle Peter, " out of the water and in the water," we find 
 in later formed deposits, the remains of which exist in other parts of the 
 Colony, additional and abounding indications. 
 
 In the Witteberg, in the Zuxirberg at Winterhoek, and in the neighbour- 
 hood of Graham's Town, are sandstones of a white or yellowish colour, and 
 a few beds of red or yellow shales, or clayey deposits, more or less impreg- 
 nated with bituminous matter like petroleum, or mineral oil as it is called, 
 the product of the decomposition, probably, of vegetable matter or of fat. 
 
 The aggregate deposits of dark-gray and brownish shales give a thickness 
 of 1100 feet. Those in the Witteberg, the Zuurberg, and in the vicinity of 
 Graham's Town, give a thickness of about 1000 feet. At Piennaar's Kloof 
 and the Zuurberg are dark coloured shales, usually contorted like the sand- 
 stone below them, which must, therefore, have been deposited after them 
 and contorted with them, possibly by the unequal contraction of these 
 and of underlying strata. These shales, though of small thickness, .give an 
 aggregate thickness of 800 feet. These are known as the lower Karroo 
 shales 
 
 Subsequent to the deposit of these must have been projected from beneath, 
 through clifts in the ground, what is called trap-rock — a conglomerate of 
 this material and " numerous rounded and angular fragments of the older 
 rocks, from the smallest grain to two feet in diameter, conformable as a 
 mass to the beds above and below, showing a rude cleavage nearly at right 
 angles to the general bedding." This, measuring from 500 to 800 feet in 
 thickness, may be conjectured to be the product of submarine volcanoes. 
 
 After this, apparently, were deposited dark-gray shales and beds of sand- 
 stone about 1200 feet, or about a quarter of a nule, in thickness — seen in 
 the Eaitoo plain and at Fort Brown Flats — and known as the upper Karroo 
 
GEOLO&IOAL OBSERVATIONS. 63 
 
 shale, that below the trap being known, as I have stated, as the lower 
 Karroo shales. 
 
 Both in the upper Karroo shale, in the lower Karroo shale, and in the 
 underlying sandstone are found remains and impressions of land plants ; and 
 in the second of these are marine shells, from which it may be inferred that 
 while land had by this time raised its head above the ocean surface, these 
 were stiU a part of the ocean bed. 
 
 In the Kleine Roggeveldt, the Fish River, and at Fort Brown are brown 
 sandstone, brown shales, and greenish shales of an aggregate thickness of 
 1500 feet, or about a third of a mile. In these the remains of plants are 
 pretty common. 
 
 This supplies an indication that land upon which these had grown must 
 have existed, and could not have been very remote from the place where 
 they are found, though that place — the place of their deposit, may have been 
 under deep water and long continued to be so — if it were not then being 
 slowly lowered to a lower level throughout or in the course of a protracted 
 period, for the deposits are of a thickness estimated at 1000 feet. 
 
 Thus are we brought to that part of the world's history of which we read, 
 " And God said. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto 
 one place, and let the dry land appear : and it was so. And God called the 
 dry land Earth ; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas : 
 and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth 
 grass, the herb yielding seed, and the finiit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, 
 whose seed is in itself upon the earth : and it was so. And the earth 
 brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree 
 yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind : and God saw that it 
 was good." Remains of what appears to have been a species of grasswraok, 
 zostera, or alva marina, which grows on sand or mud banks on the sea shore, 
 and in creeks and salt water pools, have been found in Devonian or Old Red 
 Sandstone deposits in Scotland, which were deposited long anterior to these ; 
 and it is only in strata deposited long subsequent to these that we find 
 remains of what are known generally as trees yielding fruit ; we are, 
 however, supplied with indications of a luxuriant vegetation of some kind , 
 having now appeared on the dry land. 
 
 In these strata we find remains of plants, and amongst these have been 
 identified remains of the lepidodendron, a plant the remains of which are 
 frequently found in coal. In the best preserved specimens the inner por- 
 tion of the plant has been petrified or decomposed and removed, and 
 replaced by a deposit of soft quartzose sandstone, and the bark or skin has 
 been converted into coal. This portion presents the appearance of over-" 
 lapping scales, which is the characteristic of the species referred to, and 
 from this it has received its designation, one from the Greek composed of 
 lepis, a scale, and dendron, a tree. 
 
 It may be a help to some of my readers in enabling them to carry with 
 them a definite idea of the ages of these formations, if I mention that some 
 of the strata which come now to be noticed belong to what are known as 
 the coal measures, immediately underlying which is the mountain limestone 
 of which mention has been made, and which surmounts the Devonian or 
 Old Red Stone. With this in mind let us study these strata more in detail. 
 
 While the superficial aspect of the earth was at this period such as has 
 been indicated, there were then, as there had been before, and have been 
 
64 HTDBOLOGT OP SOUTH AFBIOA. 
 
 since, internal oommotions protruding matter in a state of fusion from 
 beneath, which in a viscid state spread out extensively from the rent by 
 which it was ejected, crushed out by pressure on the elastic crust by 
 increased deposits on some limited locality in the ocean bed, or blown out 
 by steam produced from water which had percolated or sunk through some 
 rent in the rocks by which it was separated from the molten mass of the 
 globe. 
 
 As has been stated, in the Karroo are found what have been designated 
 the lower Karroo shales, usually contorted like the sandstones below them. 
 
 They are themselves of small thickness, but the aggregate thickness of 
 the whole is estimated at 800 feet. They may be seen both at Piennaar's 
 Kloof and on the Zuurberg. 
 
 These must have been deposited after the beds of sand upon which they 
 lie were deposited, but there are found in them marine shells, which show 
 that, though there may have been islands or more extensive expanses of dry 
 land above the ocean surface, upon which lepidodendra and other land 
 plants grew more or less remote, this district at least was then a portion of 
 the ocean-bed. 
 
 But overlying these shales, and underlying the other shales, which from 
 this circumstance have been designated the upper Karroo shales, we find a 
 kind of rock altogether different from all those which have come under our 
 consideration hitherto. It is called trap conglomerate. 
 
 The designation trap has been given from the Swedish word trappa, a 
 stair, — many hills formed of a kind of stone entering largely into the 
 composition of this formation, presenting step-like terraced sides, having 
 suggested the designation. It is applied to basalt, greenstone or whinstone, 
 clinkstone, and several other similar rocks. 
 
 And the designation trap conglomerate is given to this formation because 
 imbedded in the trap rock of which it is composed are numerous rounded 
 and angular fragments of the older rocks, varying in magnitude from that 
 of the smallest grain to two feet in diameter. 
 
 This mass of trap conglomerate, it is estimated, is from 500 to 800 feet 
 in thickness. 
 
 It shows a rude cleavage nearly at right angles to the general bedding. 
 It is in its lower surface conformable as a mass to the beds upon which it 
 lies, and the overlying beds are conformable to its upper surface. 
 
 These circumstances, and together with these everything connected with 
 it, indicates its having been formed by the protrusion from below of the 
 material of which it is composed in a viscid semi-fluid state, allowing either 
 of its spreading out in beds of this thickness under the ocean, or of 
 its subsiding, after a sudden eruption in a more limited space, to the 
 varying level which it now exhibits over its more extended bed. Thus 
 does it appear that we have come upon strata not deposited by precipitation, 
 but of volcanic origin, and thrown up from below. 
 
 Volcanoes in the form of burning mountains, as they are called by 
 school-boys, may be confined apparently to dry-land, but in some cases it is 
 only dry-land cast out by themselves, and the term is not so limited in its 
 application by geologists and by students of physical geography. By them 
 the term volcano, or some such term as volcanic, derived from it, is applied 
 to other eruptions besides those of flame, including aU discharges, through 
 rents in the earth's crust, of cinders, ashes, stones, and rooky matter in a 
 state of fusion. 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 65 
 
 Many islands of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are accumulations of 
 volcanic matter thrown up, it may be, through rents at the bottom of the 
 sea, and the magnitude of some of these is very great. " Owhyhee,'' to 
 quote from De la Beche, " is a magnificent example of such an island : the 
 whole mass, estimated as exposing a surface of 4,000 square miles, is 
 composed of lava or other volcanic matter, which rises in the peaks of 
 Mouna Eoa and Mouna Koa to the height of between 15,000 and 16,000 
 feet above the level of the sea." 
 
 Similar, apparently, has been the origin of this trap conglomerate. 
 Whether it rose above the surface of the sea or not does not appear, but 
 cases have not beeti unknown in our own day of islands of volcanic ashes 
 having been thrown up, and again in a short time washed down and strewn 
 upon the ocean basin. And thus may this trap conglomerate have found 
 a resting-place, and after the temporary disturbance — if it did rise above 
 the waves — the deposit of debris appears to have gone on as before ; but in 
 this debris are imbedded indications that there was land not far off, for 
 above this trap conglomerate, and conformed thereto, we -find dark-gray 
 shales and a few beds of sandstone, in which impressions of land plants are 
 found. These strata, as has been intimated, are what are called the upper 
 Karroo shales, being so designated in contradistinction to the lower Karroo 
 shales, or those underlying this mass of trap conglomerate. 
 
 These upper Karroo shales may be seen in the Karroo plain, and on the 
 Fort Beaufort Flats, and with them have been identified the Ecca shales. 
 They are of an aggregate thickness of about 1200 feet, which speaks of a 
 long duration of the then existing state of things. 
 
 With regard to the numerous rounded or angular fragments of the older 
 rock imbedded in the trap, it is alleged, in accordance with phenomena 
 observed in our own day, that a volcano in action throws up often red-hot 
 stones, torn ofi', by the force of the current of molten matter, from the rocks 
 through which it passes towards the natural orifice. 
 
 I find it more satisfactory to attribute the severance of the fragments to 
 the heat of the lava than to the force of the current, and to the impinging 
 force of fragments thus borne along by the cvirrent. In illustration of what 
 may be effected by heat, I may state that Dr Livingstone, writing of the 
 highlands in the districts of Gova, says, "Several of the mountain sides 
 in this country are remarkably steep, and the loose blocks on them sharp 
 and angular, without a trace of weathering. For a time we considered 
 this angularity of the loose fragments as evidence that the continent was 
 of comparatively recent formation, but we afterwards heard the operation 
 actually going on by which the boulders are split into these sharp fragments. 
 The rocks are heated by the torrid sun during the day to such an extent 
 that one is sometimes startled, on sitting down on them after dusk, to find 
 them quite too hot for the flesh, protected only by the trousers, to bear. 
 The thermometer placed on them rises to 137° in the sun. These heated 
 surfaces, oooUng from without by the evening air, contract more externally 
 than within, and the unyielding interior forces off the outer parts to a dis- 
 tance of one or two feet. Let any one in a rocky place observe the 
 fragments that have been thus shot off, and he wiU find in the vicinity 
 pieces, from a few ounces to one or two hundred pounds in weight, which 
 exactly fit the new surface of the original block ; and he may hear in the 
 evening among the hills, where sound travels readily, the ringing echo of 
 the reports which the natives ascribe to Mchesi, or evil spirits, and the 
 more enlightened to these natural causes." H 
 
66 HYDBOLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Fragments severed thus from the solid rock by the heat of the traps in a 
 state of fusion, borne along with force, may, in such an eruption as produced 
 this trap's formation, have broken off other fragments to be borne along in a 
 similar way and with similar effect. 
 
 It may seem to some that the rounded form of some of the stones im- 
 bedded in the trap speaks of water action, but I do not feel myself shut up to 
 adopt this conclusion. In an active volcano may be seen stones thrown up 
 to a great height, which fall again and again inlo the crater, knocking 
 against each other, and knocking the corners from each other more quickly 
 than is done by the friction of shingle on the beach, and thus may {hese 
 stones have been rounded. While this is not proven, it should be borne in 
 mind that the rounded form of the pebble, attributed to water action, has 
 been produced by the fluidity and not by the constituents of the water, and 
 by the fluidity acting as a means of occasioning the friction of one hard 
 substance on another, and thus leaving them to do the work ; and this 
 might be accomplished by a current of trap as well as by a current of water. 
 
 The Geysers in Iceland, fountains of hot-water rising to a height of 200 
 feet, which are intermitting in their action, have been brought to play at 
 other times than they naturally would by throwing quantities of stones into 
 the orifice whence issues the jet. Dr Henderson, in his Journal of a Resi- 
 dence in Iceland during the years 1814 and 1815, in narrating what 
 occurred in connection with one of these induced eruptions, writes, " Having 
 made a speedy retreat, I now took my station on the windward side, and 
 was astonished to observe the elevation of the jets, some of them rising 
 higher than two hundred feet ; many of the fragments of stones were 
 thrown much higher, and some of considerable size were raised to an invisible 
 height. For some time every succeeding jet seemed to surpass the 
 preceding, till the quantity of water in the subterranean caverns being spent, 
 they gave place to the columns of steam, which continued to rush up with 
 a deafening roar for upwards of half-an-hour." 
 
 Next day he repeated the experiment. He writes, " Being anxious to ascer- 
 tain the reality of my supposed discovery, I got my servant to assist me 
 about eight o'clock in casting all the loose stones we could find into the 
 spring. We had not ceased five minutes when the wished-for pheno- 
 mena recommenced, and the jets were carried to a height little inferior to 
 what they had gained the preceding evening. At half-past nine I was 
 obliged to set out on my journey, but often looked back on the thundering 
 column of steam, and reflected with amazement at my having given 
 such an impulse to a body which no power on earth could control." 
 
 In writing of a natural eruption, he mentions, " The large stones which 
 we had previously thrown into the pipe were ejaculated to a great height, 
 especially one which was thrown much higher than the water;" and in 
 writing of another he says, " The jets of water now subsided ; but their 
 place was occupied by the spray and steam, which, having free room to 
 play, rushed with a deafening roar to a height little inferior to that of the 
 water. On throwing the largest stones which we could find into the pipe, 
 they were instantly propelled to an amazing height ; and some of them 
 that were cast up more perpendicularly than the others remained for the 
 space of four or five minutes within the influence of the steam, being 
 successively ejected, and falling again in a very amusing manner." 
 
 In these the transparency and tenuity of the water lot the stones be seen. 
 It is not unnatural to suppose that in the eruption of the trap in a state of 
 
GEOI/OGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 67 
 
 fusion something similar may have occurred to the stones borne along by 
 it, and such collisions as they had might suffice to giv6 them something at 
 least of the rounded form which many of them present. 
 
 Superimposed on this trap conglomerate lie the upper Karroo shales. 
 
 In the upper part of the scarp of Kleine Roggeveldt at Fort Brown, and 
 at other parts of the Fish River valley, we find brown sandstone and shales, 
 and greenish-coloured sandstone and shales, which appear to be of a still 
 later deposit than the upper Karroo shales. In these the impressions and 
 remains of plants are pretty common, which shows that though these parts 
 were still under water there was land not far off,, and this land probably 
 gaining upon the sea in that region, for no such abundance of evidence of 
 the existence of land plants is found in the lower-lying strata. 
 
 The period over which this subsidence of the sea — or elevation of the 
 land — extended must have been a very protracted one, for the aggregate 
 thickness of these beds is estimated at 1,500 feet, those of the upper Karroo 
 shales is estimated at 1,200, and those of the lower Karroo shales at 800, or 
 3,500 feet in all ; and though some of these deposits may have been going 
 on in different places at the same time, the time required for the abrasion, 
 suspension, conveyance, and deposit of the whole must have been long ; and 
 at a corresponding slow progress periods of still greater changes were 
 approaching. 
 
 Towards the north of the Colony, and in regions beyond, we find 
 deposited above those already described, and consequently of a later 
 formation, beds of purple, gray, and greenish shales, intermixed with fewer 
 sandstone beds, giving in the aggregate a thickness of 1,700 feet, or very 
 nearly a third of a mile ; and in these are found remains of plants, fish 
 teeth, and reptilian bones, — indicative of the existence of inland lakes 
 separated from the ocean by intervening land, which may have allowed of an 
 outlet to the vast reservoir, but no entrance, or this only at times far 
 separated, and even then only a partial one, to the waters of the sea. Islands 
 rising above the level of the sea is all of which we have had indications hitherto; 
 now we have indications of the lower-lying lands between these rising above 
 the waters, and with them forming a continent, with a vast extent of it 
 covered with the waters of an inland lake, and that for such a length of 
 time that the silt is of the thickness stated. 
 
 The strata now under consideration have been called the Dicynodon 
 strata, from the fossil remains of a reptile so named being found in them. 
 * They will afterwards come under consideration. 
 
 In the Stormberg, the Sneewberg, Nieueveldt, Roggeveldt, &c., are foimd 
 distinct tiers of sandstone, separated by shales containing abundance of 
 land plants and beds of coal and of graphite or black-lead, which is 
 apparently altered coal, together with remains of reptiles, but these in 
 diminished numbers. The aggregate thickness of these beds is about 1,800 
 feet, or upwards of a third of a mile. All these tell still of water under 
 which the deposits have been made, but they tell also of the great increase 
 of dry-land. If the coal be formed from wood, which had grown on the 
 spot where it is found, they tell of alternations of periods of lengthened 
 duration, during which the same land was above and below the water 
 surface. But if of this there be no indication, it may be conjectured that 
 the wood was carried thither by water currents. 
 
 These later deposits have been identified with those of the coal measures 
 
68 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 of other lands, and they introduce, us to indications which give us a glimpse 
 of another and that a very different hydrographic condition of the land, 
 from that of a deep and shoreless ocean, such as was indicated by the 
 primary beds of gneiss, of schists, and of slate; and the superimposed 
 Cambrian, Silurian, and Devonian deposits. To quote again from the 
 historian of the Old Ked Sandstone, "Yet again the light rises under a 
 canopy of cloud ; but the scene has changed, and there is no longer an un- 
 broken expanse of sea. The white surf breaks at the distant horizon, on 
 an insulated reef, formed mayhap by the Silurian or Old Ked coral zoophytes 
 ages before, during the bygone yesterday ; and beats in long lines of foam, 
 nearer at hand, against a low, winding shore, the seaward barrier of a widely 
 spread country. For at the Divine command the land has arisen from the 
 deep, — ^not inconspicuously and in scattered islets, as at an earlier time, 
 but in extensive though flat and marshy continents, little raised over the 
 sea level, and a yet further flat has covered them with the deep carboni- 
 ferous flora. The scene is one of mighty forests of cone-bearing trees, — 
 ofpalms, and tree-ferns, of gigantic club-mosses, on the opener slopes, and of 
 great rocks clustering by the sides of quiet lakes and dark rolling rivers. 
 There is deep gloom in the recesses of the thicker woods, and low thick 
 mists creep along the dank marsh or sluggish swamps. But there is a 
 general lightening of the sky over-head : as day declines, a redder flush 
 than had hitherto lighted the prospect falls athwart fern-covered bank and 
 long withering glade." 
 
 And elsewhere he writes, " For seven formations together — from the 
 lower Silurian to the upper Old Red Sandstone — our course has been over 
 oceans without a visible shore, though, like Columbus on his voyage of dis- 
 covery, we have now and then found a little floating weed to indicate the 
 approaching land. The water seems fast shallowing, — we are passing into 
 new scenes. Yonder passes a broken branch with the leaves still 
 unwithered, and there floats a tuft of fern, — and now, there is land ! Land ! 
 A low shore thickly covered with vegetation as we approach it. 
 
 " Huge trees of wonderful form stand out far in the water. There seems 
 no intervening beach. A thick hedge of reeds tall as masts of pinnaces 
 run along the deeper bays, like water flags at the edge of a lake. A river 
 of vast volume comes rolling from the interior, darkening the water for 
 leagues with its slime and mud, and bearing with it to the open sea reeds, 
 and ferns, and cones of the pine, and immense floats of leaves, and now and 
 then some bulky tree undermined and uprooted by the current. Entering 
 the opening of the stream, we find a scarcely penetrable phalanx of reeds, 
 that attain to the height and well nigh the bulk of forest trees, ranged on 
 either side. The bright and glossy stems seem redded like Gothic 
 columns ; the pointed leaves stand out green at every joint, tier above tier, 
 each tier resembling a coronal wreath or an ancient crown, with the rays 
 turned outwards ; and we see a top that may be either large spikes or catkins. 
 
 " Strange forms of vegetable life appear in the forests behind ! Can that 
 be a club-moss which raises its slender height far more than 50 feet from 
 the soil t Or can these tall palm-like trees be actual ferns, and these 
 spreading branches mere fronds 1 And these gigantic reeds !^ — are they not 
 mere varieties of the common horse-tails of our bogs and morasses, 
 magnified some sixty or a hundred times ? 
 
 "Have we arrived at some such country as the continent visited by 
 Gulliver, in which he found thickets of weeds and grass tall as woods of 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 69 
 
 twenty years growth, and lost himself amidst a field of com fifty feet in 
 height 1 
 
 " The lesser vegetation of our own country — its reeds, mosses, and ferns 
 — seem here as if viewed through a microscope. The dwarfs have sprung 
 up into giants, and yet there appears to be no proportionate increase in size 
 among what are unequivocally its trees ! 
 
 " Yonder is a group of what seem to be pines — tall and bulky, 'tis true, 
 but neither taller nor bulkier than the pines of America or Norway ; and 
 the club-moss behind shoots up its green hairy arms, loaded with what 
 seem catkins, above their topmost cones. But what monster of the vege- 
 table world comes flog,ting across the stream — now circling round in the 
 eddies, now dancing on the ripple, now shooting down the rapid 1 It 
 resembles a gigantic star-fish, or an immense coach-wheel divested of the 
 rim. There is a green, dome-like mass in the centre, that corresponds to 
 the nave of the wheel or the body of the star-fish, and the boughs shoot 
 out horizontally on every side, like spokes from the nave or rays from the 
 central body. The diameter considerably exceeds 40 feet ; the branches, 
 originally of a deep green, are assuming the golden tinge of decay ; the 
 cylindrical and hollow leaves stand out on every side, like prickles of the 
 wild-rose on the red, fleshy, lance-like shoots of a year's growth, that will 
 be covered two seasons hence with flowers and fruit. That strangely-formed 
 organism finds no existing type among all the numerous families of the 
 vegetable kingdom. 
 
 " There is an amazing luxuriance of growth all around us. Scarce can 
 the currents make way through the thicket of aquatic plants that rise thick 
 from the muddy bottom ; and though the sun shines bright on the upper 
 boughs of the tangled forest beyond, not a ray penetrates the more than 
 twilight gloom which broods over the marshy platform below. 
 
 "The rank steam of decaying vegetation forms a dense, thick haze, that 
 partially obscures the underwood ; deadly lakes of carbonic acid gas have 
 accumulated in the hollows ; there is silence all around, uninterrupted save 
 by the sudden plunge and splash of some reptile fish that has risen to the 
 surface in pursuit of its prey, or when a sudden breeze stirs the hot air and 
 shakes the fronds of the giant ferns or the catkins of the reeds. The wide 
 continent before us is a continent devoid of animal life, save that its pools 
 and its rivers abound in fish and mollusca, and that millions and tens of 
 millions of the infusorial tribes swarm in the bogs and iharshes. Here and 
 there, too, an insect of strange form flutters among the leaves. It is more 
 than proba^ble that no creature furnished with lungs of the more perfect 
 kind could have breathed the atmosphere of this early period and have 
 lived." 
 
 " At the close of the Old Ked Sandstone period," says Page, " the earth 
 seems to have undergone an almost total change in its geological conditions. 
 The red sandstones and gravelly conglomerates which had been formed 
 along the shores and bottom of the sea were upheaved into dry land ; thus 
 adding to the extent of land previously existing, and gradually circumscrib- 
 ing the limits of the ocean in which subsequent deposits were to take place 
 As disintegrated granite furnished the felspar, quartz, and mica of the 
 gneiss and mica schist, and as from these, again, were obtained the materials 
 of the clay-slate, grauwacke, and Silurian rocks, so from all these, together 
 with the newly upheaved red sandstone, were derived the matgrial of the 
 succeeding formation. These successive attritions would reduce quartz to 
 
70 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 sand of various fineness, felspar to loose impalpable clay, mica from large 
 plates to minute scales, and crystalline limestone to a dully powdery con- 
 sistence. The rocks formed of these ingredients would necessarily present 
 a less compact texture ; and thus it is in the Carboniferous System that the 
 sandstones are more arenaceous, the shales soft and earthy, and the lime- 
 stones non-crystalline and often impure. Besides the sandstone, clay, and 
 limestone, two new rock substances make their appearance among the strata 
 of this system, namely, coal and ironstone — ^the former being the result of 
 compressed and altered vegetation, and the latter a chemical aggregation of 
 the metallic particles around some earthy basis. The iron of the Old Eed 
 Sandstone was disseminated through the mass as mere colouring matter ; in 
 the carboniferous formation it is principally collected in layers, or in 
 nodules. The vegetation of previous periods was so scanty, as to leave 
 only a few dubious impressions among the strata. During this era it was 
 so abundant as to form numerous beds of coal, ranging in thickness from 
 a few inches to twenty or even thirty feet." 
 
 Writing of the organic remains found in the so-called coal measures, he 
 remarks that, — " The abundance of terrestrial vegetation is by far the most 
 distinguishing feature, though, as might be expected from the nature of the 
 deposit, marine shells, fishes, and other aquatic excuvise, are not unfrequent." 
 
 Having previously stated that coal is in its mass composed of plants, 
 altered by compression and conversion into bitumen, he goes on to say, — 
 " On account of this change, it is often impossible, at first sight, to detect 
 any trace of vegetable structure ; but on closer inspection, the woody fibre 
 may be seen in many specimens ; while it is possible in almost all to make 
 visible the cells and fibre by exposing thin slices to the transmission of a 
 powerful light. In this way Mr Witham observed the various vegetable 
 tissues in coal, thereby adding another testimony to the numerous 
 evidences of its organic origin. In most of the bituminous beds, however, 
 the external form is obliterated, and it is to detached fossils in the sand- 
 stones and lighter shales that the geologist is indebted for his knowledge 
 respecting the Flora of the carboniferous era. About four hundred species 
 have been already determined, chiefly gigantic equisetums, ferns, club- 
 mosses, cactuses, pines, and plants allied to the bulrush, cane, and bamboo. 
 Most of these resemble existing plants merely in their generic distinctions, 
 having belonged to species which flourished during the coal-forming period, 
 and became extinct with the peculiar conditions of the globe which gave 
 them birth. Some of the most characteristic of the vegetable fossils 
 belonging to this formation are — 1. SigiUaria, so called from the graven 
 appearance of its stem ; 2. Calamites, from the rced-like jointings of its stalk ; 
 3. Stigmaria, from its stigmata, or punctures ; 4. Lepidodendron (Gr., lepis, 
 a scale, and dmdron, a tree), from the scaly appearance of its bark. These 
 fossils occur in all the members, from the lowest white sandstone beneath the 
 moimtain limestone, up to the commencement of the new red sandstone, 
 at which stage they disappear, and do not seem to have flourished during the 
 deposition of any subsequent formation. The best preserved specimens are 
 found in the shales and sandstones ; the interior structure of the plant being 
 converted into soft quartzose sandstone, and the bark, or cuticle, into a glisten- 
 ing bituminous coal. In the coal, the vegetable structure is always more or less 
 obliterated, though sometimes a solitary trunk occurs of the same quartzose 
 material as those imbedded in the ehales and sandstones. Of these fossil 
 trees, many have been found of gigantic dimensions; as, for example a 
 
GEOLOGICAL 0BSEBVATI0N3. 71 
 
 lepidodendron in the Jarrow coal-field, 13^ feet wide at the base, and 39 
 feet high, exclusive of the branches at the top, which were also entire ; and 
 a conifera of the genus auracaria in Craigleith quarry, 3 feet in 
 diameter, and 20 feet long. Besides the sigillaria, &c., above described, 
 there are numerous species of tree-ferns, club-mosses, equisetums, and 
 oUier cryptogamio plants preserved in the shales ; their dark carbonaceous 
 leaves and branches being often beautifully displayed upon the light- 
 coloured ground of the material in which they are imbedded; namely, 
 Asterophyllites (Gr., aster, a star, a-nd phyllon, a leaf); Sphenopteris (sphen, a 
 wedge, and pteron, a wing) ; Pecopteris (pecos, a comb, and pteron, a wing) ; 
 all so named from the shape of their respective leaves. 
 
 " Of the conditions of the world during the deposition of the carboniferous 
 system, we have more obvious evidence than of those under which any 
 of the earlier systems were formed. The extent of the seas in which the 
 deposit took place is very clearly indicated by the course of the mountain 
 limestone, which must have been formed at no great depths from the shore, 
 as its corallines, corals, shells, and other exuviae, prove it to be of littoral 
 origin. All the members of the system, with the exception perhaps of the 
 limestones, are eminently sedimentary ; and the numerous alternations of 
 these strata evince frequent changes in the depositing agents. At one time 
 the rivers seem to have carried down sand to form sandstones, at another 
 clay and mud to form shale, and at a third period vegetable drift to form 
 coal ; for strata of these material often directly overlie each other. It must 
 be borne in mind, however, that sand, clay, and plants, might be carried 
 down at the same time, and that they would arrange themselves according 
 to their gravity — the sand depositing itself along the shores, the mud 
 farther seaward, and the vegetables in any still bay where currents of wind 
 or water might drift them. Such an arrangement would take place under 
 the ordinary operations of water ; but during violent inundations, there 
 would be a confused intermingling of sand, mud, and plants, and this we 
 often discover ; so that, taking all things into account, we learn that the 
 same agencies of rivers, waves, and tides, existed during the deposition of 
 the carboniferous rocks as exist at the present day, only on a more gigantic 
 and uniform scale. Looking at the abundance of marine life which must have 
 thronged the waters during the formation of the mountain limestone, and at 
 the vast amount of vegetation which the earth must have sustained while the 
 deposition of the coal measures took place, we are led to infer that the 
 earth then enjoyed a much higher and more uniform temperature than it 
 lias ever since experienced. At present, we find a faint analogy in the 
 Fauna of the tropical seas, and in the Flora of the tropical jungles, to those 
 of the carbonifterous era ; but so faint, that we can scarcely institute 
 a comparison between the results produced. The coral-reefs of the Pacific 
 are insignificant compared with the thickness and extent of the mountain 
 limestone ; and the vegetable drift of the Mississipi and Ganges combined 
 would scarcely produce carbonaceous matter sufficient to colour one stratum 
 of shale. Notwithstanding this there is a resemblance between the coral 
 productions of the Pacific and those of the mountain limestone ; and between 
 the palms, tree-ferns, canes, and cactacse of the .tropics, and the fossil 
 plants of the coal measures. The heat of the tropics is directly derived 
 from the sun, and the torrid zone occupies but a narrow belt of the earth's 
 surface ; whereas the coal measures are to be found in almost every region 
 of the globe. The sun could not, therefore, have yielded that temperature 
 
72 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFKIOA. 
 
 which nouriehed the plants and animals of this period ; for though the sun's 
 heat had beau greater than at present, it could not have been universally 
 diffused. The conclusion, therefore, to which most geologists have come is, 
 that the earth, originally an incandescent mass, was gradually cooled down 
 — rhot enough to render gneiss and mica schists crystalline ; cool enough 
 during the grauwacke and silurian eras to permit of marine corals, shell-fish, 
 and Crustacea ; cooler still during the life of the plated fishes of the old red 
 sandstone ; and only sufficiently genial throughout the deposition of the car- 
 boniferous period to foster a growth of terrestrial vegetation all over its 
 surface, to which the existing jungles of the tropics are mere barrenness in 
 comparison. This high and uniform temperature, combined (as suggested 
 by Brogniart) with a greater proportion of carbonic acid gas in the atmos- 
 phere, would not only sustain a gigantic and prolific Flora, but would also 
 create denser vapours, showers, and rains ; and, these, again, gigantic rivers, 
 periodical inundations, and deltas. Thus all the conditions for the extensive 
 estuary deposits would arise from this high temperature ; and every circum- 
 stance connected with the coal measures points to such conditions. 
 
 " With regard to the formation of coal, geologists are not yet fully agreed. 
 On examining sandstone or shale, it is easy to perceive from their structure, 
 texture, and composition, that they must at one time have been respectively 
 loose sand and mud, borne down and deposited by water; but thecaseis some- 
 what different with beds of coal. This mineral, being chiefly composed of 
 carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen — the same elements which enter into the 
 composition of plants — and revealing in its mass evidence of vegetable 
 structure, no doubt is entertained of its organic origin. But whether the 
 plants of which it is composed were drifted down by rivers, and deposited 
 along with layers of mud and sand in estuaries, or whether dense forests and 
 peat mosses were submerged, and then overlaid by deposits of sand and mud, 
 are the questions at issue. According to the latter hypothesis, the vege- 
 table matter must have grown in dense jungles for many years ; then the 
 land must have sunk, and become the basin of a lake or estuary, in which 
 situation rivers would wash into it mud and sand, and these would cover 
 the vegetable mass, and form beds of shale and sandstone. This being done, 
 it is supposed that the area of deposit was again elevated, so as to become 
 the scene of luxuriant vegetation ; again submerged, and overlaid by new 
 deposits of sandstone and shale ; once more elevated, and covered with 
 plants, and then submerged : and this alternating process of submergence 
 and elevation is contended to have taken place as often as there are beds of 
 coal in any particular coal-field. The other theory is, thr.t while partial 
 elevations and submersions might take place as at the present day, the 
 great mass of the coal measures was deposited in lakes and estuaries ; that 
 the vegetable matter of which coal is formed was drifted into these estuaries 
 by rivers and inundations ; and that various rivers might discharge them- 
 selves into one estuary, some chiefly carrying down sand, while others 
 transported plants, mud, and heterogeneous debris. This theory also supposes 
 that the transporting rivers were subject to periodical inundations, and that, 
 during the intervals of overflow, the deltas were choked with a rank vegeta- 
 tion, which, in conjunction with the vegetable drift from inland, went to the 
 formation of beds of coal. 
 
 " Both theories are at present beset with many difficulties; but the latter is the 
 generally received, as accounting for most of the phenomena connected with 
 our coal-fields. According to the former theory, a submergence and 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 73 
 
 elevation must have taken place for every seam of coal ; and as in some 
 districts from thirty to forty seams occur, varying in thickness from a few 
 inches to many feet, it is impossible to conceive how the earth, in this 
 unstable condition, could have nourished such a prolific Flora as the coal 
 measures clearly demonstrate. It is also justly objected against this theory, 
 that some thick beds of coal are subdivided by thin layers of sandstone, or 
 ferruginous shale, a fact which would imply that many elevations and 
 submergences took place even during the formation of a single coal bed ; 
 whereas by the latter theory, those layers of sandstone, &c., present no 
 difficulty, as the river, while it bore down vegetable drift, would carry at 
 the same time sand and other debris. Further, shells and fishes are some- 
 times found imbedded in coal ; and it is difficult to conceive how these could 
 have got there, unless in the ordinary way of depositand sediment. Forestsof 
 couiferse, palms, and tree-ferns, couldnothave been submergedand covered up 
 with sand and mud, without the trunks being abundantly found in an up- 
 right position ; now, this upright position of fossil trees is rarely or ever 
 met with. Again, had coal resulted from submerged peat mosses, instead 
 of from growing forests, there is no means by which we can account for the 
 occurrence of shells, fishes, and thin layers of sandstone in its mass. By 
 the latter theory all these can be readily accounted for. Over vast deltas, 
 such as those in which it supposes the coal measures to have been deposited, 
 there would not only occur growing stems of palms, ferns, reeds, and the 
 like, to be silted up perpendicularly, but there would also occur morasses 
 choked up with a rank growth of grasses, while in the creeks and lagoons, 
 shell-fish, fishes, and other aquatic life would abound. In the deltas of 
 existing rivers, the latter theory meets with a perfect analogy ; and when 
 the student is told of the rafts of the Mississipi, the mangrove jungle of the 
 Niger, and the sand and mud-banks of the Ganges, he can have little difficulty 
 in forming a conception of the estuaries in which the sandstones, shells, 
 sheU-limestones, and coal of the carboniferous era were deposited." 
 
 The vegetation of the coal period seems to have resembled, in some 
 measure, that of islands in the middle of vast oceans ; and the prevalence 
 of ferns indicates a climate similar to that of New Zealand at the present day. 
 In speaking of the island vegetation of the coal epoch. Professor Ansted 
 remarks — " The whole interior of the islands may have been crowned with 
 thicks forests, the dark mauve of which would only be interrupted by the 
 bright green of the swamps in the hollows, or the brown tint of the ferns 
 covering some district near the coasts. 
 
 " The forests may have been formed by a mixture of different trees. We 
 would see then, e.g. the lofty and wide-spreading lepidodendron, its delicate, 
 feathery, and mass-like fronds, clothing in rich luxuriance branches and 
 stems which are built up, like the stem of the tree-fern, by successive leaf- 
 stalks that have, one after another, dropt away, giving by their decay 
 additional height to the stem, which might at length be mistaken for that 
 of a gigantic pine. 
 
 " There also should we find the sigiUaria, its tapering and elegant form 
 sustained on a large and firm basis, enormous matted roots, almost as long 
 as the trunk itself, being given off in every direction, and shooting their 
 fibres far into the sand and clay in search of moisture. The stem of this 
 tree would appear like a fluted column, rising simply and gracefully, without 
 branches, to a great height, and then spreading out a magnificent head of 
 leaves, like a noble palm tree. 
 
74 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 " Other trees more or less resembling palms, and others like existing firs 
 also abounded, giving a richness and variety to the scene ; while one 
 gigantic species, strikingly resembling the Norfolk Island pine, might be 
 seen towering a hundred feet or more above the rest of the forest, and exhi- 
 biting teir after tier of branches richly clothed with its peculiar pointed 
 spear-like leaves, the branches gradually diminishing in size as they 
 approached the apex of a lofty pyramid of vegetation. 
 
 " Tree-ferns, also in abundance, might there be recognised occupying a 
 prominent place in the physiognomy of vegetation, and dotted at intervals 
 over the distant plains and valleys, the intermediate space being clothed 
 with low vegetation of more humble plants of the same kind. These we 
 may imagine exhibiting their rich crests of numerous fronds, each many 
 feet in length, and produced in such quantities as to rival even the palm 
 trees in beauty. 
 
 " Besides all these, other trees of that day, whose stems and brancheS are 
 now called calamites, existed chiefly in the midst of swamps, and bore their 
 singular branches and leaves aloft with strange and monotonous uniformity. 
 All these trees, and many others that might be associated with them, were 
 perhaps girt round with innumerable creepers and parasitic plants climbing to 
 the top-most branches of the most lofty amongst them, and enlivening, by the 
 bright and vivid colour of their flowers, the dark and gloomy character of 
 the great masses of vegetation." 
 
 The condition of the country, indicated by the., strata and the fossils of 
 the coal measures of the Colony, must have extended far to the north of 
 districts of the Colony in which they are found. The coal mines of Natal 
 promises to be more productive than those of the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 hundreds of miles to the north of Natal their are similiar indications of a 
 similar state of things having, in the same era, prevailed also there. 
 
 Speaking of the Moio hills, which are hills close to or intersecting the 
 Zambesi below the Victoria Falls, Dr Livingstone says — " They are gene- 
 rally of igneous or metamorphic rocks — ;clay-slate or trap — with porceHanite 
 and zoolite. The principal rock in the central part of the country, where 
 no syenite or gneiss had been upheaved, seems to be a gray, coai'se 
 sandstone, known to us by the name of Tette sandstone. Large masses of 
 it still lie horizontally or only slightly inclined. When much disturbed, it 
 has been tilted up by the eruption of igneous rocks, aud near the point of 
 contact it has either been hardened or melted, and the coal which elsewhere 
 still lies under the undisturbed stratum is crystallized or entirely burned. 
 The igneous rocks often form dykes, as that called Nakabele, which 
 stretches like a dam across the western entrance to the Kariba gorge. In 
 the vicinity of the erupted rocks we usually meet soft, calcareous tufa, as if 
 after the igneous action many hot fountains flowing had deposited lime 
 from their water. Previous, however, to this period of eruption and 
 upheaval, it is probable that the sandstone formed the bed of prodigious- 
 inland seas, along the low shores of which the plants of the coal flourished, 
 succeeded, as the land was gradually elevated, by the trees we now find 
 silicified on the surface ; these may perhaps have been submerged, as the 
 land again sank under some igneous agency, and became subject to the 
 action of water, at a high temperature holding silica in solution. However 
 that may have been, it is certain that a coal-field of unknown extent exists, 
 for coal is found cropping out near to the lava or basalt, which is the 
 principal rock of the Victoria Falls, and, with the ' faults ' alluded to, it 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS, 7-'i 
 
 « 
 
 extends to the east of Tette. Then again we saw it in the Bovum, with 
 the same characteristic of fossil-wood lying in the gray sandstone. With 
 abundance of fine iron ore, the existence of this prodigious coal-field leads to 
 the belief that an important future is in store for Africa." 
 
 Writing again of the Zungive, a little nearer the Falls, he says — " As in 
 many other streams from Chicova to Sinamane, shale and coal crop out of 
 the bank-^ and here the large roots of stigmaria, or its allied plants, were 
 found." 
 
 The beds of coal found in the Stormberg and elsewhere have been 
 identified with the coal measures of Europe and America. The aggregate 
 thickness of those found in the Cape Colony is about 1,800 feet, but these 
 represent deposits which in Wales measure 15,000 feet in thickness. And 
 in the one country as in the other there are indications of many successive 
 elevations and submergences of land having occurred in the course of the 
 protracted period of their formation. 
 
 Knowing that Dr George Grey, of Cradock, Fellow of the Geological 
 Society of Edinburgh, had given much, attention to the geology of the 
 district in which he dwelt, I took occasion to write to him, requesting 
 infornration in regard to fossil-vegetable remains which had come under his 
 notice, and the condition in which they were found. I received in reply 
 the following letter : — 
 
 " Ceadock, November 30, 1865. 
 
 " My deak Sir, — 1 duly received your note of the 16th inst., in which you 
 ask me to send you any printed notices relative to the Botanic Geology of the dis- 
 trict, and would have answered it by first post, but I have been since its receipt 
 a good deal engaged with country work at considerable distances, which has pre- 
 vented me till now. It would give me great pleasure to be of any service to you in 
 such a way. Unfortunately, all printed letters or notices on geological subjects, 
 which might be considered as of any interest, have had reference chiefly to the trap 
 and other igneous rocks, greenstone dykes, quartz rocks and their connections, and 
 sometimes general remarks on the Dioynodonts — written in a popular style, being 
 designed for perusal by ordinary readers. 
 
 " The only letter on carboniferous deposits was published in our local paper 
 about two years since, when I alluded to some mineral carbonaceous substances 
 belonging to the northern part of our district, and located on the southern edge 
 of the Stormberg carboniferous series. These substances seemed to approach in 
 nature to a mineral, discovered a short time previously, named ' Dysodile.' 
 Dysodile of itself is not quite a combustible matter ; the largest part of it is 
 inorganic, the following being its analysis in 100 pts. : — 
 
 Combustible matter, - - - 3 6 -SI 
 
 Water, &c., ... . 2-80 
 
 iVIineral matter (containing SiHca, Alumina, Iron, &c.), 61-19 
 
 100.00 
 
 " In the same letter I stated the carbonaceous substances in question to be 
 mingled with the shales of the upper coal measures, presenting the appearance of 
 a brownish-gray slate, rather than that of any kind of fuel, burning freely though 
 with an offensive smell. The odour evidently results from the - impregnation of 
 sulphurets, which obtain extensively throughout our igneous chains of hills, 
 whether the latter are clothed with carboniferous formations, as in the Stormberg, 
 or with the calciferous marls and sandstone of the secondary deposits of the moun- 
 tain masses in our more immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 " The fossil coal plants of the Stormberg series (a goodly number of specimens 
 of which I lately sent to the Geological Society of Edinburgh) consist chiefly, as 
 far as I have seen, of well-marked specimens of calamites, lepidodendra, zamites, 
 
76 HYDBOLOGT OP SOUTH AFEICA, 
 
 eigiUaria, and various ferns of the order neuropteria, pecopteris, sphenopteris, &e. 
 A friend who lived for some time in the locality of the Stormberg tells me that 
 ' Calamite reticulations (called " rootlets" in the Graham's Town museum) are 
 observable in all the sandstones of the Stormberg, from the base to the recurring 
 sandstones of the upper Stormberg overlying the coal-beds.' Graphitehas frequently 
 been found in the black shales, which contain also impressions of ferns. Doubt- 
 less, coal seama may be found to prevail in all the series of the Stormberg shales 
 and sandstone, say 1000 feet or so beneath the present coal-beds. From the base 
 of the Stormberg range, the district of Queenstown extends away towards the 
 south, and as viewed from the Stormberg presents the appearance of a great plain 
 studded all over with mountains of every variety of shape. 
 
 " The deposits of the upper coal measures of the Stormberg series are shaley and 
 thin, alternating with sof tiah dark sandstone and marly clay admixtures. It is very 
 doubtful whether the expenses of transport will admit of the coal being made use 
 of for economic purposes. 
 
 " Mr W. Baillie, of Andries Nek, was good enough, a short time since, to send 
 me a large sack of his ' best' coal. It contained a good deal of lignite. Some speci- 
 mens were hard, approaching to anthracite. It burned pretty fairly, giving out a 
 moderate amount of heat which, however, was of rather limited duration. 
 Andries Nek is about three hours ride from Queenstown. I should suppose its 
 coal affords a fair illustration of what may occur in the whole Stormberg seams. 
 Igneous causes beneath had probably rendered the eoal in many parts semi- 
 anthracitic. Various kinds of mineral pyrites, and other sulphurites abound 
 thereabouts, probably in considerable quantities. 
 
 " The fossil-wood deposits near here are distinct from the upper coal measures 
 which stop at the southern edge of the Stormberg, These wood deposits are to 
 be found in combination with the Dicynodon beds, and would appear to have 
 been disintegrated from below by eruptive force. In the Dicynodon beds the 
 matrix of the animals is in juxtaposition to these broken up and triturated 
 materials, which are doubtless disintegrated from older carboniferous formations ; 
 whilst other particles of various kinds now lying in the same beds may have been 
 detached from metamorphio and crystalline compounds, according to their 
 composition, as noticed m situ. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the 
 matrix and bones of the animals are quite commonly found to have precipitated 
 on their surface deposits of silica, mica schist, &c. 
 
 " The carboniferous fossil fragments of these beds are confined to the secondary 
 rocks, and have nothing in common with the tertiary sandstones or the argil- 
 laceous beds conjoining them. These fragments can be occasionally picked up in 
 small detached pieces, and not untrequently present the appearance of having 
 belonged to trunks of a goodly size ; but, having been subjected to action of a 
 decidedly convulsive nature, they are, as a rule, of an indeterminate class. They 
 have in all probability been broken up and propelled by eruptive forces identical 
 with those which have probably worked the beds themselves into their present 
 position. 
 
 " Igneous agency below and aqueous agency around must have in the course of 
 time effected curious transformations in the deposits of these beds in olden days ; 
 and this is shown in the fact of many of the sandstones of these beds forming 
 conglomerates with all sorts of foreign deposits, as igneous rock fragments, 
 forming, to the present view, nuclei for clays and sandstones, chalybeate oxides. 
 The above-mentioned fossil-woods, &c., &c., in fact almost every imaginable kind 
 of petrified material, inclusive of the Saurian organisms, may there be found. 
 
 " The Dicynodon beds, with their deposits, are visible only where they have 
 been propelled through superincumbent sandstone, by means of the eruptive forces 
 1 have just alluded to. Denudation by action of water has worked out for them 
 a comparatively recent bed of a blue argillaceous nature ; and these beds are only 
 to be found on the slopes of the igneous hills, or where crcks or fissures have 
 occurred in the superincumbent sandstones. 
 
 " That the true coal formations stop short at the southern edge of the Stormberg 
 is evident on inspection. The upper coal measures are, as I think I have already 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSBEVATIONS. 77 
 
 itated, fihaley and thin, alternating with dark shales of softish sandstones. Al- 
 though they are pretty prolific in fossil monocotyledonous plants and ferns, yet 
 the ' carboniferous or mountain limestone' on which they rest, and which as a 
 formation seems pretty extensive, contains very few organic remains. The 
 ' Millstone Grit,' 1 should suppose, may be pronounced, in these parts, as incor- 
 porated with the carboniferous limestone. 
 
 " Fossil facoid impressions may occasionally fee noticed on the sandstone 
 connected with the coal measures. Perhaps you may recollect my subjecting a 
 small specimen to your notice on your visit here, on which at the time you 
 expressed doubt as to whether it might have belonged to marine or fresh-water 
 algie. Is it not possible that in these ancient days there may have been, as in 
 other continents, here and there a line of transition between marine and fresh 
 water deposits, and characters according to the deposit be now found conse- 
 quently common to both? Again, in some places, previous to eruptive distur- 
 bances, decidedly marine deposits have existed below, and fresh-water deposits 
 have been found located above. It is possible, in such lengthened periods, there 
 may have been gradations or alternations from one to the other. 
 
 " Wylie seems inclined to think that the surfaces of the later deposits may 
 have been subjected to marine action. I will not venture to offer an opinion to 
 you at present on this subject, but I may state that no salt water shells or other 
 organic marine remains have ever been found beyond a distance of about 50 miles 
 from the coast." 
 
 The Dicynodon strata lie generally on Devonian rooks. " They are 
 generally," says Hall, "little disturbed, and then locally assume the 
 horizontal position, and are intersected in all directions by dykes of igneous 
 rocks, which, when large, form the central axis of mountain chains. They 
 abound in fossil remains, bones, shells, and vegetables." And he goes on 
 to say — " There seems, according to Professor Owen, to be good reason for 
 referring them to the age of the New Red Sandstone, nearly. They also 
 abound in lime and salt, and are probably of lacustrine origin. Mr Bain 
 considers these beds as the bottom of an ancient lake or sea, which extended 
 north as far as the Zambesi, which was probably one of the outlets by 
 which its waters escaped. The Nieuweveld, Roggeveld, Sneewbergen, 
 Winterbergen, Stormbergen, and Quathlamba mountains are all composed 
 of these rocks, more or less capped with greenstones." 
 
 The greenstone spoken of is elsewhere known as whinstone. It is a 
 species of trap which, with clinkstone and basalt, appears to have been 
 protruded extensively about the period of the earth's history to which we 
 have now been brought. 
 
 The greenstone capping the mountain ranges must have been protruded 
 prior to the elevation of the district above the surface of the water, and not 
 only prior to the silting up of the valley by lacustrine and other deposits, 
 but prior to the scooping out of the valley by ocean currents.' 
 
 Towards the close of the period, during which these limestone deposits of 
 1700 feet in thickness were silting up their mediterranean sea, or inland lake, 
 there must have been going on other changes of which indications have been 
 left in what are now mountain ranges, but which were at the period referred to 
 still under water, either fresh water of the lake or salt water of the sea. 
 
 The mention of the reptilian Dicynodon indicates our having entered upon 
 the times of which we read, " Aid God said. Let the waters bring forth 
 abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, and fowl that may fly above 
 the earth in the open firmament of heaven." And again, " God said, Let 
 the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping 
 thing, and beast of the earth after his kind : and it was so." 
 
78 HYDROIiOfiY or SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 " After the deposition and nplieaval of the carboniferous system," says 
 Page, " a new era occurs in the history of the globe. Overlying the coal 
 measures in some places conforniably, and in others not, there appears a set 
 of red sandstones, variegated (yellow, purple, and greenish) shales, thick- 
 bedded magnesian limestones of a cream colour — all of which present an 
 aspect not to be mistaken for any previous system of strata. As to their 
 organic remains : there are a few species of marine zoophytes, shells, and 
 fishes, but scarcely a trace of vegetation, showing that the conditions which 
 gave birth to the exuberance of terrestrial plants during the coal era had 
 undergone an extensive and peculiar change. To these red sandstones, 
 magnesian limestones, and mottled shales, the term New Red Sandstone 
 System has been applied, in contradistinction to the Old Eed which underlie 
 the carboniferous strata. 
 
 " The extent of country over which this system is spread is not well 
 ascertained. Slight traces of it occur on the western coast and islands of 
 Scotland, and on the Fife shores of the Forth ; it occupies a wider area in 
 the basin of the Solway and its tributaries ; spreads largely over the central 
 districts of England from the Tyne southwards ; and is found in the north of 
 Ireland. Extensive areas are covered by it in the continent of Europe — in 
 France, Germany, Poland, along the flanks of the Alps, iu Austria, and 
 between the Volga and the Ural mountains ; and, according to Pro- 
 fessor Hitchcock, it is spread over considerable spaces in some of the river 
 valleys of the United States. 
 
 " The physical aspect of New Eed Sandstone districts, as may be conjec- 
 tured from the limited force of the igneous rocks, is rather flat and gentle. 
 There are no picturesque craigs, mountain ranges, or deep ravines to 
 diversify the scenery ; which consits of rounded terraces of magnesian lime- 
 stone, and level expanses of Bed Sandstone and shales, here and there 
 dotted with a gentle eminence of limestone or gravel. Over the limestone 
 the sward is thick and verdant, and the soil above the red sandstone is of 
 average fertility ; but where the retentive shales spread out in flat hoUows, 
 they form the basis of extensive morasses — as, for example, those of south 
 Lancashire, in England." 
 
 At Enon, and at Bushman's Eiver, and at the Knysna are beds of con- 
 glomerate which have been identified with the New Eed Stone formations, 
 and which must have been deposited long after the formation of the coal 
 meastires. The thickness of these is unknown, but Mr Wylie conjectured 
 that they might be in the aggTegate about 300 feet — a measurement trifling 
 compared with the 1000, 1800, and 4000 of which we have previously had 
 occasion to spgak, — but requiring for the deposition of their constituents a 
 length of time of which it is difiicult for us to form a conception. 
 
 During the period of the deposit of this formation the districts in which 
 it occurs appear to have been covered, and covered deep, with still waters. 
 What few fossils have been found in the strata tell of progress. With 
 calamites, like those of the coal formation, are mingled cycas-like plants, 
 ■ — plants of the same order as the zamia, or encephalartos, the Tcafferbrod of 
 the Eastern province. But like the vegetation of the coal era the plants of the 
 New Eed Stone are chiefly vascular cryptogamia, with traces of marine plants. 
 
 The most important' minerals of this formation which have commercial 
 value are magnesia and rock-salt. Of this Page writes : — 
 
 " The formation of rock-salt is a subject, in connection with this system, 
 which has much engaged the attention of speculative geologists. The 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 79 
 
 sandstone and marls with which it is associated are evidently derived from 
 deposition in water ; but the irregularity of the salt beds, the fact of their 
 occurring in masses of vast thickness, and the soluble nature of the 
 compound, all point to a somewhat different origin. At present, salt lakes 
 and superficial accumulations of salt occur in various parts of the world, 
 and these have furnished data for reasoning as to the saliferous deposits of 
 earlier eras. Salt lakes are chiefly derived from salt springs, and being 
 subjected to the vaporising influence of the sun, which carries off only /resA 
 vapour, their waters become in time saturated with saline matter. But 
 water can hold only a fixed amount of salt in solution ; and so soon as this 
 amount is attained, the salt begins to fall to the bottom by its own gravity. 
 In the course of ages, these layers will form a thick bed, interstratified, it 
 may be, with mud, or other earthy sediment ; and if the lake should be 
 ultimately dried up, the salt will constitute a deposit something analogous 
 to the rock-salt of the New Red Sandstone. Such is the process which 
 some geologists have advanced to account for the formation of rock-salt — 
 supposing that portions of the seas of deposit were occasionally cut off from 
 connection with the main ocean, and subjected to a rapid evaporating power, 
 without receiving fresh accessions of water. The limited extent of rock-salt 
 basins seems to favour such a theory ; but when we consider the frequency 
 of disturbance by volcanic forces in earlier ages, and the fact of many of 
 these deposits occurring near to, or in connection with, mountain elevations, 
 it is more than probable that igneous action, as well as a high atmospheric 
 temperature, had to do with their formation. If such were the origin of 
 rook-salt, it must have been formed during the deposition of other systems 
 than the New Red Sandstone ; and this geological research has confirmed ; 
 for, although the most extensive accumulations do occur amid the sandstones 
 and shales of the system under review, stiU, deposits of considerable thick- 
 ness are found in connection with oolite, green-sand, and tertiary rocks, 
 while numerous salt springs issue from the carboniferous strata. 
 
 " The formation of magnesian limestoiie has also given rise to several 
 theories. Minute quantities of magnesia occur variously combined in the 
 crust of the earth ; but only in the limestones of this system is it suf&oiently 
 developed to constitute a peculiar and distinguishing feature. The most 
 prevalent hypotheses advanced to account for this peculiarity axe — first, 
 that the carbonate of magnesia was deposited at the same time as the 
 carbonate of lime ; and, second, that it was subsequently injected in the 
 form of gaseous vapour. Neither hypothesis seems to account for all the 
 phenomena presented ; although the former is that which admits of most 
 extensive application." 
 
 Another peculiarity of these strata is the occurrence in them of what are 
 called Ichnites. 
 
 " Ichnites, or fossil footsteps, present a curious example of the means by 
 which geologists are enabled to decipher the history of the earth. Most 
 people must have observed how distinct the impressions of the feet of birds 
 and other animals are often left on the mud or sand of ebbing rivers. If 
 this mud should remain exposed to the sun and air tiU sufliciently. dried, 
 and then be overlaid by some new sediment, the impression of the foot will 
 form a mould into which the new matter will be deposited. Should the 
 two layers ever be consolidated into stone, on being separated the one would 
 present a mould, and the other a cast of the footsteps ; and this is precisely 
 what takes place among the strata of the earth's crust. Fossil footsteps 
 
80 HYDBOLOGY OV SO0TH APEIOA. 
 
 have been discovered in the New Red Sandstone of Cocklemuir in Dumfries- 
 shire, and in that of Hildburghausen in Saxony, supposed to be those of 
 reptiles ; hence termed sauroidichnites. Others have been detected in the 
 sandstones of Connecticut, United States, and ascribed to gigantic birds 
 allied to the ostrich family; consequently called ornithichnites, from the 
 Greek words ornis, a bird, and ichnon, a trace or footprint. To these 
 Professor Hitchcock adds a third class, tetrapodichnites, or the footsteps of 
 some vcdkno^u four-footed animal." 
 
 In regard to South Africa, to quote from a letter appended to my Report 
 as Colonial Botanist in 1863 : — 
 
 " In several parts I have found a salt efSorescence on the soil ; but in 
 other parts there are saltpans, from which there is obtained, and may be 
 obtained continuously, an unlimited supply of salt for sale. 
 
 " I visited the saltpan at Bethelsdrop, and I found the salt for more than 
 a mile covering the dry portion of the valley like snow. The salt which is 
 solid is raked from the water like the half-melted snow with which 
 occasionally rivers and pools in Britain are filled. It requires no further 
 preparation if it has been washed from sand, and it is sent off in waggon 
 loads to Port Elizabeth, which is not ten miles distant. 
 
 " The production of this salt cannot be accounted for on the supposition 
 that it is brought thither by streams from the sm-face. Within the memory 
 of inhabitants of Bethelsdrop the saltpan was a fresh-water pool. 
 
 " I can best account for what I have seen by supposing that the water 
 communicates by cracks in the bed of the lake with a bed of rock-salt not 
 far from the surface, and a saturated solution being made when the water is 
 most abundant, the evaporation during the dry seasons occasions the 
 deposit of salt. Not many miles distant are two more pans, one larger, the 
 other smaller. Upon these I look as indications that the bed of salt is of 
 considerable extent ; the correctness of my surmise can easily be tested by 
 boring ; and should there be found not far from the surface a bed of salt of 
 considerable thickness, I have no doubt it would be found highly remuner- 
 ative to work it." 
 
 Among other ichnites preserved in this formation are footprints of birds 
 of the existence of which we have now no earlier indications. And thus does, 
 Hugh Miller tell of the changes which have meanwhile passed upon 
 the world : — " While the fourth evening has fallen on the prophet, he 
 becomes sensible, as it wears on, and the fourth dawn approaches, that yet 
 another change has taken place. The Creator has spoken, and the stars 
 look out from openings of deep unclouded blue ; and as day rises, and the 
 planet of morning pales in the east, the broken cloudlets are transmuted 
 from bronze into gold, and anon the gold becomes fire, and at length the 
 glorious sun arises out of the sea, and enters on his course rejoicing. It is a 
 brilliant day ; the waves, of a deeper and softer blue than before, dance and 
 sparkle in the light ; the earth, with little else to attract the gaze, has as- 
 sumed a garb of brighter green ; and as the sun dechnes amid even richer 
 glories than those which had encircled his rising, the moon appears full- 
 orbed in the east, — to the human eye the second great luminary of the 
 heavens, — and climbs slowely to the zenith as night advances, shedding its 
 mild radiance on land and sea. 
 
 " Again the day breaks ; the prospect consists, as before, of land and 
 ocean. There are great pine woods, reed-covered swamps, wide plains, 
 winding rivers, and broad lakes ; and a bright sun shines over all. But the 
 
GEOIiOGIOAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 81 
 
 landscape derives its interest and novelty from a feature unmarked before. 
 Gigantic birds stalk along the sands, or wade far into the water in quest of 
 their ichthyic food ; while birds of lesser size float upon the lakes, or scream 
 discordant in hovering flocks, thick as insects in the calm of a summer 
 evening, over the narrow seas, or brighten with the sunlight gleam of their 
 wings the thick woods. And ocean has its monsters : great ' tanninwm ' 
 tempest the deep, as they heave their huge bulk over the surface, to inhale 
 the life-sustaining air ; an<^ out of their nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a 
 ' seething pot and caiildron.' Monstrous creatures, armed in massive 
 scales, haunt the rivers, or scour the flat rank meadows ; earth, air, and 
 water are charged with animal life ; and the sun sets on a busy scene, in 
 which unerring instinct pursues unremittingly its few simple ends, — the 
 support and preservation of the individual, the propagation of the species, 
 and the protection and maintenance of the young." 
 
 " After the deposition of the New Eed Sandstone," says Page, " a further 
 change was effected upon the general conditions of the globe, so as to produce 
 not only an entirely different set of strata, but also different races of plants 
 and animals. In most districts, the red sandstones and magnesian limestone 
 were upheaved, to form new land, while portions of the former dry land 
 were submerged beneath the ocean. By this process of elevation and 
 depression the courses of previous rivers would be altered, former seas 
 circumscribed and rendered more shallow, plants and animals subjected to 
 a new distribution, and thus a different set of deposits would necessarily 
 ensue. Instead of magnesian rocks, we have dark argillaceous and oolitic 
 limestones ; for variegated saliferous marls, we have blue pyritous clays ; 
 and instead of red and mottled sandstones, yellow calcareous grits. All 
 this points to a new epoch in the terrestrial conditions of the world ; and to 
 the system of strata thus deposited geologists apply the term oolitic 
 (Gr., oow, an egg, and lifhos, a stone), from the resemblance which the 
 texture of many of the beds bear to the roe or eggs of a fish. Oolite, or 
 roestone, is an aggregate of rounded calcareous particles, varying from the 
 size of a millet-seed to that of a marble — the smaller being almost perfectly 
 spherical, the larger irregular, and having their interstices filled with 
 calcareous matter or broken shells." 
 
 These- also find their representatives in South Africa. At Sunday's 
 river, Bushman's river, the Koega, and Swartzkop, are beds of an aggregate 
 thickness of 400 feet, which have been identified with the Jurassic, which is 
 an oolitic, formation. 
 
 " The extent of country occupied by the oolite is by no means extensive, 
 though partial deposits are very generally disseminated over the globe. It 
 is most fully developed in England, occupying the eastern sea-board from 
 Yorkshire to Dorset ; it occurs in a small patch at Brora in Sutherland, in 
 Skye, and other of the Hebrides, and partially 'm Ireland and Wales. 
 Portions of the system are also found in France and Germany ; skirting the 
 Alps ; in Spain and the Balearic islands ; flanking the Apennines and Atlas 
 range; on the southern slope of the Himmalehs;'but no true equivalents 
 to the European oolite have hitherto been detected in America." 
 
 The beds at Sunday's river contain, together with marine shells, fossil- 
 wood and land plants, which shows that it was a marine and not a 
 lacustrine or alluvial deposit, and that though found in the depths of the 
 sea there was dry land not far off. And thus are we brought to the close 
 
 K 
 
82 HYDBOLOGY OP SOUTH APHIOA. 
 
 of another protracted period of the world's history — that known as the 
 period of the secondary formation, separated from the so-called primary 
 formations — ^the gneiss, the schists, and the slates — ^by the so-called transi- 
 tion series, the Cambrian, the Silurian, and the Devonian or Old Eed 
 Sandstone formations, — and including the mountain limestone, the coal 
 measures, the New Eed Sandstone, the saliferous marls, the oolite 
 limestones and grits, covered by green sandstone and chalk beds, seen in 
 the chalk cliffs which have given to England the name of Albion. 
 
 AU this must have occurred very long anterior to the creation of 
 man. But we are not without indications of what occurred in the interval. 
 
 Near Oliphant's Hoek are beds of marine clay and limestone, and at the 
 Cape Flats are beds of lignite and clay ; all of which, together with the 
 Tygervley sandstone, have been identified with the formations of the 
 Tertiary period. 
 
 According to the statement of Page : — " The tertiary system comprises all 
 the regular strata of limestone, marl, clay, sand, and gravel which occur 
 above the chalk. Before the labours of the celebrated Cuvier and M. 
 Brogniart, these beds were regarded as mere superficial accumulations, not 
 referrible to any definite period. Now, however, they are recognised as con- 
 stituting a distinct formation — differing from the cretaceous not only in its 
 mineral composition, but in the higher order of organisms which it contains, 
 and from the superficial sands and clays, in being regtdarly stratified, and 
 in imbedding the remains of animals distinct from existing races. In 
 general the strata are loosely aggregated, are of no great thickness, and 
 present appearances which indicate frequent alternations of marine and 
 fresh-water agencies. Thus, marine remains are found in some beds, while 
 others contain exclusively land animals and plants, and fresh-water shells. 
 The whole suit being less consolidated than any of the secondary systems, 
 and containing plants and animals approaching to existing forms, it presents 
 a freshness of aspect which serves to distinguish it from older deposits ; at 
 the same time the regularity of its deposition prevents it from being mis- 
 taken for any mere alluvial accumulation. In general it occupies very 
 limited and detached areas, as if it had been formed in shallow inland seas 
 and estuaries, to which the waters of the ocean at times had access, and 
 where at other periods fresh-water inundations prevailed. Another essential 
 difference between the tertiary and the more ancient formations consists in 
 the fact, that the latter maintain a wonderful uniformity in their composi- 
 tion and character all over the globe ; whereas the former present almost as 
 many distinctions in composition as there are areas of deposit. For this 
 reason it is impossible to give a description applicable to all tertiary strata ; 
 those of England and France, however, may be taken as types sufficiently 
 characteristic. 
 
 " Eespecting the composition of the system, arenaceous and argillaceous 
 beds may be said to prevail, with interstratified limestone, calcareous grits, 
 and marls. The arenaceous members are either pebbly conglomerate of a 
 rusty yellow, or sands little indurated and variously tinted by the oxide and 
 silicate of iron. The sands are seldom sufficiently consolidated to form sand- 
 stone ; and the conglomerates are often mere layers of rolled pebbles, 
 without any cementing matrix. The argillaceous beds lJso present many 
 varieties j some being almost pure laminated clay of a dull blue colour, 
 others of a brownish tint, with a slight admixture of sand, while many 
 
GEOLOGICAL 0B8EBVATI0NS. 83 
 
 pass into marls more pr less calcareous. None of these clays are so compact 
 as to form shales ; indeed lamination is more frequently absent than other 
 wise, there being nothing except their fossils and associated beds to dis- 
 tinguish them from the clays of subsequent alluvial valleys. The calcareous 
 layers are still more varied in their composition and aspect, and bear no re- 
 semblance to the indurated half-crystalline limestones of older formations. 
 The marine Umestone of the Paris basin is of a coarse sandy texture ; that 
 of Austria a rough corraline rock : the fresh-water beds near Weimar are 
 hard and compact ; those of other districts are soft, marly, and full of 
 shells. In some localities marls are so calcareous as to be used as lime- 
 stone, while in others they pass into soft friable clays. From this extreme 
 diversity of composition, it is evident that many agencies have been con- 
 cerned in the deposition of the tertiary system, and that most of them have 
 been of a local character, producing results not differing widely from those 
 of the present day. ... 
 
 " As to the extent of country occupied by tertiary deposits, there is yet 
 no very accurate knowledge, inasmuch as many sands and clays, now 
 regarded as the alluvium of existing valleys, may hereafter be referred to 
 this system ; and several areas of gravel, now looked upon as tertiary, be 
 classed with more recent accumulations. As developed in Europe, the 
 system spreads over wide areas, all remarkable for their conformation and 
 connection with the outline of existing seas. Indeed, were the islands and 
 continent of Europe to be submerged to the depth of 600 or 800 feet, the 
 waters of the German, Baltic, English Channel, and Mediterranean seas, 
 would cover most of the tertiary strata, showing that, with the exception of 
 the general elevation which raised them into dry land, there has been 
 comparatively little subterranean disturbance since the time they were 
 deposited. In Britain the formation is exhibited in Hampshire, Isle of 
 Wight, in the basin of London, and from the Thames northwards along the 
 coast to the mouth of the Yare ; but has not been detected either in 
 Ireland or Scotland, though several gravel and clay deposits in the latter 
 country may yet he discovered to belong to the same era. It occurs 
 interestingly developed near Paris ; trends along the north coast of France^ 
 Belgium, Westphalia, Holstein, and Jutland, in apparent connection with 
 the German Ocean ; spreads over the level tract lying between the Baltic 
 and Northern Ocean in Kussia ; and occupies the greater portion of the 
 central flats which he between the Baltic and Black seas. Besides these 
 expanses, there are many secluded patches along the valleys of the Rhone 
 and Danube, the Swiss lakes, and the Italian shores of the Mediterranean. 
 The system has also been detected along the southern basis of the 
 Himmalehs, and in several of the North American valleys ; and when 
 geological research has been further extended, there is little doubt of its 
 being discovered in other quarters of the world. In speaking of the extent 
 of country occupied by deposits of incoherent sands, marls, and clays, like 
 those of the tertiary epoch, it must be borne in mind how much more waste 
 they would suffer by denudation than the older and more consolidated 
 strata. No doubt every rock system, on its being elevated into dry land, 
 must have suffered diminution by denuding causes ; but most of aU those 
 whose materials are loosely aggregated like the strata now under review." 
 
 Of this period Hugh Miller writes : — " The curtain drops over this 
 ancient Flora of the Oolite in Scotland ; and when, long after, there is a 
 comer of the thick enveloping screen withdrawn, and we catch a partial 
 
84 -HYDROLOGY OF SODTp AFRICA. 
 
 glimpse of one of the old Tertiary forests of our country, all is new. Trees 
 of the high dicotyledonous class, allied to the plane and the buckhorn, prevail 
 in the landscape, intermingling, however, with dingy funereal yews ; and the 
 ferns and equiseta that rise in the darker openings of the wood approach to 
 the existing type. And yet, though eons of the past eternity have elapsed 
 since we looked out upon Cycas and Zamia, and the last of the calamites, 
 the time is still early, and long ages must elapse ere man shall arise out of 
 the dust, to keep and to dress fields waving with the productions of yet 
 another and different Flora, and to busy himself with all the labour which 
 he taketh under the sun. Our country, in this Tertiary time, has still its 
 great outbursts of molten ihatter, that Ibury in fiery deluges, many feet in 
 depth and many square miles in extent, the debris of wide tracts of wood- 
 -land and marsh ; and the basaltic column still forms in its great lava bed ; 
 and ever and anon as the volcanic agencies awake, clouds of ashes darken 
 the heavens, and cover up the landscape as if with the accumulated drifts 
 of a protracted snow-storm. Who shall declare what, throughout these 
 long ages, the history of creation has been 1 We see at wide intervals the 
 mere fragments of successive Floras ; but know not how what seem the 
 blank interspaces were filled, or how, as extinction overtook in succession 
 one tribe of existences after another, and species, like individuals, yielded to 
 the great law gf death, yet other species were brought to the birth, and 
 ushered upon the scene, and the chain of being was maintained unbroken. 
 We see only detached bits of that green web which has covered our earth ever 
 since the dry land first appeared ; but the web itself seems to have been 
 continuous throughout all time ; though ever, as breadth after breadth issued 
 from the creative loom, the pattern has altered, and the sculpturesque and 
 graceful forms that illustrated its first beginnings and its middle spaces have 
 yielded to flowers of richer colour and blow, and fruits of fairer shade and 
 outline ; and for gigantic club-mosses stretching forth their hirsute arms, 
 goodly trees of the Lord have expanded their great boughs ; and for the 
 barren fern and the calamite clustering in thickets beside the waters, or 
 spreading on flowerless hill-slopes, luxuriant orchards have yielded their 
 ruddy flush, and rich harvests their golden gleam." 
 
 All the fossil remains of these deposits, those of vegetable and animal 
 structures alike, are much more like to the corresponding structures of the 
 present than were those of earlier ages. 
 
 According to linger, what is called the Eociue fossil flora resembles much 
 that of Australia at the present day, and the Tertiary flora has a marked 
 resemblance to that of North America. 
 
 Page writes, " Of the conditions of the world during the deposition of the 
 tertiary strata, we are enabled to form some estimate from the nature of 
 their fossils, and from the peculiar composition and aggregation of their 
 rocky materials. So far as Europe is concerned, part of the existing land 
 must have been then elevated above the waters, forming a series of insular 
 ranges, with flat valleys and shallow seas between. From these islands, 
 and from continents now submerged, rivers of considerable extent seem to 
 have borne sand, clay, and vegetable debris, and to have deposited them in 
 the seas and estuaries, while gravel, flint pebbles, broken corals, and shells, 
 were strewn along the shore by ordinary littoral influences. * Such materials 
 would give risrf to beds of sand, clay, gravel, ligni,te, and calcareous con- 
 glomerate, enclosing marine remains, with- others of fresh- water and terres- 
 trial origin brought down by the rivers. But several tertiary basins exhibit 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 85 
 
 strata of decided fresli-water origin, altematiag with others as decidedly 
 marine ; and to account for this phenomenon, we must have recourse to 
 another set of agents. In the deltas of many modern rivers, Hke that of 
 the Niger, lagoons of fresh-water are frequently cut off from connection 
 either with the branches of the river or with the ocean, and in these myriadd 
 of shell-fish, aquatic plants, crocodiles, hippopotami, and other fresh-water 
 and amphibious races abound. At some subsequent period the connection 
 with the ocean is renewed — there being in general only a slight eminence 
 of mud or sand to separate them — and thus the succeeding deposits assume 
 a character decidedly marine. By these means it is easy to conceive how 
 alternations of marine and fresh-water strata would occur ; and particularly 
 when we know that the south of Europe (central France and the Alps) was 
 during the tertiary era subjected to extensive volcano disturbances, which 
 would give rise to frequent submergences and elevations. We are thus 
 enabled to account for the composition and aggregation of the tertiary 
 strata ; and when we reflect on their comparatively recent origin, and the 
 fact that they are in many places not overlaid by other material, there is no 
 difficulty in perceiving how they should be so loose and incoherent in their 
 texture. Again, when we look at the nature of their fossils, we are led to 
 associate with them ideas of a warm and genial climate. The lands which 
 furnished the cycadeae, palms, cocoa nuts, and monkeys of the English 
 tertiaries, and the mastodons, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, croco- 
 diles, and turtles of the Paris basin, must have enjoyed a temperature 
 similar to that of the present tropics. The beds of lignite bear evidence of 
 a luxuriant vegetation for the support of so many huge graminivora ; while 
 the presence of birds, insects, and the higher orders of mammalia, point to 
 atmospheric and other vital conditions little different from those now 
 existing. In fact, we find in the deltas of the Ganges and Niger — in their 
 jungles, lagoons, and swamps — in their elephants, hippopotami, and croco- 
 diles — almost perfect analogies to those estuaries and shallow seas in which 
 
 the tertiary strata of Europe were deposited 
 
 " After the deposition of the Tertiary Strata, a great change took place 
 in the relative distribution of land and ocean. Most parts of Europe, 
 America, and the other continents were elevated above the waters ; other 
 regions seem to have been submerged, and an arrangement of physical 
 conditions established not differing widely from those now existing. But 
 these new conditions did not for an instant arrest the degrading and trans- 
 porting power of water, the wasting effects of the atmosphere, the disturbing 
 efforts of volcanoes, or the progressive development of organic life ; the same 
 agents which had exerted themselves, from the beginning of time, in 
 modifying the physical features of the world, continued their career, only 
 differing in power and degree according to this new arrangement. Thus, 
 accumulations of sand, gravel, clay, vegetable and animal matter, took place 
 above the previously deposited strata — every river, lake, searshore, sheU- 
 bed, coral-reef, and peat-moss, contributing its peculiar quota." 
 
 One of the deposits of this period is that of blocks of stone, far from the 
 mountains whence they had been borne, and dark tenaceous clays. Of this 
 Page writes, — " The terms ' erratic block group,' ' boulder formation,' 
 ' diluvium,' and ' diluvial drift,' are indiscriminately given by geologists to a 
 thick mass of dark tenaceous clay which overlies extensive districts, inter- 
 mingled with numerous bovdders having a rounded and water-worn 
 
Ob HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 appearance. There is nothing like regularity of deposit in this formation, 
 unless it may be said that it attains the greatest thickness and uniformity 
 of composition on extensive plateaus like those of the coal measures, at the 
 eastern extremity of certain valleys, and on the south-eastern flank of hills 
 belonging to the secondary period. The clay is generally of a dark blue 
 colour, though in some localities it assumes a reddish hue. There are no 
 lines of lamination in the mass, and no appearances of stratification, unless 
 in some districts where there is a sort of natural division into ' upper and 
 lower clays ' — the lower being dark and more compact, the upper lighter 
 in the hufe, and separated from the other by a thin reddish streak. ' 
 Waiving these minutiae, the whole may be described as a covering of 
 compact dark clay, from 10 to 120 feet in thickness, full of boulders and 
 rolled stones from the size of an egg to many tons in weight ; these blocks 
 occupying the bottom, middle, or surface of the mass, without regard to 
 ■gravity or any other law of arrangement. The boulders are of granite, 
 syenite, primitive greenstone, gneiss, mica schist, and other crystalline rocks 
 of a hard and durable texture. Limestone blocks are of very rare occurrence, 
 and the more friable rocks of the upper formations are seldom or ever to 
 be met with. This clay, with its intermingled boulders, generally rests 
 upon the denuded outcrops or edges of the rock formations ; is sometimes 
 underlaid by masses of gravel ; and not unfreqnently contains ' nests,' 
 or irregular patches of rounded pebbles. 
 
 " Besides these patches which are interwoven with the clay, there are 
 independent accumulations of gravel, and rubbly masses of rock-fragments, 
 which seem to have been formed contemporaneously with the boulder-clay, 
 and by the same agency. In Britain such accumulations generally occupy 
 the eastern proximity of longitudinal valleys, where they form curious 
 ranges of flat-topped hillocks; abut against the base of some mountain; or 
 gather, without regard to any order of arrangement, along the eastem flank 
 of those trap hills which present a bold front or ' crag ' to the westward. 
 They are found for the most part in more open situations than the clay, as 
 if they had been arrested in their progress eastward by prominences and 
 shallows, while the clays were borne to deeper and more sheltered recesses. 
 Like the dark clays, they are destitute of organic remains, their larger 
 pebbles are derived from primitive rooks, interspersed with fragments of 
 sandstone, shale, and coal from the secondary formations. 
 
 " To account for the origin of the group thus described, many theories 
 have from time to time been advanced, of which only two deserve notice, as 
 being at all adequate to the purpose intended. The first is that which sup- 
 poses a set of powerful currents to have passed over Britain and the 
 adjoining continent ; these currents taking a course from the north and north- 
 west towards the south and south-east, and sweeping before them clay, sand, 
 gravel, and loose blocks, which were deposited, as the force of the waters 
 abated, without any order or arrangement. How long the currents con- 
 tinued, theorists do not aver ; but from the water-worn aspect of the 
 boulders and gravel, an indefinite period is allowed. With respect to the 
 direction of the drifting force, little doubt is entertained, for many reasons : 
 — 1. Blocks of granite, gneiss, (fee. which must have been derived from 
 the Grampians, arc found scattered along the eastern lowlands of 
 Scotland ; primitive rocks from the Lammermuir and Cheviot ranges 
 are detected in the vale of the Tweed and in Northumberland ; others 
 from the Cumberland mountains are widely dispersed over Durham 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 87 
 
 and the east of Yorkshire ; boulders from the Welsh range are found in the 
 midland counties of England ; while the erratic blocks of Friesland and 
 Germany point to the Scandinavian ridge as the source from which they 
 were derived. 2. Those hills which range east and west have, without 
 exception, their western brows swept bare, while their eastern flanks are 
 thickly strewed with gravel and boulders. 3. Many accumulations of 
 gravel bear evidence of their having been piled up by a force from the north- 
 west. 4. Blocks evidently derived from the outcrops of certain strata are 
 often found among the debris a few yards to the south-east, showing clearly 
 that the transporting power passed over them from the north-west. 5. The 
 supposed currents have been modified in their direction by ranges of hills, 
 so as to set the volume of water with greater rapidity down the valleys 
 which lie between them, as the greatest accumulations of drift and boulders 
 are found at the eastern extremities of such gorges and valleys. But while 
 no doubt is entertained either as to the agency of water in the formation of 
 these accumulations, or as to the direction in which the waters flowed, gTeat 
 difficulty is felt in conceiving any current sufficiently powerful to sweep be- 
 fore it blocks of several tons weight, and that over heights and hollows for 
 many hundreds of miles. Indeed it seems impossible to reconcile the theory 
 of violent currents with the phenomena presented ; for, granting the occiir- 
 rence of some extraordinary cataclysm, during which the waters of the ocean 
 were thrown over the land, the currents must have abated in velocity as they 
 drew to a close, leaving the detritus to arrange itself more in accordance with 
 the laws of gravity than what is exhibited in a mass of clay and boulders. 
 
 " The second theory supposes that those portions of Europe now covered 
 with erratic blocks were submerged after the deposition of the stratified 
 formations ; that this submergence was caused by some extraordinary 
 revolution in the planetary relations of our earth ; that it was accompanied 
 by a change of climate, and other terrestrial conditions ; that while in this 
 state, icebergs and avalanches formed around the earlier mountains which 
 were still left above water ; and that these icebergs, as they were loosened 
 from the shore by the heat of summer, and floated southward by the 
 currents of the ocean, dropped their burden of boulders and gravel precisely 
 as Captain Scoresby found modern icebergs dropping their debris 
 in the nothem seas, and as the officers of the recent Antartic expedition 
 observed similar phenomena in the Southern Polar Ocean. It is further sup- 
 posed, that while icebergs distributed the erratic blocks and other debris in 
 deep waters, avalanches and glaziers were forming moraines of gravel in the 
 valleys of the then existing land analogous to what is observed in the alpine 
 glens of Switzerland. Again, one cannot read Mr Simpson's account of 
 the shores of the Polar Seas, and learn that the ice formed during 
 winter over whole. leagues of gravel, breaks up during the summer, and is 
 blown on the beach by winds, or piled up by the tides, where, melting, it 
 leaves long flat-topped ridges, without perceiving a wonderful resemblance 
 between these effects and the long singularly-shapen ridges of ' dehivial ' 
 gravel. According to this theory, it is easy to account for the south-east- 
 ward direction of the drift, for the Polar Ocean still maintains its, great 
 southward current to the equatorial seas, modified, undoubtedly, in its 
 course, by the inequalities of the bottom over which it passes. The chief 
 difficulty to be obviated is the temporary diminution of temperature which 
 the north of Europe must have then experienced ; and this can only be 
 accounted for by some derangement in the planetary relations of our globe. 
 
88' HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFBICA. 
 
 " Both theories are beset with many diflBculties, and though the latter 
 accounts more satisfactorily for most of the phenomena of the erratic block 
 group, stiU there axe many points respecting the distribution and extent of 
 the deposit to be investigated before either can be finally adopted. AU 
 that can be affirmed in the present state of the science is the composition 
 and nature of the clay, gravel, and boulders, as above described — the course 
 of the currents concerned in their deposition — ^the fact of the land having a 
 configuration of hill and valley not differing much from what now exists — 
 and the peculiar scantiness, if not total absence, of organic remains. If the 
 latter theory be adopted, it is easy to perceive how the soft bottom of the 
 ocean, as it was elevated into dry land, would be furrowed and channeled 
 by the receding waters — here being swept bare of its mud, but retaining 
 the boulders ; there being covered by accumulations of transportable clay 
 and gravel; while the deeper hollows, being left undrained, would form 
 lakes and morasses, which were in turn to be silted up by subsequent 
 material." 
 
 We have what may look like memorials of the drift period in South 
 Africa in the bed of tenacious pit-clay, underlying a thin covering of soil, 
 throughout extensive districts of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 in the boulders found on the Paarl and on the sides of Table Moimtain and 
 of the Lion's Head, at Wynberg, and at other places in the locality. But 
 what is of more interest to us, in the study of the hydrology of the country, 
 is the circumstance that it has been conjectured that the drift period was 
 synchronous with the conversion of the Great Sahara from being a sheet of 
 water of immense extent — well entitled, whether its waters were salt or 
 fresh, to be called an inland sea — into a sandy desert ; and an attempt has 
 been made to account for the cold of that glacial period by the existence of 
 that sea. 
 
 The Eev. Mr Ward, of Bridgenorth, in a paper which appeared in a 
 number of the Jmirnal of Science for April 1861, says — "A large number 
 of our most eminent geologists appear to have given in their adherence to 
 the theory that the glacial epoch was coincident with the period during 
 which the Sahara of North Africa formed the bed of an ocean or vast 
 inland sea. Many, I believe, consider further that these physical conditions, 
 so different from existing ones, were not merely coincident but were closely 
 connected as cause and efiect— that is to say, that the phenomena of the 
 glacial epoch may (to a certain extent) be accounted for by the fact of the 
 existence, during that epoch, of an expanse of water where now is to be 
 found only one of sand." He goes on to say — " It would be needless for 
 me to dwell on the facts and reasonings by which this theory is supported, 
 for by this time they must be tolerably familiar to the readers of this 
 periodical ; but so far as I am acquainted with what has been written- on 
 the subject, only the immediate and direct influence which the former of 
 these states exerted on the climate and temperature of Southern, Western, 
 and Central Europe has been touched upon, whereas it appears to me that 
 the indirect influences must have been far g-reater and more widely felt." 
 
 In illustration of his views he submits for consideration the following 
 argument — "Everyone now-a-days is aware that the wanii climate of 
 Western and North Western Europe is owing to the gulf-stream." Of this 
 gulf-stream he says — " Subsidiary causes there may be, but undoubtedly 
 the main one is the north-east trade wind, blowing incessantly and with 
 considerable force in ohs Atlantic, from a few degrees north of the equator 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 89 
 
 to about the 27th or 28th parallel. The effect of this steady pressure all 
 in one direction, over so enormous an expanse of water, ... is an 
 abnormal elevation of the water on the north-east coast of South America 
 to the height of about 30 feet. . . , This enormous accumulation of 
 water streams off northwards until, released from the pressure of the trade 
 winds, but still retaining its northern impetus, it trends to the north-east, 
 towards our own shores [Britain], Iceland, and even Spitzbergen." 
 
 , Enquiring then, " What causes the N. E. trade wind T he says, " Most 
 geographers I believe will reply, without hesitation, mainly the Sahara." 
 And he proceeds to account for its action by the general heat of the tropics. 
 "■ The air throughout the whole of the tropics being heated, and thus 
 rarified, ascends into the higher regions, and its place is supplied by the 
 colder air streaming in from the north and the south. This simple state- 
 ment, however, requires of course many modifications. I must confine 
 myself to two immediately connected with our subject : — the first is this, 
 as the air streams in from the arctic regions, where the velocity of the earth 
 on its axis is small, to the tropical regions, where it is considerable, it is 
 obvious that the motion of the earth from west to east being only partially 
 communicated to the air, the latter will be left behind as it were — i.e., there 
 will be an apparent motion in it from east to west on those parts of the 
 earth's surface towards the equator. North of the line, then, this westerly 
 direction of the wind continued, with the southerly direction spoken of 
 before, gives (by the well known mathematical parallelogram of forces) as a 
 resultant a direction of the wind from the north-east — this is the trade 
 wind, of the North Atlantic." 
 
 Sofar all ifciatelligible, and commands assent, but not so is it with what 
 follows. " But next," says lie, 9 let it be observed, this wind owes almost 
 all its force to the fact of the enormous radiation of heat from the surface 
 of the Sahara, causing a prodigious rarification in the atmosphere above it 
 — hence a vehement impetus is given to the current of air traversing it from 
 the north-east. — that is to say to the wind, which, as we have seen by its 
 aption o«jthe waters of the Atlantic, is the main cause of the Gulf Stream." 
 '"^ It appears to me that Mr Wai-d over-estimates the effect of the Sahara in 
 the prodilotion of the trade winds, which both in the northern and the 
 southern hemispheres are produced by the ascending body of air over the 
 whole longitudinal extent of the tropics. That that upward flow is likely 
 to be much more niarked over an expanse of sand than over an equal ' 
 expanse of ocean is more than probable ; but the hypothesis seems to 
 assume that it bears a much greater proportion in its effects to the effects 
 of that upward flow over the whole superficial extent of the 'tropics than I 
 know facts sufiicient to warrant me to believe. 
 
 Further, I do not see how a vehement onward impulse can be given to a 
 north-east wind advancing to the tropics by its traversing the Sahara, 
 extending from 15° to 30° north latitude, while the ecliptic passes from 23|° N. 
 to 23|-° S. latitude. Toward the Sahara, extending from say 15° W. to 15° 
 E. long., there may be an influx of air from all sides to foUow the ascending 
 column, or fill the vacuum occasioned by it ; this may be most powerful 
 on the north-east side; but the efiect may be appreciable, even if not 
 perceptible, on all other sides beside. With these observations I resume 
 the thread of the argument as laid down by Mr Ward : — 
 
 " Suppose then the Sahara to be an expanse, not of sand as now, but as 
 formerly, of water, what would be the results ? The trade wind would cease, 
 
 L 
 
90 HTDEOLOGT OF SOUTH AFBIOA. 
 
 or be BO reduced in strength as to exert but slight pressure on the surface 
 of the Atlantic ; then, as a consequence the Gulf Stream would either cease 
 or sink into insignificant dimensions ; the icebergs from Greenland, instead 
 of being melted by the heated waters flowing towards the north, would 
 encroach more and more southwards; the seas around our own island 
 (Britain) and a portion of those more to the south would again present the 
 character of an arctic or subarctic climate, at least as severe as that of 
 Labrador in the same latitude, in short, — 
 
 ' Grave rediret sseculam,' — 
 
 the phenomena of the glacial epoch would be renewed over the greater part 
 of temperate Europe." 
 
 The subject was taken up in a subsequent number of the same journal 
 (p. 565), but I have not access to what was then written. 
 
 In connection with the Hydrology of South Africa, I may mention that 
 the project of converting the Sahara into an inland sea by a cutting through 
 the mountain range which keeps from it the waters of the Mediterranean, 
 which fill a basin at a higher level, has been submitted to men of science, to 
 practical engineers, and to statesmen in Europe, by M. Leseep, the engineer 
 to whom the world is indebted for the formation of the canal across the 
 Isthmus of Suez ; and it was one of the subjects discussed at an international 
 conference of geographers, hydrographers, and scientific travellers, held in 
 Antwerp in the autumn of 1871. 
 
 It is mentioned by Marsh, in his treatise on The Earth as Modified hy 
 Hiiman Action, that some interesting observations on the secular desiccation 
 of the Sahara and of Persia are given in the L' Anriee Geoqraphiq^le for 
 1873 (pp. 72 and 176). 
 
 In regard to the project of converting it again into an inland sea, he 
 writes : — " It is now established by the observations of Rohlf and others 
 that Strabo was right in asserting that a considerable part of the Libyan 
 desert, or Sahara, lay below the level of the Mediterranean. At some 
 points the depression exceeds 325 feet, and at Siwah, in the Oasis of 
 Jupiter Ammon, it is not less than 130 feet. It has been proposed to cut a 
 canal through the coast dunes, on the shore south of the Syrtis Major, or 
 Dshun el Kebrit of the Arabs ; and another project is to re-open the com- 
 munication whicli appears to have once existed between the Palus Fritonis. 
 or Seboha el Nandid, and the Syrtis Parva." And he states in an 
 appendix : — " The subject has been, at least, partially studied, has been 
 entertained by the French Chambers, and has become a subject of much 
 discussion. The most careful estimates I have seen allow to the new 
 internal sea a length of 350 kilometres, a width of 60, and a depth of 
 from 40 to 60 metres [or about 200 miles long, 30 miles broad, and 150 
 feet deep], 
 
 " There has been much wild conjecture in regard both to the ameliorating 
 effects of such an expanse of water on the climate of Northern Africa, and the 
 injurious consequences to Europe of the large addition of moisture to the 
 atmospheric currents, which it is argued might increase the rain and snow 
 on the Alps to a very prejudicial extent. The possibility of the scheme is 
 by no means yet estabhshed, and the doubt whether it would be practicable 
 to keep open, through the sandy isthmus, a channel wide enough to furnish 
 a sufiicient supply of water to counterbalance the evaporation deserves con- 
 sideration." In the text he mentions : — " The rapid evaporation would 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSBEVATIONS. 
 
 91 
 
 require a constant influx of water from the Mediterranean, which might, 
 perhaps, perceptibly influence the current through the Straits of Gibraltar." 
 
 Such are the far-reaching consequences reckoned on ; and from such con- 
 sequences being contemplated as possible consequences of the refilling the 
 basin, there may be conjectured how great and far-reaching may have been 
 the hydrological consequences of the drying up of that former sea. 
 
 With a view to impressing these more deeply on the mind of any of my 
 readers who may now, for the first time, have his thoughts directed to such 
 subjects, I may bring under consideration consequenges contemplated as 
 possible should another basin in the vicinity of the Mediterranean be 
 converted into an inland sea. 
 
 In 1855 were published two volumes, entitled " The Dead Sea a new 
 route to India." The project of the author, Captain Allan, was to connect 
 the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, by a canal between the Mediterranean 
 and the Dead Sea, and a canal between the Dead Sea and the Bed Sea. 
 The watershed between the latter is not less than 300 feet, but the summit 
 level between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, near Jezreel, is believed 
 to be little, if at all, more than 100 feet, above the sea ; and writing on the 
 question raised Mr Marsh says : — 
 
 " Although, therefore, we have no reason to believe it possible to open a 
 navigable channel to India by way of the Dead Sea, there is not much 
 doubt that the basin of the latter might be made accessible from the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 " The level of the Dead Sea lies 1316-7 feet below that of the ocean. It 
 is bounded east and west by mountain ridges rising to the height of from 
 2000 to 4000 feet above the ocean. From its southern end a depression, 
 called the Wadi-el-Araba, extends to the Gulf of Akaba, the eastern arm of 
 the Red Sea. The Jordan empties into the northern extremity of the Red 
 Sea, after having passed through the Lake of Tiberias, at an elevation of 663'4 
 feet above the Dead Sea — or 653'3 below the Mediterranean — and drains a 
 considerable valley north of the lake, as well as the plain of Jericho which 
 lies between the lake and the sea. If the waters of the Mediterranean were 
 admitted freely into the basin of the Dead Sea, they would raise its surface 
 to the ground level of the ocean, and consequently flood all the dry land 
 below that level within the basin. 
 
 " I do not know that accurate levels have been taken in the valley of the 
 Jordan above the Lake of Tiberias, and our information is very vague as to 
 the hypsometry of the northern part of the Wadi-el-Araba. As little do we 
 know where a contour line, carried around the basin at the level of the 
 Mediterranean, would strike its eastern and western borders. We cannot, 
 therefore, accurately compute the extent of the now dry land which would 
 be covered by the admission of the waters of the Mediterranean, or the area 
 of the inland sea which would be thus created. Its length, however, would 
 certainly exceed an hundred and fifty miles, and its main breadth, including 
 its gulfs and bays, could scarcely be less than fifteen, perhaps even twenty. 
 It would cover very little ground now occupied by civilized or even uncivilized 
 man, though some of the soil which would be submerged — for instance, that 
 watered by the Fountain of Elisha and other neighbouring sources — is of 
 great fertility, and, under a wiser government and better civil institutions, 
 might rise to importance, because, from its depression, it possesses a very 
 warm climate, and might supply south-eastern Europe with tropical products 
 more readily than they can be obtained from any other source. Such a 
 
92 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 canal and sea would be of no present commercial importance, because they 
 would give access to no new markets or sources of supply ; but when the fertjle 
 valleys and the deserted plains east of the Jordan shall be reclaimed to agri-. 
 culture and civilization, these waters would furnish a channel of communica^' ■ 
 tion which might become the medium of a very extensive trade. 
 
 " Whatever might be the economical results of the opening and fiUing 
 of the Dead Sea basin, the creation of a new evaporable area, adding not 
 less than 2000 or perhaps 3000 square miles to the present fluid surface of 
 Syria, could not fail to produce important meteorological effects. The 
 climate of Syria would probable be tempered, its precipitation and fertility 
 increased, the courses of its winds and the electrical condition of its atmos- 
 phere modified. The present organic life of the valley would be extinguished, 
 and many tribes of plants and animals would emigrate from the Medi- 
 terranean to the new home which human art had prepared for them. It is 
 possible, too, that the addition of 1300 feet, or forty atmosphers of hydro- 
 static pressure upon the bottom of the basin, might disturb the equilibrium 
 between the internal and the external forces of the crust of the earth at 
 this point of abnormal configuration, and thus produce geological convulsions, 
 the intensity of which cannot be even conjectured." 
 
 i This may show that there is much, very much, connected with hydrology 
 involved in the remoter consequences which may have followed the drying 
 up. of the Sahara, and in the consequences which might follow the filhng that 
 basin with water from the Mediterranean. 
 
 The drying up of the Sahara it has been attempted to identify with what 
 is known to geologists as the Drift Period ; and with the consideration of this 
 we are brought to the close of another epoch. To quote again from Hugh 
 Miller — " Again the night descends, for the fifth day has closed ; and morning 
 breaks on the sixth and last day of creation. Cattle and beasts of the field 
 graze on the plains ; the thick-skinned rhinoceros wallows in the marshes ; 
 the squat hippopotamus rustles among the reeds, or plunges sullenly into 
 the river ; great herds of elephants seek their food amid the young herbage 
 of the woods ; while animals of fiercer nature,- — the lion, the leopard, and 
 the bear, — harbour in deep caves till the evening, ■ or lie in wait for their 
 prey amid tangled thickets, or beneath some broken bank. At length, as 
 the day wanes and the shadows lengthen, man, the responsible lord of 
 creation, formed in God's own image, is introduced upon the scene, and the 
 work of creation ceases for ever upon the earth. The night falls once more 
 upon the prospect, and there dawns yet another morrow, — ^the morrow of 
 God's rest, — that Divine Sabbath in which there is no more creative labour, 
 and which 'blessed and sanctified' beyond all the days that had gone 
 before, has as its special object the moral elevation and final redemption of 
 man. And over it no evening is represented in the record as falling, for- its 
 special work is not yet complete. Such seems to have been the sublime 
 panorama of creation exhibited in vision of old to 
 
 ' The shepherd who first taught the chosen seed, 
 lu the beginmng how the heavens and earth 
 Bose out of chaos ;' 
 
 and, rightly understood, I know not a single scientific truth that militates 
 against even the minutest or least prominent of its details." 
 
TREES OF GBBAT AGE. 93 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 INDICATIONS OF THE FORMER HYDROGRAPHIO CONPITION OF THE COUNTRY, 
 
 SUPPLIED BY ABBOEBSCENT PRODUCTIONS FOUND IN THE INTERIOR 
 
 OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 It was the branch, of an olive tree which told Noah of the assuaging of 
 the waters of the deluge, and it happens to be clumps of olive trees to which 
 I shall first have occasion to refer, as supplying indications of such subsidence 
 of the waters as this chapter treats of. But let us, ere we leave the 
 geological observations cited, take a retrospective glance at what has been 
 revealed by them. 
 
 Far back as are carried our thoughts by physical geography when it is 
 made to discourse of the former hydrographic condition of South Africa, to 
 a period so much more remote are they carried back by the geological 
 phenomena which there present themselves when these are made to speak- of 
 the past, that it seems as if it were but yesterday that the dry land appeared ; 
 and we are brought, both by the one and by the others, to hear of eras, and 
 periods, and times, for the representation of the duration of which we have 
 no numbers, and to form a definite conception of which we have no power — 
 our conception of this is as vague as is our conception of eternity, in regard to 
 which we speak of a past eternity, and an eternity to come, and an eternal Now. 
 
 But tliere are the voiceless, mute records looking as if they would compel 
 us to read and think. And though " There is no speech nor language ; 
 their voice is not heard ; yet their line is gone out through all the earth, and 
 their words to the end of the world." 
 
 Passing without remark the gneiss and schists, while with dumb 
 eloquence they solicit oui' attention, What a tale of duration of time is told 
 by the strata of clay lying, at the foot of Table Mountain, resting on the 
 flanks of the protruding projected granite, by which it was upheaved and 
 torn ! And what a tale of duration of time is told by that Mountain of Silurian 
 deposit surmounting it, well-nigh a mile in thickness ! 
 
 In the prevalence of sand in the strata with which this is capped, we find 
 an indication of these haying been covered by shallower water than that 
 from suspension in which was deposited the clay, slate, and Silurian mm 
 and in accordance with this we find in upper beds of this formation, ' seen 
 elsewhere in the Colony, a rippled sandstone, like to what may be seen on 
 the sea-shore of the present day. But the aggregate upper and lower 
 Devonian deposits are 5100 feet or nearly a mile in thickness, and the time 
 required for the deposit of this is what is represented by those few clifif-like 
 strata seen capping Table Mountain and the" Lion's Head. 
 
 But this is not all. There is an interval indicated by the composition of 
 these strata which must not be overlooked if we would read the detailsj of 
 the record. They may be conformable in their under surface to the upper 
 surfe,ce of the Silurian deposit, but it follows not that the jjrocess of deposit 
 
94 HYDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFBIOA-. 
 
 was continuous. We have found it stated that the Dicynodon strata lie 
 upon the Old Red Sandstone or Devonian formation, but we have seen 
 enough to satisfy us that untold ages separated the eras of their deposit— 
 and "so was it here, or so at least it may have been. The mass of the 
 mountain is Silurian, the capping strata belong to the Devonian or Old Bed 
 Sandstone formation ; and the diflference of the fossils found in the one and 
 found in the other of these formations tell of the lapse of ages of the 
 duration of which we can form no conception, but of which no other 
 indication is here given ; and during this period the upper surface of the 
 Silurian may have been above the water's surface, or may have received 
 accessions which were subsequently washed away by the water's flow. 
 
 Surmounting these, and of a deposit subsequent to them, we have the 
 mountain hmestone, 1000 feet in thickness, the lower Karroo shale, 800 
 feet in thickness, and the coal measures and upper Karroo shale, which 
 together give an aggregate thickness of 6200 feet — together 8000 feet — or 
 strata a mile and a third in thickness, deposited after dry land had 
 appeared, before we come to the formation of the Dicynodon beds ; and how 
 long these took to silt up, who can tell ? 
 
 But only South African deposits have thus been brought forward. 
 Elsewhere, as has been stated, the Devonian or Old Red Sandstone strata 
 are 8000 feet in thickness, surmounted by strata of carboniferous slates and 
 yellow sandstone 2000' feet thick; while the coal measures — consisting of 
 shale, and sandstones,' and grit, with intervening seams of coal — measure in 
 Wales 15,000 feet" in thickness, in all 25,000 feet, or well-nigh six miles in 
 thickness; and the Permian system, so named from its being widely 
 developed in the Kingdom of Permia, which extends for several hundred 
 miles along the western flanks of the Uralian chain, and thence westward 
 to the River Volga, and which seem to have been deposited cotemporaneously 
 with the New Red Sandstone, is reckoned to be 1000 feet in thickness. 
 
 All of these deposits tell of the lapse of time between the deposit of the 
 strata capping Table Mountain and the Lion's Head and the deposits of the 
 Dicynodon beds, supposed to have been the bottom of an ancient lake or 
 inland sea,' extending from the district of Cradock, if not farther to the 
 south, to the district of the Zambesi, if not beyond it to the north. Of 
 this I have mentioned that, according to Professor Owen, there are good 
 reasons for referring this formation to the age of the New Red Sandstone. 
 The draining off of the waters must have taken place a very long time after 
 the first formation of the lake, the thickness of the deposit being so great 
 as it is. This may have been effected by the Zambesi, as was conjectured 
 by Dr Livingstone. I have no means of determining the time, as 
 indicated by geological observations made elsewhere, at which the waters 
 were dried up ; but an attempt has been made to identify the disappearance 
 of an inland sea supposed to have covered the Sahara with the close of the 
 drift or glacial period ; and coming nearer to our own times, we have, I 
 think it not unlikely, a means of determining the time at which lakes and 
 lakelets, the boundaries of which in some cases are well defined, had subsided 
 or sunk to levels not less well defined. 
 
 From travellers in the interior of South Africa I have, in the prosecution 
 of other researches, heard of groups of trees growing on low knolls in 
 extensive plains, and on slightly elevated ground surrounding or lining such 
 plains, which groupa of trees present an appearance suggestive of their 
 
TBEBS OF GBBAT AGE. 95 
 
 sites having been formerly islands and banks of lakes. All the trees in each 
 group are said to approximate a uniform magnitude, but the magnitude of 
 the trees in different gToups varies much ; and these facts collectively have 
 suggested to me the probability of the different groups of trees being the 
 produce of seed which germinated after the waters had subsided to a level 
 a little below the elevation at which they severally are situated. 
 
 Much remains to be done for the verification of what is thus advanced, 
 and of what is implied in the application proposed, but it appears not 
 unreasonable to hope that, should such verification be obtained, we may, by 
 determining the ages of the trees in the different groups, possibly obtain a 
 series of measurements of the gradual subsidence of the waters once covering 
 the land, and of the progressive desiccation of the country. 
 
 With this caution or protest against premature reliance on results which 
 may be obtained by the application of the supposed standard, I proceed to 
 show the application of it which may be made. 
 
 I was informed by the Eev. Chas. Murray that in travelling from the 
 Cape Colony to Porcherfstrom, or Mooi-Rivers-dorp, he observed many trees 
 of Olivienhout (Olea verrucosa Link), growing in remarkable quadrangular 
 patches on the eastern slopes of hills, and on rising grounds. The trees in 
 some of these he estimated to be of about 12 feet in girth. They were 
 large and old trees. He remarked that in general the trees of each patch 
 were apparently of uniform magnitude, but that the magnitude of the trees 
 in different patches varied considerably. The statement may appear vague ; 
 I give it as I received it ; it was the statement of an intelligent traveller 
 through the district, observing what he saw, unbiased by any foregone con- 
 clusion ; and it was these observations, communicated to me by Mr Murray, 
 which first suggested to me the views I have just advanced. These views 
 subsequently received confirmation from my learning that numerous obser- 
 vations, similar to those mentioned to me by Mr Murray, had been made by 
 the late Mr James Chapman, in. journeys made by him far beyond the 
 Colony, and noted by him, though he found nothing significant in the fact 
 until we had together talked over the matter ; so that he also was unbiased 
 in the observations made by him. 
 
 My conjecture is that the trees observed by Mr Murray commenced their 
 growth when the slopes and rising grounds on which they stand were a little 
 above the level of the waters covering the ground below — the seed having 
 germinated before the land on which they grow had become anything like 
 so arid as it now is. And supposing such a position and condition of soil to 
 have been characteristic of the land on which patches differing in magnitude 
 are found, at different periods, separated it may be by centuries, it seems 
 to follow that the time which has elapsed between these different periods and 
 the present might be ascertained, or determined approximately, by counting 
 the number of concentric rings in the trunks of the trees in different patches ; 
 while the comparative thickness of rings in the same, or in trees felled in 
 different patches, and the order in which these appear, might supply data 
 for the solution of other questions connected with the progress of desiccation ; 
 and this, even though it should turn out that these trees are only remains, 
 and at the same time the only remains, of more extensive forests of which 
 the other trees have perished by fire or otherwise. 
 
 Mr Chapman had travelled extensively in the interior of the country 
 beyond the Colony : he had travelled from Natal to the ZaiJibesi,, from the 
 
96 HTDEOIOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Zamtesi to Walviscli Bay, and hither and thither in many directions in the 
 "country between. From him I received much information on subjects 
 embraced by Natural History which was afterwards verified by the observa- 
 tions of others; while I never had information communicated by him 
 subsequently disproved. 
 
 By him I was informed that to the west of Lake Gnami are beds of 
 limestone, on which grow a great many Motjcharra (Combretum ?) and 
 Omboroomboongo (Acacia) trees, the former in clumps, and the latter around 
 vleies or other spots where there is a moist soil. On intermediate ground is 
 found in abundance the-Haakdorn (Acacia detinens) of a comparatively later 
 growth. On elevations which appear to have been, at one time islands are 
 clumps of eight or ten baobab trees (Adansonia digitata) with trunks 
 averaging 60 feet in circumference, with bark nearly a foot in thickness, as 
 is seen when,, in accordance with the usuage of the nation, from time to time 
 immemorable, vertical stripes have been cut off for fibres to be employed in 
 the manufacture of bags and baskets ; and over the whole district are 
 scattered thickly trees of the Sweet Gum Acacia. 
 
 To the westward of Twass is a sandy wilderness covered with trees of no' 
 great height, but amongst these appear here and there fine groups or small 
 forests of Kameel doom (Acacia girafaea). Near Elephant's Fountain these 
 forests of Kameel doom are very extensive, and the trees are of considerable 
 age. And the Karroo nSotirf-Aeacia horida) is conspicuous in the valleys 
 and in the vicinity of vleies. To the west of Elephant's Fountain are here 
 and there large trees of the same kind, and forests of smaller ones varying . 
 greatly in bulk and apparently in age ; but most or all of the trees in each 
 clump, or patch,- or forest are apparently all of the same age, suggestive of 
 either a succession of periods of drainage, in accordance with the views now 
 advanced, or the recurrence at lengthened intervals of seasons favourable to 
 the germination of seed — there being neither young trees nor solitary trees 
 of intermediate ages. 
 
 . In the course of his journey Mr Chapman travelled some way up the 
 l^nks of the Shua, a large periodic stream flowing westward from the 
 country of "Mbselekatsi. In the country through which that river flows he 
 found large baobabs (Adansonia digitata) growing in the vicinity of 
 springs and limestone rocks, audMopani ( Ban hinia) ioresta growing on level 
 ground which looked like hardened mud containing a good deal of lime- 
 stone, but near the river were only grassy plains, intersected by what appeared 
 to have been river beds, and these weri3 covered with an efflorescence of salt. 
 
 It is conjectured that these baobabs grew on islands of limestone rocks 
 rising above the waters of the lake, while these as yet filled the basin ; and 
 that at a later period the mopani trees sprung up, and grew while Ijhe waters 
 were receding, and covered onlythq^ace now appearing as grassy plains; 
 and that these stood above the'levei of the waters while they still filled, and 
 afterwards only partially filled, the river beds ; and that at a later period 
 still did the waters left in them by the disturbance of level, evaporate and 
 leave the efflorescence of salt. 
 
 By sections of these baobabs and mopane trees interesting chronological 
 data might be obtained. Nor is it the times of the more marked eras alone 
 which might thus be determined ; for, according to Mr Chapman's observa- 
 tions, " Tlie mopane trees are srfiall in the lower portion of the Shua 
 valley," — which is that part which would be longest under water — " Init 
 they are longer and stronger the higher that valley is ascended," — in 
 
INDICATIONS SUPPLIED BY TREES OF GREAT AGE. ,97 
 
 proportion, that is, as the soil has been longer free from the covering of 
 water — " and very much longer in the vicinity of the River Nate, which 
 comes in a direction from the town of Moselekatzi, where they have attained 
 a considerable magnitude ;" and sections of trees at different elevations might 
 reveal approximately the respective periods at which the spot became fitted, 
 by the draining off of the waters, for the production of these trees. 
 
 Of the Mad^nisana and Kaleghari deserts, he said — " There are, here 
 continuous forests, but more frequently the trees are in clumps or patches, 
 consisting sometimes of one kind of tree and sometimes of several different 
 kinds of these, with occasionally solitary trees of gigantic growth towering 
 above the others or standing in solitary grandeur. Some kinds are found 
 covering mountain slopes, others are found on sandy plains, others near to 
 rivers or river beds, and others in the neighbourhood of leeghties of greater 
 or less extent ; some in all of these situations, but decreasing in number or 
 in magnitude, and perhaps increasing in one of these particulars while 
 decreasing in another, according as they grow more near to one or other of 
 the situations referred to." These may supply in a similiar way chronological 
 data which might prove important in such an investigation. 
 
 " To the south of Tsamasechie," he said, " there are found springs and 
 fountains in the sand, and in some places immense ripple-like parallel eleva- 
 tions 30 or 40 feet high. On the tops of these are generally large trees 
 growing, the most prevalent being the Kush6 (Milletia Gaffra) and the 
 Shashanga, while in the level plateau of sand between them, measuring 
 three, four, or five miles in' breadth, are forests of the Magonane (Greuda 
 cana ?) and in the valleys and depressions, in the soil of which water is 
 found near the surface, grows the Makow. 
 
 " At Mottomoganyani, to the west of this, are beds of limestone like con- 
 solidated mud. To the east is Moselekatzi's country. It is very level, and 
 abounds in salt-pans and salt vleies, especially to the south, where they 
 seem to represent the beds of ancient lakes. In the north are forests of 
 mopane trees, but the most characteristic arborescent feature of the country 
 is baobabs growing on islands in these salt-pans, and around the fountains, 
 at a distance of about 200 feet, and slightly above the water's level." 
 
 And in connection with the same thing he mentioned, " That to the 
 north-eastward of this are incipient forests of very young mopane, trees. 
 No large trees, however, are there to be found." 
 
 These Mopane trees in other districts are found of a great magnitude. 
 The youth of the forests found here I attribute to the comparatively recent 
 time at which the ground had become suitable for the germination qf the 
 seed and the growth of the trees ; and in the drying up of the vley, within 
 the memory of the inhabitants of the district, I see an indication of the natural 
 operation whereby this preparation of the soil was effected. A section of 
 the trunk of one of these mopane trees would reveal, by the number of con- 
 centric rings in its substance, how long it has been growing there ; and 
 from similar data much might be collected in regard to the hydrography of 
 the district. 
 
 If this be admitted, as I doubt not it will, and that at once, a ponderous 
 volume of hydrologic records is at our command. 
 
 In illustration of the fact that information bearing on the hydrology of 
 South Africa, additional to and different from what has been referred to, may 
 be obtained by the study of the arborescent productions of the country, I 
 
 M 
 
98 HYDBOLOGT OP 80TJTH AFRICA. 
 
 may taentiori I was told by Dr Fritsch, that in travelling in the district 
 lying between Sicklagole and the Morizane, and between these rivers and 
 the Molapo, he found a great many Kameel Dooms (Acacia gvraffma), the 
 typical form of which was a double-dome-shaped growth of branches, 
 widely separated by a comparatively naked stretch of trunk, the upper 
 crown far overspreading the lower dome, the branches of which sometimes 
 showed signs of decay, while those of the crown did not. Many branches 
 were frequently seen strewn around the trees ; these were apparently 
 branches which had fallen by their own weight after decay had commenced ; 
 and the fall of these, it may be, had left the tree with its upper dome-shaped 
 umbrellar-like crown supported by a naked trunkrising through thelower dome. 
 
 Something similar to this has been seen elsewhere by Dr Moffat and 
 others, but the form was not the same, and it was exceptional, while this 
 was characteristic of those found in the district marked out by the rivers I 
 have named ; and it was suggestive to me of a possibility that a lengthened 
 period of ordinary growth on a dry soil and in an arid atmosphere, during 
 which the lower dome of branches was produced, had been succeeded by 
 a period of abnormal growth, arising, it may be, out of an abundant or super- 
 ' abundant supply of moisture, during which the general growth of branches 
 was more rapid — ^more rapid but less dense — the products of which were less 
 diirable ; but the trunk or ascending axis, carried throughout this period of 
 rapid growth to a higher and still a higher elevation, gave permanent sup- 
 port to the larger and upper dome, produced during a subsequent period of 
 comparative aridity extending to the present time, in accordance with the 
 normal growth of the tree, being enabled to do so by the strength imparted 
 by the exogenous layers of wood produced in it by the leaves, and twigs, 
 and branches which it sustained, while the branches of intermediate growth, 
 being liable to decay, and lacking these, fell. 
 
 The correctness of this supposition might possibly be determined by 
 inspection of a section of the trunk of one of these trees, and an examiner 
 tion of the concentric rings of which it is composed ; and if thus confirmed, 
 we may find that we have in these data by which not a little might be learned 
 in regard to the hydrographic condition of the country throughout the 
 period of the growth of its trees. 
 
 While this is stated, it is admitted freely that there is much connected 
 with the conjecture which has been advanced — namely, that a section of the 
 trunk of trees growing in such clumps as have been referred to, by revealing 
 the number of concentric rings of which it is composed, and thus revealing 
 its age, might be made to reveal the period at which the waters had 
 subsided to a level a little lower than that on which it stands, — which 
 requires to be verified before aught worthy of the designation scientific use 
 can be made of it for this purpose. It may be admitted that proof may 
 thus be obtained that for the time indicated by the number of concentric 
 rings the ground has been above the level of the waters, but that this comes 
 far short of proof of what is desiderated, It may be alleged that in 
 the conjecture — that sections of the trunks of trees such as are referred 
 to might be made to yield information in regard to the whole time that the 
 land on which they are growing has been above the surface of the subsiding 
 waters approximately correct — it is implied that these trees are of a growth 
 BO protracted as to carry us back, by thoughts of them as seedlings and 
 saplings, to a period so remote as that spoken of. 
 
INDICATIONS SUPPLIED BY TREES OF GREAT AGE. 99 
 
 It is; and that so obviously so that it may seem like a truism to S9,y it •„, 
 but it is said that it may be shown, first, that this has not been overlooked, 
 and secondly, that there are amongst the trees referred to trees of dimensions 
 so great, and by inference of a growth so protracted, that it is not unreason- 
 able, on this account, to entertain the conjecture if it be not on other 
 grounds foimd to be imtenable. 
 
 Amongst these trees is the baobab ; and elsewhere there are baobabs 
 reckoned by savants to be of an age measured not by centuries only but by 
 thousands of years, — and there are olive trees belonging to the same genus,; 
 if not the same species, as those of Gethsemane, where, it is alleged, •still 
 grow trees which must have been old trees in the days of our Lord. 
 
 Moffat says — " In the course of my journeys I have met with trunks of 
 enormous size, which, if the time were calculated necessary for their growth, 
 as weU as their decay, one might be led to conclude that they sprang up 
 immediately after the flood, if not before it." And there are facts known 
 in regard to the baobab which are in accordance with the opinion he 
 expresses. I have been informed that both Dr Livingstone and Dr Kirk 
 have entertained and expressed the opinion that the baobab is a tree of 
 quick growth, and that those which they saw and examined, some of which 
 were of great size, were probably of an age not exceeding 300 years, or 500 
 years at most ; and I am prepared to accept their statements without 
 hesitation, but I accept also the statements which have been made by others. 
 
 According to Sprengel, who was Professor of Botany in HaUe, the earliest 
 account we have of the baobab occurs in the travels of Cadmosto, who 
 visited the Cape de Verds and the western coast of Africa in 1456, and who 
 mentions having seen a tree of this kind 17 ells, or 30 English feet, in 
 diameter. 
 
 The baobab was afterwards described by Thevit, who saw it in 1555. 
 
 Adanson, who subsequently studied the natural history and botanic 
 characteristics of the tree, and after whom it has been named by Willdenow 
 and other botanists, Adansonia digitata, entered into some curious calcula- 
 tions in regard to the age of some of the specimens which he saw. He was 
 an eccentric but a learned man — certainly very learned for his time. He 
 was bom in 1725, and published various works. Of these the most remark- 
 able are the account given of his voyage to the Senegal, and his Families 
 des Plants. It is in the latter work that the calculations are given. 
 
 One of the calculations made by Adanson was founded on the supposition 
 that he had remarked on one of the trees letters which indicated their 
 having been cut in the thirteenth century — five hundred years before ! 
 
 But another, and that a more satisfactory calculation, was founded on 
 the measurement made of a tree, which he ascertained to be a tree which 
 had been observed by Thevit in 1555 — two hundred years before. He 
 considered that this tree when seen by Thevit must have been firom three to 
 four feet in diameter. In his time it was six feet — showing an increase in 
 diameter of from two to three feet in two hundred years. 
 
 From data thence obtained — ^for it is not a question of simple arithmeti- 
 cal progression — he calculated that a tree of this species would acquire a 
 diameter of 10 feet in 550 years ; of 14 feet in 1080 years ; of 20 feet in 
 2800 years ; of 30 feet in 5150 years. 
 
 Many trees of this species are met with from 25 to 27 feet in diameter. 
 Adanson saw some which were from 75 to 78 feet in circumference. Barrow 
 saw a specimen in St Jago 56 feet in circumference, and 80 feet high. 
 
100 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Baobabs, to the west of Lake Gnami, have been found meaisuring 60 feet in 
 circumference, indicating, according to Adanson, a growth of 2800 years ; 
 arid baobabs found to the east of the Lake are of much greater magnitude : 
 I .possess a photograph of a baobab growing near Lake Gnami, called after 
 some native chieftainess Mama Kahuwe, which measured 70 feet in circum- 
 ference ; but they are frequently found measuring 90 feet in circumference, 
 indicating, according to Adanson, a growth of 5150 years. And Mr 
 Chapman, to whom I was indebted for the photograph mentioned, states 
 that in the course of his travels he foimd one measuring 154 round the 
 trunk.* On an application to this tree of data furnished by Adanson, the 
 results are such as to stagger belief The tree seen by Thivet in 1555, con- 
 jectured to be from 3 to 4 feet in diameter, took to attain 6 feet 200 years, 
 whence it is calculated a diameter of 10 feet requires a growth of 550 years ; 
 increase from 10 to 14 feet, 530 years more; increase from 14 to 20 feet, 
 1720 years more ; increase from 20 to 30 feet, 2350 years more; increase 
 from 30 to 50 feet — we fear to advance ! It seems a reductio ad absurdum ; 
 but there stand the figures stiU. 
 
 A more satisfactory mode of estimating ages of trees than was at the 
 command of Adanson is one now followed — namely, that referred to above 
 -^counting the numbers of concentric rings in a trunk, and reckoning each 
 as the product of a year : and this could be applied to such trees as are 
 referred to. The rule cannot be considered absolute ; but it supplies an 
 approximation upon which reliance may be placed. I have been told that 
 Dr Livingstone applied it to baobabs, and never found one with a trunk 
 qpnsisting of more than 300 concentric rings; but I have failed to obtain 
 an explicit statement of his observations, and therefore I cannot use them 
 otherwise than as a ground of caution against relying with perfect confi- 
 dence on bulk as an indication of a growth of thousands of years, according 
 to the calculations of Adanson. But this is not essential to the argument 
 embraced in the conjecture ; the argument is the same be the ages of the 
 trees what they may ; it is the age we wish to ascertain ; and by ascertaining 
 the ages of baobabs, growing in difierent localities — whatever these ages 
 may be — we may learn that for a period, equal at least to that of the age of the 
 tree, that spot, and all in the vicinity of it of a higher level, has been 
 dry land. 
 
 Mr L. A. Tollemache reports of Babbage : — " It seemed to him possible 
 to obtain an exact record of the succession of hot and cold years for long 
 periods in bygone ages. His plan was as follows : — Among the stumps of 
 trees in some ancient forests, he proposed to select one in which both the 
 number and the size of the rings that have been annually produced were 
 clearly marked. He would write down the succession of hot and cool 
 summers as marked in this tree, assuming that the larger the ring in each 
 case the hotter has been the summer. He then proposed to examine other 
 trees of about the same date, until he found some which recorded a series 
 of hot and cold seasons exactly similiar to that which he had already noted 
 down, and until the series extended 'far enough for him to be sure that the 
 resemblance was not accidental, but that he had before him a natural 
 register of the same seasons which had been recorded in the first tree. As 
 
 * The baobab, though presenting such a bulk of trunk, is not a tree of great height. 
 Specimens of the tree may ba seen at Sierri L^jae ; but there the trie does not grow, or 
 has not grown, larger than an orohaid apple tree. X have seen a similar speeimeu in the 
 JarcUn des Plants in Paris. 
 
INDICATIONS SUPPLIED BT TEBBS OP GEEAT AGE. 101 
 
 some of these trees would be somewhat older than the first tree, while 
 others would have survived it, he considered that it would be possible, so to 
 say, to piece out the information obtained from one tree by means of the 
 others ; and that, after examining a great number of trees, his record 
 of warm and cold seasons might be extended at both ends almost 
 indefinitely." 
 
 From this it may be seen that it has been considered probable, and that 
 the conjecture is not without plausibility, that there are in the histology 
 and structure of trees valuable records of the past, which may add to our 
 knowledge of what has occurred in that past if we could decipher and trans- 
 late them. 
 
 All that has been referred to as implied in the assumption that by 
 these trees we may determine at what time the waters had subsided to a 
 little below the level of the ground on which they are growing is, first, that 
 they are of an age sufficient to do so, and second, that their age can be 
 ascertained ; in the conjecture that sections of the trunks of the trees 
 referred to might be made to yield the information desired, it is implied, 
 third, that they are the produce of seeds which germinated shortly after 
 the subsidance of the waters to a little below the level of the ground on 
 which they grow. But how is this to be proved t 
 
 Proof positive we have not and cannot obtain. We have only circum- 
 stantial evidence ; we can obtain no other ; and the circumstantial evidence 
 is such as has been obtained accidentally, a circumstance which may add to 
 its value but leave it less full, complete, and satisfactory than may be 
 desired. 
 
 Observations made by students of botany have led to the conclusion that 
 for the germination of seeds a certain degree of moisture, varying, it may be, 
 with different kinds of seeds, but confined in the case of many within a 
 limited range, is requisite, deficiency and excess being both prejudicial to 
 the process ; the clumps of trees are found growing upon what appear, by 
 their slight elevation above the adjacent ground, to have been the banks of 
 lakes or islands in large sheets of water ; such banks and islands would offer 
 hydrometic conditions favourable to the germination of seeds ; and the com- 
 bined circumstances, that the trees in such clumps, though differing in size 
 from those in other clumps, have been observed to be of a uniform size 
 themselves, and that the trees are, to a considerable extent, found on these 
 eminences and not on the level grovmd around, are favourable to the sup- 
 position that the seeds from which they sprung germinated there at a time 
 when the ground was a little, and only a little, above the level of the waters 
 of a lake or river of which they are the banks, or islands which they enclosed, 
 when the soil was, and probably had only shortly before become, adapted to 
 promote the germination of such seeds, and to sustain their subsequent 
 growth ; and if this be in accordance with the facts of the case, we are sup- 
 plied thus with indications of the progress of the drainage and desiccation 
 of the country, in the greater age, indicated by the larger growth of the 
 trees on the more elevated ground, and in the lesser age, indicated by the 
 lesser magnitude of these in lower situations in the same locality ; and thus 
 we may be supplied with means of determining at what distance from the 
 present time it was that the waters had sunk to different levels, or an 
 approximation thereto, by ascertaining the ages of the trees growing on such 
 Afferent levels. 
 
« 
 iO%; HTDROLOGT OF SOUTH AFBIOA. 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 HYDBOGRAPHIC CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY WITHIN THE HISTOEIO PERIOD. 
 
 The hydrographic picture of the land suggested by the suppqsed testimony 
 of the baobab, and other trees of corresponding age, is such as the physical 
 geography in many districts also suggests — extensive sheets of shallow 
 water, the remains, it may be, of larger, deeper lakes, lowered in their 
 surface level by the lowering of the outlets as these have worn away, or 
 shallowed by the silting up of the basin. The trees on slight elevations 
 add little to our data beyond supplying an indication of the time at which 
 things were so, and enabling us to fill up the outline pictured, with groups 
 of trees and the reflection of their trunks and foliage in the waters beneath 
 thepi. And something of the same thing may be said even of the baobab 
 and mopane trees growing on the banks of the Shua and the Nat6. 
 
 We cannot say we are thus in our chronological review brought up to the 
 historic, era, but we are apparently brought within sight of it, for within this 
 we find notices of the drying up of such sheets of water as these appear to have 
 been in the testimony of natives in regard to what has occurred within 
 the memory of man, and in the testimony of European travellers of our own 
 day.; The historic period goes further back, and may be said to embrace 
 four centuries ; but the earlier centuries supply little information beyond, 
 what we have obtained, and in so far as the hydrography of the country is 
 concerned the historic period of its hydrology may be said to embrace little 
 more than the last fifty years. 
 
 It. is customary to speak of the Cape of Good Hope as having been 
 discoyered by Bartholomew Diaz, the Portuguese navigator. Of him it is 
 said that, , " After having traced nearly a thousand miles of new country, 
 and endured innumerable hardships, he at length came in sight of the Cape 
 which terminates South Africa ; but he proceeded no further, fancying that 
 he had arrived at the boundary of the earth ; and being intimidated with 
 the darkness and tempests with which he was surrounded, on account of 
 the heavy gales which he experienced he gave it the name of ' Odbo des 
 totos.Tormentos,' or the Cape of Storms ; which was subsequently exchanged 
 by John II. of Portugal for ' Gabo du Buonne Esperance,' or Cape of Good 
 Hope, from the prospect which it afforded him of opening a maritime path to 
 India." It may be that at that time the country was in a condition such 
 as we have pictured ! 
 
 But there are much earlier records of South Africa than is thus supplied. 
 According to Herodotus, the Phoenicians circumnavigated the continent of 
 Africa in the time of Pharaoh Necho, or about 600 e.g. Fourteen hundred 
 years thereafter, a.d. 800, we find the coast of South Africa known to the 
 Arabs,, as far south as Delagoa Bay, in latitude 28°, which bay was by them 
 called Dugutha. In 1480 Sofala was visited by a Portuguese from 
 Abyssmia — Pedrao Cavalliao — and in 1484 Diego Cam, a Portuguese 
 
HISTOBIO PBBIOD. 103 
 
 (Sii^am, and Behem of Nttremburg reached 22'' south latitude, and erected 
 a cross on Cape Padrone, or Cape Cross, near Walvisch Bay. 
 
 In 1486 Bartholomew Diaz planted a cross on Sierra Parda, in 24° south 
 latitude, a few miles south of the present Sandwich harbour ; landed at Cape 
 Voltas, to the south of the Orange Eiver, now Alexander Bay ; rounded the 
 Cape without seeing it, and landed in Angra des Vaqueino. On i4th 
 September of that year he landed and planted a cross on St Croix Island, in 
 Algoa Bay, and he penetrated as far east as the Great Pish Eiver- — which he 
 calls after one of his captains Eio del Infante — and it was on his return 
 voyage homewards that he sighted the Cape. 
 
 After the discovery of the Cape by Bartholomew Diaz it was next visited 
 by Vasco de Gama on a subsequent voyage of discovery. He too had his 
 troubles. " It was on the 8th July 1497 that Gama left the Tagus, and 
 his voyage was extremely tempestuous.. During any gloomy interval of the 
 Storm the sailors, wearied out with fatigue, surrounded their commander 
 and implored him to return homewards. But Gama's resolution was 
 unalterable ; and having suppressed a formidable conspiracy against 
 himself, in which all the pilots were ringleaders, he, with his brother and a 
 steady band of adherents, stood night and day at the helm. And on the 
 twentieth of November hope was turned to fruition Vasco de Gama 
 rounded the Cape which had long been the boundary of navigation. 
 Soon after this event the King of Portugal despatched ships with orders 
 to touch there, which they did; but, fearful of approaching the mainland, 
 they anchored near Robben Island, which is at the entrance to Table Bay, 
 and proceeded from thence with their boat to see the natives." 
 
 In 1497, on November 7, Vasco de Gama landed in St Helena Bay, 
 where he was wounded in the leg by the natives while he was taking the 
 altitude of the sun ; on the 19th he doubled the Cape on his way to India ; 
 on December 25 he discovered the coast of Natal, to which that name was 
 given in consideration of its having been discovered on the natal day of our 
 Saviour; and he explored the east coast as far as Melinda, — including 
 Delagoa Bay, Quillimane, and Mozambique. The first-named place was by 
 him called Aguaido de Boa Pax. 
 
 In the same year the Portuguese Rio del Infante, then an Admiral, 
 landed in Table Bay. 
 
 In 1499 Vasco de Gama, on his return voyage, landed at Mossel Bay, 
 called then Angra San Bias ; and in that year Bartholomew Diaz perished 
 off the Cape in a ship of a fleet under Pedro Alvarez. 
 
 In 1500 the Portuguese began to form settlements on the west coast of 
 Angola, and Pedro Alvarez Cabral landed at Mossel Bay. 
 
 Equally numerous are the notices of the landing of European navigators 
 on different parts of the coast of South Africa in subsequent years. Fain 
 would I learn in what state they found the country in regard to lakes and 
 forests ! I cannot ; but this I have learned, that in some of the earliest 
 notices we have of the eastern coast it is spoken of as "a veritable ^TVrro; 
 del Fuego "; and from this I draw inferences which I shall afterwards state. 
 
 It was not till upwards of a hundred and fifty years after this — viz., in 
 1652 — that possession of the country was taken by the Dutch East India 
 Company, and a fort was erected under the direction of Jan van Eiebeck, who 
 had previously visited the country, and to whom was entrusted the govern- 
 ment of the infant settlement ; and it was not until about a hundred and 
 fifty years later that it came into the hands of the British. In 1796 it 
 
104 HTDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 came into their possession by capitulation ; in 1801 it was restored to the 
 Batavian Government ; and in January 1806 it again became British by 
 capitulation. Since this time well nigh three-quarters of a century have 
 passed away, and it is only of late years that we have learned anything of 
 the drying up of lakes. From all of the records of these events to which* 
 I have had access we learn nothing of the former hydrographic condition of 
 the country, and it is not until we come to our own day that we find this 
 matter of observation and testimony. What we have learned may be little, 
 but it is significant and suggestive. 
 
 Dr Moffat has graphically described the effects of aridity of soil and 
 atmosphere, witnessed and experienced by him on his coming to Africa, as 
 Mr Campbell and others had done before him ; and he mentions that "on his 
 settlement some years later at Latakoo, in 1821, the natives were wont to 
 tell of the floods of ancient times, the incessant showers which clothed the 
 very rocks with verdure, and the giant trees and forests which once studded 
 the brows of the Hamhan hills and neighbouring jjlains. They boasted of 
 the Kuriman and other rivers with their impassable torrents, in which the 
 hippopotami played, while the lowing herds walked to their necks in grass 
 filling their mahuhas (milk sacks) with milk, making every heart to sing for 
 joy." And he incidentally, again and again, supplies testimony confirmatory 
 of their testimony that such had been the case ; while he also supplies 
 testimony of the progress of the desiccation extending over the fifty years 
 of his residence and labours in the country, and so diminishing the fiow of 
 rivers that the country was more arid when he left it than when he came. 
 
 Mr Chapman, in narrating to me what he saw on the journey he made 
 from Natal to the Victoria Falls, describing the country througli which he 
 passed before reaching the Botletlie Kiver, stated that to the eastward of 
 the route by which he crossed the eastern extremity of the Kalihara desert 
 the country is covered with open grassy plains, in which are extensive salt- 
 pans, from which, in many cases, the water has dried up, leaving only a 
 thick encrustation of salt on the surface of the ground, and in other cases, 
 though containing water, presenting the appearance of thousands of tons of 
 beautiful salt on and towards the margin. One discovered by him in 1853, 
 and marked in accordance with his discription in Hall's Mass of the district, 
 it took him several days to travel round. Yet within the memory of men 
 then living in the district this was a pool of water connected with the 
 Botletlie river. As it dried, thousands of fish, from time to time, were left 
 to perish, and for months the vultures hovered about unable to devour all 
 that had died. 
 
 Livingstone, by graphic sketches of what he saw on his expedition to the 
 Zambesi, and of what he inferred from what he saw must lia\-o been the 
 former level of the waters through extensive regions of that district, has 
 enabled us to feel as if we were looking upon the scene — both as it now is, 
 as it must have been ; and references made by him to baobabs of gigantic 
 size tell that that past must have been anterior to the present by a period 
 equal at least to the age of the baobabs, if not greater, for these baobabs 
 could not have grown in the bottom of a lake. 
 
 The supposition of Dr Livingstone, was that these lakes were drained of 
 in a great measure by the Zambesi. 
 
 To the south of the high-land, constituting the water shed south of the 
 Zambesi, in the longtitude of the falls, is a portion of the Madeuisana desert, 
 
IIISTOBIC PEBIOD. 105 
 
 which was described to me by Mr Chapman as characterised by springs and 
 fountains found at some little depth in the sand, and presenting an appearance 
 suggestive of the waters from the upper country having at one time 
 drained off through this level as well as through the valley of the Zambesi, 
 and left lines of vleies in which, under the surface of the sand now filling 
 them, water is obtained, but all the water which fiUed, while flowing over, 
 the district is now only a thing of the past. 
 
 In the account given by Dr Livingstone of his second voyage up the 
 Shire, in 1859, he says, — " As we ascended we passed a deep stream about 
 thirty yards wide, flowing in from a body of open water several miles broad. 
 Numbers of men were busy at -different parts of it filling their canoes with 
 the lotus root, called Nyika, which, when boiled or roasted, resembles our 
 chestnuts, and is extensively used in Africans' food. Out of this lagoon, 
 and by this stream, the chief part of the duckweed of the Shire flows. The 
 lagoon itself is called Nyanja ea Motope (Lake of Mud). It is also named 
 Nyanja Pangono (Little Lake), while the elephant marsh goes by the name 
 of Nyanja Mukulu (Great Lake). It is evident from the shore-line still to 
 be observed on the adjacent hiUs that in ancient times these were really 
 lakes ; and the traditional names thus preserved are only another evidence 
 of the general desiccation which Africa has undergone ; which is even now 
 going on there, and has already been accomplished in other parts of 
 the district." 
 
 Dr Livingstone describes a salt-pan to the west of Ngami, called Ntetwe, 
 the width of which he estimated at ten miles, and its probable length at 
 a hundred ; and south of it is the still larger pan discovered by Mr J. 
 Chapman. 
 
 The whole of these large surfaces, says Hall, are generally perfectly dry, 
 and covered with reeds. 
 
 Within the Colony is a salt-pan, in Bushmanland, known as the Com- 
 missioners' Pan, described by Hall as a shallow basin with a circuit of 
 eighteen or twenty mUes, its surface generally dry and covered with a 
 crust of salt. 
 
 " Many of the rivers and fountains in Great Namaqualand, Bushmanland, 
 and the Kalihari country, permanent in the recollections of many now living, 
 have," says Hall in his Manual of South African Geography, " been dry for 
 years. Livingstone tells us that the water supply of the Lake Gnami takes 
 place in channels prepared for a far more copious flow. It resembles a 
 deserted eastern garden, where all the embankments and canals for irriga- 
 tion can be traced ; but where the main dam and sluices being allowed to get 
 out of repair, only a small portion can be got under water. When Sebituane 
 the Makololo chief passed through the Kalihari desert, about the year 1820, 
 the Sarotli fountain was a large pan of water ; the burnt up and gaping 
 Makoko, in the remembrance of many living, was a flowing stream ; and the 
 fountain at Kurumangve, when Mr Moffat settled there, gave a much more 
 copious supply than it does at present. Many deep pools formerly existed 
 in the Kuruman and Malapo rivers, now long dried up ; and it would also 
 appear that in general the fountains of the Nieuwe-Veld, Winter Veld, and 
 Midden Veld, or the country forming the northern slope of the great moun- 
 tain range, have been getting for years weaker." 
 
 The passage in which Dr Livingstone speaks of the appearance of the 
 vicinity of the Gnami in the manner cited is the account given by him of 
 his visit to the lake with Messrs Oswell and Murray, on the first of August 
 
 N 
 
106 HYDBOLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 1849. The account given by him is as follows : — " Twelve days after our 
 departure from the waggons at Ngabisane, we came to the northeast end of 
 Lake Gnami; and on the first of August 1849 we went down together to 
 the broad part, and, for the first time, this fine looking sheet of water was 
 beheld by Europeans. The direction of the lake seems to be N.N.E. and 
 S.S.W. by compass. The southern portion is said to bend round to the 
 west, and to receive the Teoughe from the north at its northeast extremity 
 We could detect no horizon where we stood looking S.S.W., nor could we 
 form any idea of the extent of the lake, except from the reports of the 
 inhabitants of the district ; and as they profess to go round it in three days, 
 allowing twenty-five miles a-day, this would make it seventy-five, or less than 
 seventy geographical miles in circumference. Other guesses have been 
 made since as to its circumference, ranging between seventy and one 
 hundred miles. It is shallow, for I subsequently saw a native punting his 
 canoe over seven or eight miles of the northeast end; it can never, therefore, 
 be of much value as a commercial highway. In fact, during the months 
 preceding the annual supply of water from the north, the lake is so shallow 
 that it is with difficulty cattle can approach the water through the boggy, 
 reedy banks. These are low on all sides, but on the west there is a space 
 devoid of trees, showing that the waters have retired thence at no very 
 ancient date. This is another of the proofs of desiccation met with so 
 abundantly throughout the whole country. A number of dead trees lie on 
 this space, some of them imbedded in the mud, right in the water. We 
 were informed by the Bayeiye, who live on the lake, that when the annual 
 inundation begins, not only trees of great size, but antelopes, as the 
 springbock and tsessebe (acvonotus lunataj, are swept down by its rushing 
 waters. The trees are gradually driven by the wind to the opposite side, 
 and become imbedded in mud. 
 
 " The water of the lake is perfectly fresh when full, but brackish when 
 low ; and that coming down the Tanunak'le we found to be so clear, cold, 
 and soft, the higher we ascended, that the idea of melting snow was sugges- 
 ted to our minds. We found this region, with regard to that from which 
 we had come, to be clearly a hollow, the lowest point being lake Kumadau ; 
 the point of the ebullition of water, as shown by one of Newman's barometric 
 thermometers, was only between 207 J° and 206°, giving an elevation of not 
 much more than 2000 feet above the level of the sea. We had descended 
 above 2000 fee* in coming to it from Kolobeng. It is the southern and 
 lowest part of the great river system beyond, in which large tracts of 
 country are inundated annually by tropical rains, hereafter to be described. 
 A little of that water which in the countries further north produces inunda- 
 tion comes as far south as 20° 20', the latitude of the upper end of the 
 lake, and instead of flooding the country falls into the lake as into a 
 reservoir. It begins to flow down the Embarrah, which divides into the 
 rivers Tzo and Teoughe. The Tzo divides into the Tamunak'le and 
 Mababe ; the Tamunak'le discharges itself into the Zouga ; and the Teoughe 
 into the lake. The flow begins either in March or April, and the descending 
 waters find the channels of all these rivers dried out, except in certain pools 
 in their beds, which have long dry spaces between them. The lake itself 
 is very low. The Zonga is but a prolongation of the Tamunak'le, and an 
 arm of the lake reaches up to the point where the one ends and the other 
 begins. This last is narrow and shallow, while the Zonga is broad and 
 deep. The narrow arm of the lake, which on the map looks like a continua- 
 
HISTORIC PERIOD. 
 
 107 
 
 tion of the Zonga, has never been observed to flow either way. It is as 
 stagnant as the lake itself. 
 
 " The Teoughe and the Tamunak'le being essentially the same river, and 
 receiving their supplies from the same source (the Embarrah or Varra), can 
 never outrun each other. If either could, or if the Teoughe could iill the 
 lake — a thing which has never happened in modern times — ^then this little 
 arm would prove a convenient escapement to prevent inundation. If the 
 lake ever becomes lower than the bed of the Zonga, a little of the water of 
 the Tamunak'le might flow into it, instead of down the Zonga. We should 
 then have the phenomenon of a river flowing two ways ; but this has never 
 been observed to take place here, and it is doubtful if it ever can occur in 
 this locality. The Zonga is broad and deep where it leaves the Tamunak'le, 
 but becomes gradually narrower as you descend about 200 miles ; there it 
 flows into the Kumadau, a small lake about three or four miles broad and 
 twelve long. The water which, higher up, begins to flow in April, does not 
 make much progress in filling this lake till the end of June. In September 
 the rivers cease to flow. When the supply has been more than usually 
 abundant, a little water flows beyond Kumadau, in the bed first seen by us 
 on the 4th of July ; if the quantity were larger it might go further in the 
 dry rocky bed of the Zonga', since seen still further to the east. The water 
 supply of this part of the river system, . . . takes place in channels 
 for a much more copious flow. It resembles a deserted eastern garden, 
 wh«re all the embankments and canals for irrigation can be traced, but 
 where — the main dam and sluices having been allowed to get out of repair — ■ 
 only a small portion can be laid under water. In the case of the Zonga the 
 ehannel is perfect, but water enough to- fill the whole channel never comes 
 down ; and before it finds its way much beyond Kumadau the upper supply 
 ceases to run, and the rest becomes evaporated. The higher parts of its 
 bed even are much broader and more capacious than the lower towards 
 Kumadau. The water is not absorbed so much as lost in filling up an 
 empty channel, from which it is to be removed by the air and sun. There 
 is, I am convinced, no such thing in the country as a river running into 
 sand and becoming lost. This phenomenon, so convenient for geographers, 
 haunted my fancy for years ; but I have failed in discovering anything 
 except a most insignificant approach to it." 
 
 According to the statements of others, the situation of the lake Gnami, 
 determined of course by the part at which the observation was made, is 
 given as lat. 20° 40", and long. 23° east. It is said to be at an elevation, 
 above the level of the sea, of 3713 feet ; to be about fifty miles long ; and 
 of an average breadth of eight or ten miles. It was visited by Mr F. Green, 
 who found the depth of the centre to be only six feet, and with difficulty 
 could he push a boat of light draught through its shoals ; and now its depth 
 seems to be stiU less. 
 
 I first heard of the lake in 1845, and what I heard was of natives from 
 a distance having visited it and been confounded on seeing men of the 
 locality fleeing from them, disappear in its waters, and afterwards reappear 
 on the shore beyond ; a fact, if a fact it was, suggestive of its having been a 
 lake of depth sufficient to allow of a man swimming in its waters, if not, 
 •of a depth so great as to prevent him wading across, which is in accordance 
 with the statement of Mr Green. By Mr Chapman I was told of its having 
 been visited by him in 1864, and that then nowhere was it of a depth 
 which would bring its waters above the knee of a wader. 
 
lUS HTDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFEICA. 
 
 Dr Livingstone tells of the indications of its greater extent at a former 
 day than its extent when visited by him and his fellow travellers. In 
 accordance with this I have been told that at a considerable distance from 
 its present shores there are what by a little stretch of language may be 
 called mines of ivory and bones, the remains of animals which, coming there 
 to drink, have there perished, probably killed by beasts of prey. The earth 
 covering these appears to have been deposited over these remains from sus- 
 pension in water, and this indicates that so far at least the lake then 
 extended. 
 
 Thus are we enabled to connect the distant past with the present, and 
 trace the dessication from pre-adamic times to the present, and to see going 
 on in remote regions what had occiirred, in the land now colonised by Euro- 
 peans, ages before. 
 
 In a paper read before more than one of the Scientific Societies of Britain, 
 amongst others, before a meeting of the Koyal Geographical Society, on 
 the 15th March 1865, which the author has placed at my service, there 
 occur the following statements on this subject: — "A very noticeable' 
 physical fact, which has of late years attracted considerable attention from 
 residents in South Africa, is the gradual drying-up of large tracts of country 
 in the Trans-'Gariep. That great expanse of wilderness, called the 
 K&lih&n, remarkable for few inhabitants, little water, and considerable 
 vegetation, seems to be gaining in extent, gradually swallowing up large 
 portions of the habitable country on its confines, and slowly, but surely, 
 assimilating their fertile character to its own sterile one. It has become 
 matter of notoriety that springs, which a few years ago supplied a sufiSicient 
 quantity of fluid to irrigate considerable breadths of garden and field, have 
 diminished in their flow and dwindled away, causing the migration of the 
 inhabitants to a more favourable dwelling-place ; while desert sucking-places 
 and well-filled pools, such as that of Serotli, described by Livingstone, are 
 at present either completely dry, or afford only a small quantity of liquid 
 after much digging, where formerly existed a large piece of water. 
 
 "At Lop6pe and other places on the road to Lake 'Ngami this is the 
 case, as well as at Tunobis in Damaraland, and elsewhere ; but it is most 
 conspicuous in the territory of the Bakwain tribes, in which, as one of the 
 many evidences of the growing desiccation of the country, streams, e.g. the 
 Mahalapi River, that at Lppelole and at Porapora Pass, are pointed out 
 where thousands and thousands of cattle formerly drank, but in which 
 water never now flows, and where a single herd could not find fluid for its 
 support. 
 
 " When Mr Mofiat first attempted a settlement at the Kurtiman forty 
 years ago, he made a dam six or seven miles below the present one, and led 
 out the stream for irrigation, where not a drop of the fountain water ever 
 now flows ; and other parts, fourteen miles below the Ktiruman gardens, are 
 pointed out as having contained, within the memory of people now living, 
 hippopotami and pools sufi&cient to drown both men and cattle. 
 
 " The fountain at Griqua Town, which a few years ago yielded a sufficiency 
 of water to irrigate four square miles of corn and garden ground, has of late 
 years and in the most marked manner diminished its supplies, almost ceas- 
 ing to flow, and occasioning the emigration of many of the Dutch-speaking 
 inhabitants to other and more fertile localities not subject to the absence 
 of moisture. 
 
 " As this (^minution of water has been coincident with the failure of 
 
HISTOKIC PERIOD. 109 
 
 fountains over a wide extent of territory in Buohuanaland, it is evident that 
 from some cause, more or less obscure, a great change in the exterTud physical 
 characteristics of the entire region between the Orange and the 'Ngami Lake has 
 taken place since the country was first explored by Europeans. 
 
 " This great change has not, however, been confined to the comparatively 
 short space of time during which missionaries have been in the country. 
 On the contrary, the traditions of the natives point to more remote periods, 
 when the country was far more fertile and much better watered than at 
 present — when the Kuriiman and other rivers, with their impassable 
 torrents, were something to boast of Moffat says that accounts of iloods 
 of ancient times, of incessant showers which clothed the very rocks with 
 verdure, and of the existence of giant trees and forests which once covered 
 the brows of the Hamhana Hills, are wont to be related by garrulous elders 
 to the utter astonishment of their younger listeners. In those ancient days 
 the lowing herds walked up to their necks in grass, and filling their owners' 
 milk-sacks with rich milk, made every heart to sing for joy. 
 
 " But, independent of this oral and traditional testimony, travellers have 
 before their eyes, in the immense number of stumps and roots of enormous 
 trunks of the Acacia giraffsea, where now scarcely a single living specimen is 
 to be seen raising its stately head above the shrubs, and in the ancient 
 beds of the.dried-up rivers Matlaurin, Mashaua, Molapo, and others, positive 
 demonstration of the departed former fertility of the lands of the Beohuana 
 nation. In fact the whole country north of the Orange River, and lying east 
 of the KaUhAri Desert, presents to the eye of a European, to use the words 
 of the missionary just quoted, ' something like an old neglected garden or 
 field.' " 
 
 The statement is made preparatory to a statement of the conclusions to 
 which the writer (Mr J. F. Wilson) has come in regard to the cause of this 
 desiccation of the land : these conclusions will afterwards be cited ; but at 
 present we have under consideration the state of the country. Having 
 made the remark that we must seek reasons for the continued spread of 
 drought in the physical characteristics of the Gariepine Basin itself, and in 
 some of the customs of its inhabitants, he goes on to say, " In the first place, 
 the countries drained by the Great River are naturally arid, both from their 
 interior position and from the interposition of the Quathlamba Mountains 
 between them and the Indian Ocean, whence the chief supplies of rain are 
 evaporated. It will be necessary, therefore, to speak here of the three 
 meteorological zones into which South Africa may be divided, and at the 
 same time give a description of the different sections into which the 
 'Gariepine territories are apportioned by recent writers. The meteorological 
 divisions may be regarded as three zones of climate (Livingstone) : the 
 eastern, comprehending Zulu-land, Natal, Independent and British 
 Kaffraria ; the central, comprising a portion of the elevated Central Basin 
 of the continent, and divided from the eastern by the Drakensberg, Malutis, 
 and other ranges ; and the western, including the K^Uh^ri Proper, the 
 wastes of Namaqualand^ and the wilds of Bushmanland — the latter situated 
 to the south of the Orange River. 
 
 " The first of these, which may be called the zone of the Kaffirs, is pro- 
 nounced by travellers to be decidedly fertile. It is covered with evergreen 
 succulent trees, occasional extensive forests, and gigantic timber. The zone 
 is comparatively well watered by numerous streams, and has a considerable 
 annual rainfall. 
 
110 HTDEOLOGT OP SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 " The second, or zone of the Bechuana, consists for the most part of 
 rolling plains or arid prairies, with but few fountains, fewer permanent 
 rivers, and forests (if such they may he called) gradually diminishing to a 
 final destruction, which from present appearances cannot long be delayed. 
 Rain here, as a rule, is far from abundant ; irrigation is absolutely necessary 
 to raise European grain, and droughts are of frequent occurrence. 
 
 " The third,' or zone of the Namaquas and Bushmen, sterile and barren in 
 the extreme, is dependent upon thunderstorms alone for the rain, which 
 rushes down its periodical rivers or supplies the vegetation of its deserts. 
 
 " The prevailing winds of most of the country thus divided are from the 
 northeast. Heavily laden with vapour from the Indian Ocean, the clouds, 
 under the influence of these easterly currents, are driven over the Zulu 
 territory, JNatal, and Kaffirland, watering those lands luxuriantly ; but when 
 the moisture-bearing nimbi arrive at the peaks of the mounl!ain ranges, not 
 only have they parted with a large proportion of their water, but they are 
 then on the edge of the more arid central basin, and begin to meet with the 
 influences of the heated and naked plains, under the radiation from the 
 surface of which, and in an increasing degree as the Bechuana tribes are 
 past and the KAMh^i is reached, the clouds rise higher above the earth, the 
 moisture evaporates in a thinner vapour, and as a consequence fewer 
 showers fall upon the hot thirsty soil beneath. 
 
 " The further we journey from the Drakensberg eastwards, the greater 
 becomes this diminution of water. 
 
 " Leaving the mountains, the Lesuto or Basuto land, as it is frequently 
 called, is, without doubt, the best-watered portion of the central meteoro- 
 logical district, mainly, it is presumed, on account of its being intersected 
 by the Malutis range. Towards this important section of country, from 
 November to April, the northeast winds blow from the shores of Mozam 
 bique and the delta of the Zambesi immense masses of cloud, which sweep 
 heavily over the earth, darkening the sky, and preceded in their course by 
 dreadful peals of thunder. On reaching the high land, the aerial lake is 
 shut in by the huge table-headed mountains ; as a consequence, a rapid con 
 densation takes place, and then a veritable deluge ensues. In a few 
 moments cataracts rush from the mountain heights, the smallest and most 
 thread-like rivulets are transformed into torrents, and the rivers, over- 
 flowing their banks, cover the plains : this sometimes lasts for days together 
 (Casalis). It is from the accumulation of these waters that the Lekoa, the 
 Caledon, and many other tributaries of the great Orange River, which with 
 slow and majestic course flow to the westward across the vast plains of the 
 centre of South Africa, take their rise. As the mountains, however, merge 
 into the plains, and these again into the K41Ah^ri, we are reminded by the 
 gradually diminishing rivers of the continual aridity of the soil, till we 
 reach Great Namaqualand, where the occurrence of periodic^ly filled water- 
 courses again testifies to the descent of rain. 
 
 " In this latter district, however, as well as in the desert, rain falls only 
 from thunder-clouds. These rise from the northeast, and are always hailed 
 with delight by the inhabitants of those parched and burning regions ; but 
 they are partial in the distribution of their precious treasure, the storms 
 frequently passing over with tremendous voilence, striking both European 
 and native with awe at their terrific grandeur, while hot a particle of rain 
 descends to cool and fructify the barren waste. There is something terribly 
 sublime in a real Namaqualand or K&l-ih&ri thunder-storm. The air becomes 
 
HISTORIC PERIOD. 
 
 Ill 
 
 sultry and oppressive to an unnsual degree ; the whole animated creation is 
 silent as death ; not a breath of wind is perceptible. Low down the horizon 
 a dense black cloud emits a faint rumbling, which momentarily becomes 
 louder and louder, while the threatening mass, ever increasing, gradually 
 rises, lighted up with the quick flashes of forked lightning. At 
 leng-th a cloud of dust approaches, a storm of wind rushes over the plain, 
 overturning trees,, .uprooting bushes, and sweeping everything before it in 
 its tumultuous course ; a few large spattering drops are heard, and then, 
 with the almost simultaneous blinding glare of lightning and deafening 
 crash of thunder, torrents of mingled hair and rain descend. In a few 
 minutes the country is flooded ; currents of turbid water, half-a-mile wide, 
 roar through a ravine which has not shown a drop of water for years pre- 
 viously, rivulets flow where one would think water had never run before, 
 and the ear is charmed with the sweet strains of a long-silent music. 
 Perhaps in less than an hour the cloud has passed over, and may be seen 
 speeding onwards to pour out its treasures over many a sunburnt plain and 
 parched mountain. 
 
 " Barren, Burnt up, and roasted by the sun as are the desolate territories 
 in the western meteorological zone, there are few spots, nevertheless, even 
 in the K4Uh4ri Proper, which are covered with shifting sands, or are wholly 
 destitute of vegetation. Even large trees are occasionally to be met with ; 
 and some of the periodical rivers of Namaqualand and the Cis-'Gariepine 
 plateaux, in which water seldom flows, may be traced in their winding 
 courses by the mimosa and camel-thorn trees that thinly line their banks. 
 The parched and arid plains of a lai^e portion of the northern division of 
 the British Colony support sheep on the thin sprinkling of grass and ice- 
 plants which covers them ; and undoubtedly the alpaca and the camel might 
 here be introduced with advantage both to commerce and the highest 
 interests of the native tribes. In fact, however barren and quasi-desert the 
 different sections of the 'Gariepine Basin may be, there are none which do 
 not support countless hosts of wild animals fitted by Providence for dwelling 
 in droughty countries ; and the presence, wherever water can be found, of 
 the wandering Bushman and Molala (poor Mochuana), the lean Mok^lAh^i, 
 the stupid Koranna, and avaricious Namaqua, who make up the sum of the 
 desert's human inhabitants, testifies that the great market of the world 
 mast derive some commodities even from its least inviting districts. Water, 
 however, in the shape of a fountain (sometimes hot in Namaqualand), a 
 sucking-place or subterraneous expanse of wet sand, generally in the bed of 
 a periodical or dried-up river, or a shallow desert pool (vley), is an absolute 
 necessity to the small communities which war, poverty, or choice, has led 
 to the wilderness. 
 
 " In those countries, generally remote from the sea, where the average 
 rainfall is but a few inches in the course of a year, the diminution of an 
 inch or two is felt with vpry much greater intensity than in those favoured 
 lands where the rainfall is more abundant. In arid countries similar to the 
 lands now under consideration, the revolution of the weather in cycles of 
 years is also much more marked than elsewhere. It follows, therefore, that 
 meteorologists find in such countries a sphere for their observations of the 
 greatest interest and importance as connected with the phenomena of drought. 
 In Britain, happily, a dry season conveys only an inadequate idea of drought ; 
 but in South Africa extreme droughts sometimes continue for whole years 
 together, reducing the natives to the direst misery, depriving them of their 
 
112 UYDHOLOOY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 scanty harvests, destroying their herds, and driving them from their honips 
 to wander in search of subsistence. 
 
 " During the year 1862, an unexampled and very widely-extended drought 
 prevailed throughout the Cape Colony, and made itself" felt far into the 
 tropical regions in the nciL^^h "!■('.■• I \ .^ *" u Or '. T . '-i^s. I'wnsYPry 
 
 severely felt in the Lesuto, which is a territory generally blessed with 
 abundant rains at stated periods. In this portion of the country, by the 
 month of November, no traces of vegetation remained, the vast grass plains 
 becoming mere sandy deserts from the excessive heat that prevailed. The 
 clouds which overcast the heavens, apparently laden with fertilising 
 treasure, if they would but part with it, seemed to mock at the hopes 
 of the inhabitants. They passed away with the wind which bore on 
 its wings thousands of tons of dry dust, gathered in its sweep over the 
 parched ground for miles and miles ; and which went on gathering and still 
 gathering over mountains and plains, until it reached the South Atlantic 
 and Indian Oceans, blasting and destroying vegetation on its way. The 
 largest streams, too, ceased to flow. The cattle died by thousands, and 
 famine began to appear throughout the land. Scarcely any crops could be 
 got into the ground. The sun scorched the earth with its fire, and the 
 rain-makers, whose assumed power over the elements had been nearly over- 
 thrown by the advance of Christianity and civilisation into these regions, 
 again attempted to re-establish their waning authority. The mighty Orange 
 Eiver could be stepped across by a child, and in its upper part at last ran 
 dry, exposing in its bed, near Hope Town, the remains of a waggon which 
 had been lost in a sudden flood while crossing the river some thirty years 
 before. At last, when articles of food had risen to extremely high figures, 
 breadstufis being higher in price than during the Kafiir war, and cabbages 
 selling at the rate of a penny the leaf at Colesberg, the heavens, whose 
 inexorable serenity had lasted more than a year, were covered with clouds, 
 and drops of rain were heard to fall upon the parched ground, soon to be 
 saturated with delightful showers. Although late in the season, the people 
 were enabled to sow a little corn, and by degrees the visitation passed away, 
 leaving behind it the remembrance of a dark dismal dispensation during the 
 continuance of which men's hearts failed them for fear, thousands losing 
 more than half their substance, and mxiltitudes looking forward to absolute 
 ruin and starvation." 
 
 It was at this time I returned to the Colony, after an absence of fifteen 
 years, and I found everywhere lamentations being made over the consequences 
 of the severe and long-continued drought, from which the community was 
 ihen suffering, though reviving hope was beginning to cheer the drooping 
 spirits of many. And several of the facts mentioned by Mr Wilson were 
 stated to me also in the localities in which they occurred, connecting the 
 ■ geological record of the past with its experiences and observations of the 
 actual present. 
 
 By a study of the physical geography of South Africa much may be 
 learned in regard to its former hydrographio condition ; by the consideration 
 of deductions which may be dra*n from geological observations which many 
 have made within the limits of the portions colonised by Europeans, much 
 may be learned in regard to the hydrographio condition of what is now eo 
 named in the earlier ages of the world's history ; by observations made by 
 these European colonists, and the comparison of these with what they have 
 
HISTORIC PBEIOD. 113 
 
 learned from the aboriginal, or at least earlier, inhabitants of the land, it 
 appears that the desiccation, which seems to be extreme, is a process which 
 has been- going on from earlier times until now, and which is still going on. 
 
 We have indications of the whole land having lain long covered deep by 
 what may have been a shoreless sea, but experiencing, it may be, changes 
 of temperature, causing it to hiss, and bubble, and boil, and rise in vapour, 
 ■ — as does the drop of water falling on the stove, — covering the heavens 
 above with blackness, and darkness, and cloud ; a sea, for ages limpid as 
 the waters of the ocean rising with a waveless tide ; for ages charged with 
 mud, dense as that of the waters of the Yellow river ; for ages placid 
 and motionless in its depths as the mirror-like lake in the mountain recess 
 by which it is sheltered and shielded from every wind that blows ; for ages 
 disturbed by ocean clirrents which cut deep into the ocean bed, making 
 valleys where erewhile it was a plain, and leaving mounds intact a mile in 
 height, to show to what a depth they have cut and planed away the ground 
 around. We have indications of portions rising or being raised above the 
 surface of the waste of waters, sometimes to be again submerged, and again 
 raised to be again submerged, but only to be raised again. We have indica- 
 tions of land thus raised having appeared, and it may have been for ages as 
 it slowly rose, as the land of a thousand isles, and passing by degrees, as 
 changes are effected in dissolving views, from a land of a thousand isles into 
 a land of a thousand lakes, and these, as time rolls on, emptied and dried 
 up, and converted into arid valleys and arid plains, and the whole converted 
 in extensive districts into a land in which there is no water. 
 
 And we can trace the latter progress of the desiccation subsequent to the 
 drainage and evaporation up to the present day from a period extending 
 as far back as that vaguely, but frequently, described as embraced by the 
 memory of man. 
 
114 HYDEOLOGY OF SOtJTH APRIOA, 
 
 PART II.-CAUSE OR OCCASION OF THE DESICCATION AND 
 ARIDITY OF SOUTH AFRICA, 
 
 The desiccation and consequent aridity of South Africa is attributable, 
 primarily and principally, to the draining off of the water, in consequence of 
 the elevation of the land above the level of the sea ; and secondarily, to the 
 evaporation of water and its subsequent dissipation in the atmosphere, 
 which evaporation has been promoted by the clearing away by man of 
 arborescent and herbaceous vegetation which otherwise might have retarded 
 the process. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRIMABY AND PEINOIPAL CAUSE OP THE DBSIOOATION AND OONSEQUBNT 
 ARIDITY OP SOUTH APBIOA. 
 
 In the hydrographic records which we have had under consideration, 
 we have found indications of the whole land having been, at one time, lying 
 deep in the bottom of the ocean, to which, like the fabled goddess of beauty, 
 it may trace its birth ; indications of its rising or having been raised, before 
 emergence, to near the level of the ocean's surface ; of portions of it rising 
 above that surface and looking out upon the waste of waters around ; of 
 either these portions, or other islands adjacent or not far distant, having 
 become clothed with vegetation — marine vegetation at a little below the 
 water's edge, and terrestrial vegetation of primitive forms on the land 
 beyond ; of extensive districts long after this remaining still under cover of 
 the ocean, or if they, too, had risen above that covering, of their having 
 been again submerged, and having remained submerged for ages; of 
 extensive districts rising above the ocean to a greater elevation, and some of 
 these either carrying with them in natural depressions portions of the ocean, 
 or retaining in similiar depressions water collected in them from the rising 
 ground around, and that for ages, till at length finding or making a way of 
 escape they returned to the mother Sea, leaving debris accumulated in 
 their basins as records of what had occurred during the continuance of their 
 existence as lakes or inland seas. And combined with these indications we 
 have met with indications of the recession of the waters having, from a very- 
 remote period, been the consequence of the land which was under the ocean 
 bed having been raised above the ocean level, the waters, in accordance 
 with the law of gravity, flowing off to that lower level. 
 
 To this relative elevation of the land we may attribute, primarily and 
 principally, the desiccation and consequent aridity of the land : this 
 elevation I attribute to an upheaval of the land : and this upheaval I 
 
PEIMABY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 
 
 115 
 
 attribute to a depression of the ocean bed elsewhere. In the caiise or 
 occasion of this depression may be found the original cause or occasion of 
 aU that has followed ; but the desiccation commenced only with the elevation 
 above the ocean's surface of the upheaved land, and therefore do I speak of 
 that elevation as the primary cause or occasion of the aridity, and I speak 
 of it as the primary and principal cause of this in reference to the evapora- 
 tion which has been going on ever since that elevation occurred, and which 
 is going on still, and to which may be attributed the completion of the work, 
 in carrying on the evaporation to the stage which has resulted in the degree 
 of aridity which now prevails. 
 
 To the consideration of this elevation of the land : its cause and its effects, 
 is this chapter confined. 
 
 I. The fact that the land is above the level of the sea is apparent — it is 
 unquestioned and unquestionable. That it has been elevated or upheaven 
 is not less a fact, but it is not so apparent. It is a fact, the eluoidatioi^ of 
 which is pertinent to the subject of this treatise ; but it is one which might 
 be discussed apart without detriment to the practical object of the treatise. 
 There are, however, advantages to be secured by its being discussed in con- 
 nection therewith ; and therefore is this done. 
 
 To whatever it may be attributable, the fact is demonstrable that there 
 is going on stiU, as heretofore, depressions and elevations of the fearth's 
 crust throughout extensive regions of the earth's surface. 
 
 Maps, representative of the regions thus aifected, may be found in Atlases 
 illustrative of physical geography. On reference to a map illustrative of 
 areas of subsidence and elevations in the southern oceans, engraved and 
 apparently prepared by Messrs A. W. & A. K. Johnston, of Edinburgh, as 
 an accompaniment to the late Professor Niool's work, entitled Thoughts on 
 some Important Points relating to the System of the World, the only map 
 bearing on the subject to which I have access while writing this, I find 
 that in the Indian Ocean throughout a region extending from 15° S. to over 
 15° N., and over about 20° of long., is a district of depression ; while along 
 the corresponding east coast of Africa — with the exception of a small portion 
 about 10° N. lat. where the elevation is stationary, and a small portion 
 about 20° N., or half-way up the Ked Sea, where it is being depressed: — the 
 coast and adjacent sea basin from the Mediterranean to beyond the 
 southern point of Madagascar is represented as an area of elevation ; as is also 
 that portion of India to the east of the area of subsidence, the Gulf of 
 Bengal and islands beyond, the elevation of which may be considered 
 correlated to the depression of the western portion of the Pacific and 
 Australia, and connected with the elevation of the eastern portion of the 
 Pacific and a large portion of the continent of America. 
 
 It is difficult to lift a full bowl without its overflowing ; and the 
 hypothesis offered almost necessitates with the supposition of one portion 
 being elevated to a greater height in a certain time than another the 
 supposition that an outflowing and draining off of a portion of the water 
 would be the consequence. A glance at Hall's map of South-Eastern 
 Africa shows, from the Kei northward to Delagoa Bay, a river system 
 exactly accordant to what may be seen in the runnels along an exposed mud 
 bank of a tidal river from which the ebb has withdrawn the life-like stream ; 
 and this is seen not only in the depicted courses of the rivers on the map, 
 but in the relative depths of the different river-beds, at the mouths of the 
 
116 HYDROLOGT OF SOUTH'" APEIOA. 
 
 rivers, and also at points nearer to their source ; and corresponding indications 
 of the declivity or rapid slope of many of the water-courses of the Colony of the 
 Cape of Good Hope are supplied by the rapidity or velocity of their currents. 
 
 When a river comes down there is a torrent where before there was, it 
 may be, a dry river-bed. Quickly does the water flow away, and in a day 
 or two, it may be, the stream is as it was before A measurement of the 
 altitude, above the level of the sea, of the upper part of the course, and a 
 measurement of the length of the river-bed, might have given the fall per 
 foot ; but not so impressive would a knowledge of the numbers be as is a 
 sight of the torrent in its might. In the appearance of the country we see 
 indications everywhere that the interior is far above the level of the coast, 
 and in the directness of the flow of the rivers referred to indications that 
 the upheaval must have occurred in what, compared with what is seen in 
 other countries, may be called comparatively recent times, or with com- 
 parative rapidity. 
 
 The river-courses on the eastern coast, as represented on the map, seem 
 to indicate a rapid slope from the foot of the mountains to the sea. We 
 see not the same thing in the rivers of the Cape Colony, and in the rivers 
 further to the north, but characteristic of aU of these are these torrents 
 which in some cases are the only thing about them which entitles them to 
 the name of river. To anyone 'acquainted with the Colony this needs only 
 to be mentioned to remind them of numerous cases. South Africa is not 
 the only Colony of which it is alleged that the rivers are .without water, 
 the flowers without fragrance, and the birds without song ; but such are its 
 privations, and travellers in the interior of the country tell of going miles, 
 it may be, up or down a water-course in quest of some pool or damp soil 
 which may encourage them to dig in hope of finding water a little way 
 below the surface. And there are water-courses within the Colony almost 
 equally dry, it may be for months, perhaps for years, which at times are 
 found filled from bank to bank with a torrent tearing along. All which 
 speaks the greatness of the declivity towards the sea. 
 
 In Europe rivers are said to rise : the body of water flowing along gradually 
 increases in bulk tiU it flows a swollen torrent. In South Africa the rivers 
 are not said to rise : they do not swell : the terms are inapplicable to what 
 is seen in them, and they are not employed. There the rivers are said to 
 come down-^and the rivers do indeed do so, — coming down a body of water, 
 it may be, breast high ; and in a short time, in the dry channel, or channel 
 of a stream a few inches deep, may be seen a torrent twelve, twenty, thirty 
 feet in depth, tearing along as if for life — racing as if seeking to flee from 
 ten thousand foes in hot pursuit. Seldom does a year pass without notices 
 appearing in the colonial journals of some unfortunate party, who had 
 encamped for the night in the river bed, being swept away, or if they escaped, 
 escaped with their waggons and all its contents swept away to the deep ; 
 and accounts of what seemed like hair-breadth escapes are numerous. 
 
 The directness of the river course may be less apparent in the river 
 system of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope than in the Transkie terri- 
 tory ; but here we may see better how, on the assumption of such gradual 
 upheaval, throughout what appears an older country, though composed of 
 strata of perhaps an earlier formation, the upheaval operates. Here it is 
 less a slope than an intricate system of valleys — independent, or connected, 
 or inter-penetrating each other — ^but often showing by their contour where, 
 and there indicating how, the waters were drained off. 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 117 
 
 In some oases it would seem as if overflowing, it may be gently, tlie 
 lower portion of the basin, they had gradually fretted this away, until now 
 only traces of it can be found. 
 
 Thus does it appear to have been thg case with the basin to a large 
 sheet of water at Colesberg ; and thus may it have been with the outlet 
 by which was drained off the waters of the Dicynodon, or reptilian, basin in 
 the Orange River free state, examined by Dr Rubidge, in consequence of gold 
 having been found there. An extensive district in the vicinity of Graaffreinet 
 may also have been drained in a similar way. Of this Dr Rubidge remarks 
 in a paper on irrigation and tree-planting, which appeared in the volume 
 entitled The Cape and its People, that a wall just above Graaffreinet, 200 yards 
 long and 600 feet high, would form a lake nearly as large as Derwentwater ; 
 and the river (the Sunday) might be led over a neck, deprived of its load of 
 silt and shorn of its destructive and unmanageable impetus, to fertilise the 
 great plain bounded by the Oamdebo and Tantjesberg mountains. 
 
 In the geological observations which have come under consideration in a 
 previous chapter, not only have we had indications of successive depressions 
 and upheavals of land, but mention has been made of dykes, cracks, or 
 rents in the strata, filled with material different from that of which the 
 strata were composed. These cracks or rents tell of breakages in the crust 
 of the earth, occurruag, most probably, in connection with these changes of 
 level. And in some places in the Cape Colony, and in places beyond it, it 
 almost seems as if some rent, occasioned by the breakage of the sheet of 
 land in its more rapid upheaval at one place than its weight or attachment 
 at another would allow, had allowed a speedy escape of retained waters. 
 
 Thus may it have iDeen with the emptying of a lake covering the 
 site and adjacent district of Montague, by Cogman's Kloof, while the rent 
 extended towards the warm spring about a mile further inland. It would 
 require careful consideration of all the appearances presented by the fissure, 
 or at least of many of these, and of much besides, to justify a declaration 
 either that it was, or that it was not so ; but enough is known by me of 
 these to warrant a reference to these kloofs in illustration of what is alleged. 
 
 In some cases an opening so produced may have extended but a little 
 way below the surface of the stream ; but by some such process as that by 
 which the Niagara has made for itself a bed from Lake Ontario to the Falls, 
 may the river-bed have been lowered and levelled at a period so remote in 
 the past that the weathering of the confining rocks — after, by the under- 
 mining and removal of lower-lying portions, they had fallen into the angle 
 of repose — has given them the appearance of a hoar antiquity. Thus may 
 it have been with the Tulbagh Kloof and the Dunkel Kloof, referred to 
 again only for illustration. 
 
 More illustrations, and these perhaps more striking illustrations of the 
 same things — the emptying of lakes or of inland seas, the pouring of water 
 into rents or cracks, and the creating of courses for themselves there, all 
 connected with the upheaval of the land and illustrative of the dessication 
 thus carried on — are supplied by the narratives of travel in lands furthe* 
 to the north, given to us by Livingstone and others. Some of these I shall 
 quote in extenso, as I wish to give to my readers definite ideas of the 
 resulting phenomena. 
 
 The observations made by Dr Livingstone and his associates, in the dis- 
 trict of the Zambesi, have made us acquainted with terrestrial operations 
 
118 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFBIOA. 
 
 going on even now, and, within a period not very remote from the present, 
 similar to what are indicated by appearances, presented in many districts 
 within the colony of the Cape of Good Hape, as having occurred there at a 
 time, it is impossible to say how long before. 
 
 One of the rivers ascended, and that oftener than once, by that intrepid 
 traveller on his expedition to the Zambesi was the Shire. 
 
 The upper Shire is apparently less a river than a prolongation of the 
 Nyassa — a lake 200 miles .long, at places 50 or 60 miles broad, and of 
 unfathomed depth, for a line of 35 fathoms did not reach to the bottom. 
 
 The lower Shire^ for 200 miles above its confluence with the Zambesi,, 
 follows in peaceful tranquility what appear to be interminable windings. 
 But these two portions of the Shire are separated by tremendous cataracts. 
 
 Of these cataracts of the Shire, Dr Livingstone writes : — " They begin in 
 15° 20' S., and end in lat. 15° 55' S. The difi'erence in latitude is, there- 
 fore, 35'. The river runs in this space nearly north and south till we pass 
 Malango ; so the entire distance is under forty miles. The principal cata- 
 racts are five in number ; and are called Pamofunda or Pamozima, Morewa, 
 Panoreba or Tetzane, Pampatainanga, and Pape Kira. Besides these, three 
 or four smaller ones might be mentioned. While these lesser cataracts 
 descend at an angle of scarcely 20°, the greater fall 100 feet in 100 yards 
 at an angle of about 45°, and one at an angle of 70°. One part of 
 Pamozima is perpendicular, and when the riyer is in flood causes a cloud of 
 vapour to ascend, which, in our journey to Lake Shirwa, we saw at a 
 distance of a least eighty miles. The entire descent from the upper to the 
 lower Shire is 1200 feet. Only on one spot in all that distance is the 
 current moderate — viz., above Tedzane. The rest is all rapid ; and much 
 of it being only fifty or eighty yards wide, and rushing like a mill-race, it 
 gives the impression of water power, sufilcient to drive all the mills in 
 Manchester, running to waste. Pamofunda, or Pamozima, has a deep, shady 
 grove on its right bank. When we were walking alone through its dark 
 shade, we were startled by a shocking smell like that of a dissecting room ; 
 and on looking up saw dead bodies in mats suspended from branches of the 
 trees — a mode of burial somewhat similar to that which we subsequently 
 saw practised by the Parsees, in the Towers of Silence at Poonah, near 
 Bombay, The name Pamozima means ' The departed spirits or gods,' a fit 
 name for a place over which, according to the popular belief, the disem- 
 bodied souls continually hover. 
 
 " The rock lowest down in the series is dark reddish-grey syenite. This 
 seems to have been an upheaving agent, for the mica schists above it are 
 much disturbed. Dark trappean rocks, fiiU of hornblende, have in many 
 places burst through these schists, and appear in nodules on the surface. 
 The highest rock seen is a fine sandstone of closer grain than that of Tetle, 
 and quite metamorphosed where it comes into contact with the igneous 
 rocks below it. It sometimes gives place to quartz and reddish clay schists, 
 much baked by heat. This is the usual geological condition of the right 
 bank of the cataracts. On the other side we pass over masses of porphyritic 
 trap in contact with the same mica schists ; and these probably give to the 
 soil the great fertility we observed. The great body of the mountain is 
 syenite. So much mica is washed into the river that on looking attentively 
 on the stream one sees myriads of particles floating and glancing in the 
 sun, and this too when at low water." 
 
 These floating particles of mica tell of the eating away of the rook 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 119 
 
 slowly, but surely — and the continuance of the cataract is only a question 
 of time ; and in the Kebrabasa rapids of the Zambesi we have a later stage 
 of the same process. 
 
 What is going on at the Murchison cataracts of the Shire is a process 
 through which the Kebrabasa rapids of the Zambesi have apparently passed 
 through long ago. 
 
 " The name as pronounced by the natives is Kaora-basa, ' finish or break 
 the service.' The Portuguese word Kebra (Quebra) means the same thing, 
 and refers to the break which occurs in the labour of toiling up thus far in 
 heavy canoes, and then carrying the luggage thence overland to Chioova. 
 These rapids, like the Murchison cataracts of the Shire, seem to debar the 
 upper portion of the river from navigation by ships from the coast." 
 
 From the Portuguese Dr Livingstone and his friends had learned " that 
 some three or four detached rocks jutted out of the river in Kebrabasa, 
 which though dangerous to the cumbersome native canoes could be easily 
 passed by a steamer, and that if one or two of these obstructions were 
 blasted away with gunpowder no diflaculty would hereafter be experienced 
 in the navigation of the river at that place." 
 
 But this did not satisfy the enterprising traveller. He writes — ■" Our 
 curiosity had been so much excited by" the reports we had heard of the 
 Kebrabasa rapids that we resolved to make a short examination of them, 
 and seized the opportunity of the Zambesi being unusually low to endeavour 
 to ascertain their character while uncovered by the water. We reached 
 them on the 9th of November. The country between Tetle and Panda 
 Mokua, where navigation ends, is well wooded and hilly on both banks. 
 Panda Mokua is a hill two miles below the rapids, capped with dolemite 
 containing copper ore. 
 
 " Conspicuous among the trees for its gigantic size and bark, coloured 
 exactly like Egyptian syenite, is the burly baobab. It often makes the other 
 trees of the forest look like mere bushes in comparison. 
 
 " The lofty range of Kebrabasa, consisting chiefly of conical hills covered 
 with scraggy trees, crosses the Zambesi, and confines it within a narrow, 
 rough, and rocky dell of about a quarter of a mile in breadth ; over this, 
 which may be called the flood-bed of the river, large masses of rocks are 
 huddled in indescribable confusion. The drawing, for the use of which, 
 and of others, our thanks are due to Lord Kussell, conveys but a faint idea 
 of the scene, inasmuch as the hills which confine the river do not appear in 
 the sketch. The chief rook is syenite, some portions of which have a 
 beautiful blue tinge like lapis lazuli diffused through them ; others are grey. 
 Blocks of granite also abound of a pinkish tinge, and these with metamor- 
 phic rocks, contorted, twisted, and thrown into every conceivable position, 
 afford a picture of dislocation or inconformability which would gladden a 
 geological lecturer's heart; but at high flood this rough channel is all 
 smoothed over, and it then conforms weU with the river below it, which is 
 half-armile wide. In the dry season the stream runs at the bottom of a 
 narrow and deep groove, whose sides are polished and fluted by the boiling 
 action of the waters in flood, like the rims of ancient Eastern wells by the 
 draw-ropes. The breadth of the groove is often not more than from forty 
 to sixty yards, and it has some sharp turnings, double channels, and little 
 cataracts in it. As we steamed up, the masts _of the ' Ma Eobert,' though 
 some thirty feet high, did not reach the level of the flood-channel above, 
 and the man in the chains sung out, ' No bottom at ten fathoms.' Huge 
 
120 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 pot-holes, as large as draw-weUs, had been worn in the sides, and were so 
 deep that in some instances, when protected from the sun by overhanging 
 boulders, the water in them was quite cool. Some of these holes had been 
 worn right through and through, and only the side next the rook'remained, 
 while the sides of the groove of the flood-channel were polished as smooth 
 as if they had gone through the granite-mills of Aberdeen. The pressure 
 of the water must be enormous to produce this polish. It had wedged 
 round pebbles into chinks and crannies of the rocks so firmly that, though 
 they looked quite loose, they could not be moved except with a hammer. 
 The mighty power of the water here seen gave us an idea of what is going 
 on in thousands of cataracts in the world 
 
 " After we had painfully explored seven or eight miles of the rapid we 
 returned to the vessel, satisfied that much greater labour was requisite for 
 the mere examination of the cataracts than our friends supposed necessary 
 to remove them ; we therefore went down the river for fresh supplies, and 
 made preparations for a more serious survey of this region. 
 
 " The steamer having returned from the bar, we set out, on the 22nd of 
 Nov., to examine the rapids of Kebrabasa. We reached the foot of the 
 hiUs again late in the afternoon of the 24th, and anchored in the stream. 
 
 " Leaving the steamer next morning, we proceeded on foot, accompanied 
 by a native Portuguese and his men, and a dozen Makololos, who carried 
 our baggage. The morning was pleasant, the hUls on our right furnished 
 for a time a delightful shade ; but, before long, the path grew frightfully 
 rough, and the hills no longer shielded us from the blazing sun. Scarcely 
 a vestige of a track was now visible, and, indeed, had not our guides 
 assured us to the contrary, we should have been innocent of even the sus- 
 picion of a way along the patches of soft yielding sand, and on the great 
 rooks over which we so painfully clambered. These rocks have a singular 
 appearance, from being dislocated and twisted in every direction, and 
 covered with a thin black glaze, as if highly polished, and coated with 
 lamp-black varnish. This seems to have been deposited when the river was 
 in flood, for it covers only those rocks whieh lie between the highest water- 
 mark and a line about four feet above the lowest. Travellers who have 
 visited the rapids of the Orinoco, and the Congo, say that the rocks there 
 have a similar appearance, and it was attributed to some deposit from the 
 water formed only when the current is strong. This may account for it in 
 part here, as it prevails only where the narrow river is confined between 
 masses of rock, backed by high hills, and where the current in floods is 
 known to be the strongest ; and it does not exist where the rocks are only 
 on one side, with a scanty beach opposite, and a broad expanse of river 
 between. The hot rocks burnt the thick soles of our men's feet, and sorely 
 fatigued ourselves. Our first day's march did not exceed four miles in a 
 straight line, and that we found more than enough to be pleasant." 
 
 They waded across the rapid Lina, which took them up to the waist, and 
 is about forty yaWs wide, and at length they reached Chiperiziwa. " When 
 we reached the foot of the mountain named Chiperiziwa, whose perpendi- 
 cular rocky sid'es axe clothed with many coloured lichens, our Portugiiese 
 companion informed us that there were no more obstructions to navigation, 
 the rivers being all smooth above ; he had hunted there and knew it well. 
 Supposing that the object of-our trip was accomplished we turned back ; but 
 two natives, who came to our camp at night, assured us that a cataract, 
 called Morumbwa, did still exist in front, Drs Livingstone and Kirk 
 
PBIMABT CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 121 
 
 then decided to go forward with three Makololos and settle the question for 
 themselves. It was as tough a bit of travel as they ever had in Africa, and 
 after some painful marching the Badfema guides refused to go further, ' the 
 Banya,' they said, ' would be angry if they showed white men the country ; 
 and there was, besides, no practicable approach to the spot, neither elephant, 
 hippopotamus, nor even a crocodile, could reach the cataract.' The slopes 
 of the mountains on each side of the river, now not 300 yards wide and 
 without the flattish flood-channel and groove, were more than 3000 feet 
 from the sky line down, and were covered either with dense thombush or 
 huge black boulders ; this deep trough-like shape caused the sun's rays to 
 converge as into a focus, making the surface so hot that the soles of the 
 feet of the Makololo became blistered. Around, and up, and down, 
 the party clambered among these heated blocks, at a pace not exceeding a 
 mile an hour; the strain upon the muscles in jumping from crag to boulder, 
 and wriggling round projections, took an enormous deal out of them ; and 
 they were often glad to cower in the shadow formed by one rock overhang- 
 ing and resting on another ; the shelter induced the peculiarly strong and 
 overpowering inclination to sleep, which too much sun sometimes causes. 
 This sleep is curative of what may be incipient sun-stroke in its first gentle 
 touches, it caused the dream to flit over the boiling brain that they had 
 become lunatics, and had been sworn in members of the Alpine Club ; and 
 then it became so heavy that it made them feel as if a portion of existence 
 had been cut out of their lives. The sun is excessively hot, and feels sharp 
 in Africa ; but, probably from the greater dryness of the atmosphere, we 
 never heard of a single case of sun-stroke, so common in India. The 
 Makololo told Dr Livingstone they ' always thought he had a heart, but 
 now they believed he had none,' and tried to persuade Dr Kirk to return, 
 on the ground that it must be evident that, in attempting to go where no 
 living foot could tread, his leader had given unmistakeable signs of having 
 gone mad. All their efforts of persuasion, however, were lost upon Dr Kirk, 
 as he had not yet learned their language, and his leader knowing him to be 
 equally anxious with himself to solve the navigableness of the Kebrabasa, 
 was not at pains to enlighten him. At one part a bare mountain spur 
 barred the way, and had to be siu-mounted by a perilous and circuitous 
 route, along which the crags were so hot that it was scarcely possible for 
 the hand to hold on long enough to ensure safety in the passage ; and had 
 the foremost of the party lost his hold, he would have hurled all behind him 
 into the river at the foot of the promontory ; yet in this wild region, as they 
 descended again to the river, they met a fisherman casting his hand-net into 
 the boiling eddies, and he pointed out the cataract of Morumbwa ; within 
 an hour they were trying to measure it from an overhanging rock, at a 
 height of about one hundred feet. When you stand facing the cataract, on 
 the north bank, you see that it is situated in a sudden bend of the river, 
 which is flowing in a short curve ; the river above it is jammed between two 
 mountains in a channel with perpendicular sides, and less than fifty yards 
 wide ; one or two masses of rock jut out, and then there is a sloping fall of 
 perhaps twenty feet in a distance of thirty yards. It would stop all navi- 
 gation except during the lighest floods ; the rocks showed that the water 
 then rises upwards of eighty feet perpendicularly. 
 
 " Still keeping the position facing the cataract, on its right side rises 
 Mount Morumbwa, from 2000 to 3000 feet high, which gives the name to 
 the spot. On the left of the cataract stands a noticeable mountain which 
 
 P 
 
122 HYDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 may* be called onion-shaped, for it is partly conical, and a large concave 
 flake has peeled off, as granite often does, and left a broad, smooth convex 
 face as if it were an enormous bulb. These two mountains extend their 
 bases northwards about half-a-mile, and the river in that distance, still very 
 narrow, is smooth, with a few detached rocks standing out from its bed. 
 They climlied as high up the base of Mount Morumbwa, which touches the 
 cataract, as they required. The rocks were all water-worn and smooth, 
 with huge pot-holes, even at 100 feet above low- water. When at a later 
 period they climbed up the north-western base of this same mountain, the 
 familiar face of the onion-shaped one opposite was at once recognised ; one 
 point of view on the talus of Mount Morumbwa was not more than 700 or 
 800 yards distant from the others, and they then completed the survey of 
 Kebrabasa from end to end." 
 
 To such a rapid may the falls of the Shire yet be reduced, if it be not 
 from such a rapid that they originated ; for this also is possible though 
 more improbable. 
 
 These rapids are dependent on the difference of the level above and below 
 the part of the river at which they are found. They are always eating 
 their way upward, as do and have done the waters at the falls of Niagara ; 
 and as they do so they drain off more and more of the upper waters. In 
 the district of the Zambesi this has not been completely effected. There 
 are still in that region lakes like inland seas, I have refered to one of these, 
 the Nyassa, of which the upper Shire is a prolongation, as the upper 
 Niagara is a prolongation of Lake Erie, and more manifestly so. 
 
 Dr Livingstone writes of the Nyassa, in giving a narration of his second 
 visit to tt, — " Looking back to the southern end of Lake Nyassa, the river 
 from which the Shire flows was found to be about thirty miles long, and 
 from ten to twelve broad. Rounding Cape Maclear and looking to the 
 southeast we have another arm, which stretches some eighteen miles south- 
 ward, and from six to twelve miles in breadth. These arms give the southern 
 end a forked appearance, and with the help of a little imagination it may 
 be likened to the ' boot-shape ' of Italy. The narrowest part is about the 
 ankle — eighteen or twenty miles. From this it widens to the north, and 
 in the upper third or fourth it is 50 or 60 miles broad. The length is 
 over 200 miles. The direction in which it lies is as near as possible due 
 north and south." 
 
 Of the depth of Lake Nyassa, he writes, — "This is indicated by the colour 
 of the water, which, on a belt along the shore, varying from a quarter to 
 half-a-mile in breadth, is light green, and this is met by the deep blue or 
 indigo tint of the Indian Ocean, which is the colour of the great body of Nyassa. 
 We found the upper Shire from nine to fifteen feet in depth ; but skirting 
 the western side of the lake, about a mile from the shore, the water deepened 
 from nine to fifteen fathoms ; then, as we rounded the grand mountainous 
 promontory, which we named Cape Maclear, after our excellent friend the 
 Astronomer Eoyal at the Cape of Good Hope, we could get no bottom with 
 our lead-line of thirty-five fathoms." 
 
 But even there the depth of the water has apparently been diminished 
 from what it was at an earlier time, for near to it there is what, but for the 
 difference of level, I would suppose must have been connected with the 
 Shirwa ; nor is the difference of level fatal to this supposition, it may only 
 affect the element of time. 
 
 Further up the Zambesi and near, though below, the Victoria Falls, the 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 123 
 
 Zambesi receives the waters of the Longkwe, or as the Makololo call it, the 
 river of Quai or Tobacco, which comes in from the southeast. A little 
 below this, a mass of mountain called Govangue or Golongwe, is said to 
 cross the river, and the rent through which the river passes is by native 
 report fearful to behold. This Golongwe, it is conjectured by Dr Living- 
 stone, was probably the dam which before the rent was made kept the 
 whole Linyanti valley a lake. 
 
 "The Longkwe, or, as the Makololo call it, the river of Quai or Tobacco^ 
 comes in from the southeast and joins the Zambesi above Golongwe. -This 
 fact may corroborate what is said by Mr Thomas, that all the rivers rising 
 on the one side of Moselekatsi's country runs easterly, and into the Shashe, 
 to join the Limpopo, while all the others runs westerly, and then northerly 
 to the Zambesi. Golongwe was probably the dam which before the rent 
 was made converted the whole Linyanti valley into a lake ; but we could 
 not on the path we came observe any difference of level by the barometer. 
 
 " From the falls to Sinamani's the country sloped, and was all lower than 
 Sesheke ; still, a considerable difference of level must have taken place since 
 the deep undisturbed mass of soft tufa was deposited on the great flats of 
 Sesheke and Linyanti. 
 
 " The courses of the rivers in the country of Moselekatsi, and on the 
 Batoka Highlands west of the Kalomo, show that, in reference to the countries 
 east of it, the great Makololo valley is still a hollow." 
 
 In writing later of his journey northwards to the Lekone, having men- 
 tioned that the existence of the tsetse in the district, and stated that the 
 fear of this insect, the wounds occasioned by which are so fatal to cattle, 
 obliged them to travel the first few stages by night, he goes on to say, — 
 " We could not well detect the nature of the country in the dim moonlight; 
 the path, however, seemed to lead along the high bank of what may have 
 been the ancient head of the Zambesi, before the fissure was made. The 
 Lekone now winds in it in an opposite direction to that in which the ancient 
 river must have flowed. Both the Lekone and Unguesi flow back towards 
 the centre of the country, and in an opposite direction to that of the main 
 stream. It was plain, then, that we were ascending the further we went 
 eastward. The level of the lower portion of the Lekone is about 200 feet 
 above that of the Zambesi at the falls, and considerably more than the 
 altitude of Linyanti ; consequently, when the river flowed along this ancient 
 bed instead of through the rent, the whole country between this and the 
 ridge beyond Libebe westwards ; Lake 'Ngami and the Zouga eastwards ; and 
 eastwards beyond Nehokotsa, was one large fresh water lake. There is 
 abimdant evidence of the existence and extent of this vast lake in the 
 longitudes indicated, and stretching from 17° to 21° S. latitude. 
 The whole of this space is paved with a bed of tufa, more or less soft, 
 according as it is covered with soil, or left exposed to atmospheric influences. 
 Whei-ever cataracts make deep holes in this ancient bottom, fresh water 
 shells are thrown out, identical with those now existing in the lake 'Ngami 
 and the Zambesi. 
 
 " The Barotse valley was another lake of a similar nature, and one existed 
 beyond Masiko, and a fourth near the Orange Eiver. The whole of these 
 lakes were let out by means of cracks or fissures made in the subtending 
 sides by the upheaval of the country. The fissure made at the Victoria 
 Falls let out the water of this great valley, and left a small patch in what 
 was probably its deepest portion, and is now called Lake 'Ngami. The 
 
124 HYDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Falls of Gonge fiimished an outlet to the lake of the Barotse valley, and so 
 of the other great lakes of remote times. The Congo also finds its way to 
 the sea through a narrow fissure, and so does the Orange Eiver in the west, 
 while other rents made in the eastern ridge, as the Victoria FaUs and those 
 to the east of Tanganyenka, allowed the central waters to drain eastward. All 
 the Afi?ican lakes hitherto discovered are shallow, in consequence of heing 
 the mere residue of very much larger ancient bodies of water. There can 
 be no doubt that this continent was, in former times, very much more 
 copiously supplied with water than at present; but a natural process of 
 drainage has been going on for ages. Deep fissures are made probably by 
 the elevation of the land, proofs of which are seen in modem shells im- 
 bedded in marly tufa till round the coast line. Whether this process of 
 desiccation is as rapid throughout the continent as in a letter to the late 
 Dean Buckland, in 1843, I showed to have been the case in the Bechuana 
 country, it is not for me to say ; but though there is a slight tradition of 
 the waters having burst through the low hills south of the Barotse, there is 
 none of a sudden upheaval accompanied by an earthquake." 
 
 " If we take a glance back at the great valley, the form the rivers have 
 taken imparts the idea of a lake slowly drained out, for they have cut out 
 for themselves beds exactly like what we may see in the soft mud of a 
 shallow pool of rain water, when that is let off by a furrow. This idea 
 would, probably, not strike a person on coming first into the country, but 
 more extensive acquaintance with the river system, certainly, would convey 
 the impression. None of the rivers in the valley of the Leeambye have 
 slopes down to their beds. Indeed, many parts are much like the Thames 
 at the Isle of Dogs, only* the Leeambye has to rise 20 or 30 feet before it 
 can overflow some of its meadows. The rivers have each a bed of low- water, 
 a simple furrow cut out of the calcareous tufa, which lined the channel of 
 the ancient lake ; and another of inundation. When the beds of inundation 
 are filled, they assume the appearance of chains of lakes. When the Clyde 
 fills the holms (haughs) above Bothwell Bridge and retires again into its 
 channel, it resembles the river we are speaking of — only here, there are no 
 high lands sloping down towards the bed of inundation, for the greater 
 part of the region is not elevated fifty feet above them. Even the rooky 
 banks of the Leeambye, below Gonge, and the ridges bounding the Barotse 
 valley, are not more than two or three hundred feet in altitude over the 
 general dead level. Many of the rivers are very tortuous in their course; 
 the Chobe and Shirwa particularly so j and if we may receive the testimony 
 of the natives, they form what anatomists call ' anastamose,' or a net-work 
 of rivers. Thus, for instance, they assured me that if they go up the 
 Sirwah in a canoe, they can enter the Chobe and descend that river to the 
 Leeambye ; or they may go up the Kama and come down the Sirwah. 
 And so is the case of the Kafue. It is reported to be connected in this way 
 with the Leeambye in the north, and to part with the Loungwa ; and the 
 Makololo went from the one into the other in canoes. And even though 
 the interlacing may not be quite to the exteiMt believed by the natives, the 
 country is so level, and the rivers so tortuous, that I see no improbability 
 in the conclusion — and here is a net-work of waters of a very peculiar 
 nature. The reason why I am disposed to place a certain amount of con- 
 fidence in the native reports is this, when Mr Oswell and I discovered the 
 Zambesi in the centre of the continent in 1851, being unable to ascend it 
 at the time ourselves, we employed the natives to draw a map embodying 
 
PBIMABY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 125 
 
 their ideas of that river. We then sent the native map home, with the 
 same view that I now mention their ideas of the river system — namely, in 
 order to be an aid to others in farther investigations. When I was able to 
 ascend the Leeambye to 14° south, and subsequently descend it, I found, 
 after aU the care I could bestow, that the alterations I was able to make in 
 the original plan were very trifling." 
 
 The circumstance that such were the views formed by Dr Livingstone in 
 tjje midst of the scenes by which they were suggested entitles them to 
 some consideration. At present they are adduced as embodying evidence 
 that there has been — and that apparently oftener than once — a great 
 disturbance in the level of the land — a disturbance indicative of upheaval 
 of the land, and of a consequent rush of water to the lower level of the sea 
 — corroborative of the supposition that to such upheaval of the land is 
 attributable, primarily and principally, the desiccation of the country 
 farther to the south. 
 
 By the cutting down of some such dam may the waters have been drained 
 away from the lacustrine valley near Smithfield, referred to as a valley in 
 which gold has been found, if this was not effected in the way previously 
 spoken of — overflowing water gradually eating down or sawing down the;, 
 barriers. 
 
 Thus, in a time more near to the present, may have been drained off 
 waters from behind the Gates of the Oomzimvoobo ; and in a time more 
 remote, the waters from behind the Heads at the Knysna, — whether these, 
 either or both, have originated in a rent or otherwise ; and at a period still 
 more remote may what is now the entrance to the Knysna from the sea 
 have allowed a large body of water to have escaped. 
 
 In the Victoria Falls we have a rent more like that of the Kogman Kloof 
 at Montague, but differing from it in extent, in fissure, and in direction, in 
 regard to the river current. 
 
 Of these Falls Dr Livingstone writes, — " The entire Falls are simply a 
 crack made in a hard basaltic rock from the right to the left bank of the 
 Zambesi, and then prolonged from the left bank away through thirty or 
 forty miles of hills. If one imagines the Thames filled with low tree-covered 
 hills immediately beyond the tunnel, extending as far as Gravesend ; the 
 bed of black basaltic rock instead of London mud; and a fissure made 
 therein from one end of the tunnel to the other, down through the keystones 
 of the arch, and prolonged from the left end of the tunnel through thirty 
 miles of hills ; the pathway being a hundred feet down from the bed of the 
 river instead of what it is, with the lips of the fissure from eighty to 
 a hundred feet apart ; then fancy the Thames leaping bodily into the gulf ; 
 and forced then to change its direction, and flow from the right to the left 
 bank ; and then rush boiling and roaring through the hills, — he may have 
 some idea of what takes place at this, the most wonderful sight I had 
 witnessed in Africa." 
 
 Of his visit to these Falls he thus writes : — 
 
 " After twenty minutes' sail from Kalai, we came in sight, for the first 
 time, of the columns of vapour, appropriately called ' smoke,' rising at a 
 distance of five or six miles, exactly as when large tracts of grass are burned 
 in Africa. Five columns now rose, and bending in the direction of the wind, 
 they seemed placed against a low ridge covered with trees ; the tops of the 
 columns at this distance appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were 
 white below, and higher up became dark, so as to simulate smoke very 
 
126 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 closely. The whole scene was extremely beautiful ; the banks and islands 
 dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of 
 colour and form. At the period of our visit several trees were spangled over 
 with blossoms. Trees have each their own physiognomy. There, towering 
 over all, stands the great burly baobab, each of whose enormous arms 
 would form the trunk of a large tree, beside groups of graceful palms, which, 
 with their feathery-shaped leaves, depicted on the sky, lend their beauty to 
 the scene. As a hieroglyphic they always mean ' far from home,' for one 
 can never get over their foreign air in a picture or landscape. The silvery 
 mohonono, which in the tropics is in form like the cedar of Lebanon, stands 
 in pleasing contrast with the dark colour of the motsouri, whose cypress- 
 form is dotted over at present with its pleasant scarlet fruit. Some trees 
 resemble the great spreading oak, others assume the character of our own 
 elms and chesnuts ; but no one can imagine the beauty of the view from 
 anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European 
 eyes ; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their 
 flight. The only want felt is that of mountains in the background. The 
 falls are bounded on three sides by ridges 300 or 400 feet in height, which 
 are covered with forest, with the red soil appearing among the trees. When 
 about half a mile from the falls, I left the canoe by which we had come 
 down thus far, and embarked in a lighter one, with raen well acquainted 
 with the rapids, who, by passing down the centre of the stream in the 
 eddies and still places caused by many jutting rocks, brought me to an 
 island situated in the middle of the river, and on the edge of the lip over 
 which the water rolls. In coming hither there was danger of being swept 
 down by the streamB which rushed along on each side of the island ; but 
 the river was now low, and we sailed where it is totally impossible to go 
 when the water is high. But though- we had reached the island, and were 
 within a few yards of the spot, a view from which would solve the 
 whole problem, I believe that no one could perceive where the vast body of 
 water went ; it seemed to lose itself in the earth, the opposite lip of the 
 fissure into which it disappeared being only 80 feet distant. At least I 
 did not comprehend it until, creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down 
 into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad 
 Zambesi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad leaped down a 
 hundred feet, and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen 
 or twenty yards. 
 
 " In looking down into the fissure on the right of the island, one 
 sees nothing but a dense white cloud, which, at the time we visited the spot, 
 had two bright rainbows on it. (The sun was on the meridan, and the 
 declination about equal to the latitude of the place:) From this cloud 
 rushed up a great jet of vapour exactly like steam, and it mounted 200 or 
 300 feet high ; there condensing, it changed its hue to that of dark smoke, 
 and came back in a constant shower, which soon wetted us to the skin. 
 This shower falls chiefly on the opposite side of the fissure, and a few yards 
 back from the lip there stands a straight hedge of evergreen trees, whose 
 leaves are always wet. From their roots a number of little rills run back into 
 the gulf; but as they flow down the steep wall there, the column of vapour, in 
 its ascent, licks them up clean off the rock, and away they mount again. 
 They are constantly running down, but never reach the bottom. 
 
 " On the left of the island wo see the water at the bottom, a white 
 rolling mass moving away to the prolongation of the fissure, which branches 
 
PRIMABY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 
 
 127 
 
 off near the left bank of the river. A piece of the rock has fallen off a spot on 
 the left of the island, and juts out from the water below, and from it I judged 
 the distance which the water falls to be about 100 feet. The walls of this, 
 gigantic crack are perpendicular, and composed of one homogeneous mass of 
 rock. The edge of that side over which the water falls is worn off two or 
 three feet and pieces have fallen away, so as to give it somewhat of a serrated 
 appearance. That over which the water does not fall is quite straight, 
 except at the left comer, where a rent appears, and a piece seems inclined 
 to fall off. Upon the whole, it is nearly in the state in which it was left at 
 the period of its formation. The rock is dark brown in colour, except about 
 ten feet from the bottom, which is discoloured by the annual rise of the 
 water to that or a greater height. On the left side of the island we have a 
 good view of the mass of water which causes one of the columns of vapour 
 to ascend, as it leaps quite clear of the rock, and forms a thick unbroken fleece 
 all the way to the bottom. Its whiteness gave the idea of snow, a sight I 
 had not seen for many a day. As it broke into (if I may use the term) 
 pieces of water all rushing on in the same direction, each gave off several rays 
 of foam, exactly as bits of steel when burnt in oxygen gas give off rays of 
 sparks. The snow-white sheet seemed like myriads of small comets rushing 
 on in one direction, each of which left behind its nucleus rays of foam. I 
 never saw the appearance referred to noticed elsewhere. It seemed to be 
 the effect of the mass of water leaping at once clear of the rook, and but 
 slowly breaking up into spray. 
 
 " I have mentioned that we saw five columns of vapour ascending from 
 this strange abyss. They are evidently formed, by the compression suffered 
 by the force of the water's own fall, into an unyielding wedge-shaped space. 
 Of the five columns, two on the right, and one the left, of the island 
 were the largest, and the streams which formed them seemed each to ex- 
 ceed in size the falls of the Clyde at Stonebyres, when that river is in 
 flood. This was the period of low water in the Leeambye, but as far as I 
 could guess,' there was a flow of five or six hundred yards of water, which, 
 at the edge of the fall, seemed at least three feet deep. I write in the hope 
 that others more capable of judging distances than myseif wiU visit this 
 scene, and I state simply the impressions made on my mind at the time, 
 I thought, and do still think, the river above the falls to be one thousand 
 yards broad ; but I am a poor judge of distances on water, for I showed a 
 naval friend what I supposed to be four hundred yards in the bay of Loanda, 
 and, to my surprise, he pronounced it to be nine hundred. I tried to 
 measure the Leeambye with a strong thread, the only line I had in my 
 possession, but when the men had gone two or three hundred yards, they 
 got into conversation, and did not hear us shouting that the line had become 
 entangled. By still going on they broke it, and being carried away down 
 the stream, it was lost on a snag. In vain I tried to bring to my recollec- 
 tion the way I had been taught to measure a river, by taking an angle with 
 the sextant. That I once knew it, and that it was easy, were all the lost 
 ideas I could recall, and they only increased my vexation. However, I 
 measured the river farther down by another plan, and then I discovered 
 that the Portuguese had measured it at Tete, and found it a little over one 
 thousand yards. At the falls it is as broad as at Tete, if not more so. 
 Whoever may come after me will not, I trust, find reason to say I have 
 indulged in exaggeration. With respect to the drawing, it must be borne 
 in mind that it was composed from a rude sketch as viewed from the island. 
 
128 HYDBOLOGY OP SOUTH APBIOA. 
 
 which exhibited the columns of vapour only, and a ground plan. The artist 
 has given a good idea of the scene, but, by way of explanation, he has 
 shown more of the depth of the fissure than is visible, except by going close 
 to the edge. The left-hand column, and that farthest off, are the smallest, 
 and all ought to have been a little more tapering at the tops. 
 
 " The fissure is Said by the Makololo to be very much deeper farther to 
 fhe eastward ; there is one part at which the walls are so sloping, that 
 people accustomed to it can go down by descending in a sitting position. 
 The Makololo on one occasion, pursuing some fugitive Batoko, saw them, 
 unable to stop the impetus of their fiight at the edge, literally dashed to 
 pieces at the bottom. They beheld the stream like a ' white cord ' at the 
 bottom, and so far down (probably 300 feet) that they became giddy, and 
 were fain to go away, holding on to the ground. 
 
 " Now, though the edge of the rock over which the river falls does not 
 show wearing more than three feet, and there is no appearance of the 
 opposite wall being worn out at the bottom in the parts exposed to view, 
 yet it is probable that, where it has flowed beyond the falls, the sides of the 
 fissure may have given way, and the parts out of sight may be broader than 
 the ' white cord ' on the surface. There may even be some ramifications of 
 the fissure, which take a portion of the stream quite beneath the rocks ; but 
 this I did not learn. 
 
 " If we take the want of much wear on the lip of hard basaltic rook as of 
 any value, the period when this rock was riven is not geologically very 
 remote. I regretted the want of proper means of measuring and marking 
 its width at the falls, in order that at some future time the question 
 whether it is progressive or not might be tested. It seemed as if a palm- 
 tree could be laid across it from the island. And if it is progressive, as it 
 would mark a great natural drainage being effected, it might furnish a hope 
 that Africa will one day become a healthy continent. It is at any rate very 
 much changed in respect to its lakes within a comparatively recent period. 
 
 " At three spots near these falls, one of them the island in the middle on 
 which we were, three Batoka chiefs offered up prayers and sacrifices to the 
 Barim©. They chose their places of prayers within the sound of the roar of 
 the cataract, and in sight of the bright bows in the cloud. They must have 
 looked upon the scene with awe. Fear may have induced the selection. 
 The river itself is, to them, mysterious. The words of the canoe-song are — 
 " ' The Leeambye 1 Nobody knows 
 Whence it comes and whither it goes.' 
 
 The play of colours of the double iris on the cloud, seen by them elsewhere 
 only as the rainbow, may have led them to the idea that this was the abode of 
 Deity. Some of the Makololowho wentwith me near to the Gonge looked upon 
 the same sign with awe. When seen in the heavens it is named ' mots6 oa 
 baximo ' — the pestle of the gods. Here they could approach the emblem, 
 and see it stand steadily above the blustering uproar below — a type of Him 
 who sits supreme — alone unchangeable, though ruling over all changing 
 things. But not aware of His true character, they had no admiration of the 
 beautiful and good in their bosoms. They did not imitate His benevolence, 
 for they were a bloody, imperious crew, and Sebituane performed a noble 
 service in the expulsion from their fastnesses of these cruel 'Lords ol 
 the Isles.' 
 
 " Having feasted my eyes upon the beautiful sight, I returned to my friends 
 at Kalai, and, saying to Sekeletu that he had nothing else worth showing 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 129 
 
 in his country, his curiosity was excited to visit it the next day. I returned 
 with the intention of taking a lunar observation from the island itself, hut 
 the clouds were unfavourable, consequently all my determinations of 
 position refer to Kalai. (Lat. 70'= 51' 54" S., long. 25° 41' E.) Sekeletu 
 acknowledged to feeling a little nervous at the probability of being sucked 
 into the gulf before reaching the island. His companions amused themselves 
 by throwing stones down, and wondered to see them diminishing in size, 
 and even disappearing,, before they reached the water at the bottom. 
 
 "I had another object in view in my return to the island. I observed 
 that it was covered with trees, the seeds of which had probably come down 
 with the stream from the distant north, and several of which I had seen 
 nowhere else, and every now and then the wind wafted a little of the 
 condensed vapour over it, and kept the soil in a state of moisture, which 
 caused a sward of grass, growing as green as an EngUsh lawn. I selected a 
 spot — not too near the chasm, for there the constant deposition of the 
 moisture nourished numbers of polypi of a mushroom shape and fleshy 
 consistence— but somewhat back, and made a little garden. I there planted 
 about a hundred peach and apricot stones, and a quantity of coffee-seeds. 
 I had attempted fruit trees before, but, when left in charge of my Makololo 
 friend, they were always allowed to wither, after having vegetated, by being 
 forgotten. I. bargained for a hedge with one of the Makololo, and if he is 
 faithful, I have great hopes of Mosioatunya's abilities as a nurseryman. My 
 only source of fear is the hippopotami, whose footprints I saw on the island. 
 When the garden was prepared, I cut my initials on a tree, and the date 
 1855. This was the only instance in which I indulged in this piece of 
 vanity. The garden stands in front, and were there no hippopotami, I would 
 have no doubt but this wiU be the parent of aU the gardens which may yet 
 be in this new country." 
 
 Of another visit paid by him to the Falls he wrote, under date of 
 Sesheke, September 10, 1860, to Sir Koderick Murchison, — " When within 
 20 miles of Victoria Falls we could see the columns of vapour with the 
 naked eye, and there I could not resist the temptation of acting the 
 showman to my companions, Dr Kirk and Mr 0. Livingstone, though by 
 diverging from our straight course to Sesheke we added some forty miles to 
 om' tramp. The hippopotami had. eaten aU my trees, so henceforth we shall 
 have war with them to the knife. They are good food, half beef and half 
 pork, and lots of fat, that serves as butter. This is part of the ' casus beUi.' 
 By the way, our good friend. Professor Owen, and the gastronomic 
 committee, will stand very much in their own light if the she-giraffes die a 
 natural death. If they praised the eland so, which we consider but so-so, 
 a dinner of she-giraffe wiU leave them all lying on their backs." 
 
 And again, — " Tette, November 26, 1860. — My dear Sir Roderick, — We 
 unfortunately missed the opportunity of sending overland by the elephant- 
 hunters, so I open the letter written at Sesheke to insert some further 
 particulars. The river was so low we could easily see the bottom of one 
 half of the fissure which forms Victoria Falls ; and, indeed, people could 
 wade from the north bank to my Garden Island, to form a stockade for 
 fresh seeds. The depth is not 100 feet, but 310 feet — ^probably a few feet 
 more, as the weight attached to the line rested on a slope near the bottom. 
 The breadth from bank to bank is not 1000 yards, as I conjectured in 1855 
 but between one statute and one geographical mile— ^we say 1860 yards to 
 assist the memory, but it is a little more, yet not quite 2000 yards. The 
 
 Q 
 
130 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 lips of the crack at Garden Island may be more tlian 80 feet, as we could 
 not throw a stone- across, but the sextant gave that. Now come to the 
 other, or south-eastern, side of the crack, and the fissure, which from the 
 upper bed looks like the letter L, is prolonged in a most remarkable zigzag 
 manner. The water, after leaping sheer down 310 feet, is collected from 
 both ends to the upright part of the letter as the escape, and then flows 
 away on the zigzag part. The promontories formed thereby are flat at the 
 top, and of the same level as the bed of the river above the Falls. The base 
 of the first on the right is only 400 paces from the Fall fissure, and that on 
 the left about 150. Their sides are as perpendicular as the Fall, and you 
 can walk along among the trees, and by a few steps see the river some 300 
 or 400 feet below, jammed in a space of some 20 or 30 yards, and of a deep 
 green colour. As a whole, the Victoria Falls are the most wonderful in the 
 world. Even now, at extreme low water, or when it is two feet lower than 
 we ever saw it, there are 800 feet of water falling on the right of Garden 
 Island. And the two columns of vapour, with the glorious rainbows, are a 
 sight worth seeing. A fall called Momba, or Moaraba, below this, is 
 interesting, 'chiefly because you look down it from a height of some 500 feet. 
 It is really nothing like Mosioatunya. We visited the river twice on our 
 way down to Sinamani's, and found it in a very deep crack. The standing 
 point gives 1600 of descent from the Falls to Sinamani's." 
 
 In this wonderful rent we see what, had it extended to the mass of matter 
 in a state of fusion below, might have become a dyke fiUed and overtopped 
 with igneous rock ; or, had it been in position favourable to the influx from 
 above of clay and sand and gravel, as perhaps it is, it might have been, as 
 perhaps it«may yet become, a dyke of such debris as may be seen in not a 
 few of the dykes in the diamond fields. But it is cited here as a rent, 
 indicative of such a disturbance of level as might be occasioned by an 
 upheaval of land having occurred — and as a rent which, had it extended 
 over any part of a mountain range, confined a lake, or might have drained 
 off the mass of waters and converted the lake into a plain ; and as it is it 
 may have had some effect in draining off the waters from that higher level. 
 
 II. I have used freely the word upheaval as descriptive of the cause of the 
 elevation of the land above the level of the ocean into which the water 
 flows. Two demurrers may suggest themselves, one to one class of readers, 
 and the other to another. To some the idea of upheaval — the upheaval of 
 a whole continent — may be a new idea, and if new, startling, so startling as 
 to awaken scepticism not only in regard to that having taken place, but 
 scepticism in regard to that which may extend to much besides which has 
 been advanced. And to others it may appear that if upheaval has been 
 the cause of the elevation, which is the cause or occasion of the water flow, 
 — to the cause of that upheaval, or the cause of the cause of this cause of 
 desiccation, should be appHed the designation primary and principal cause 
 of the desiccation and consequent aridity of South Africa. I have the 
 necessary leisure, and have no objection to provide for half-an-hour's con- 
 sideration of the questions raised, giving notice thus to any to skip this 
 and the following sections of the chapter, and pass on to the perusal of 
 what follows, if so disposed. 
 
 I proceed first to adduce evidence of the upheavals of land being a 
 phenomenon fuUy established as one of which there are indications in 
 various countries ; and then to state how it appears to have been effected. 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 131 
 
 1. Directing attention to the well-defined strata capping Table Mountain, 
 the Lion's Head, and the other mountain ranges in South Africa, as indica- 
 tions of these mountains having been at one time a portion of the sea basin, 
 in accordance with what is admitted by all students of geology, I would ask, 
 How does it come to pass that they now occupy the elevated position which 
 they do, thousands of feet above the ocean's bed ? There seems to be but 
 two suppositions possible : the sea must have subsided, or the land must 
 have been raised. These two suppositions may be so maintained that they 
 will be seen to resolve themselves into one — ^being so correlated that what 
 caused a subsidence of the sea might and must at the same time have 
 caused the elevation of the land ; and such is the hypothesis as will be 
 afterwards explained. 
 
 Before proceeding to the exposition of the hypothesis, I may revert to the 
 fact already mentioned, that such a correlated elevation of land and subsid- 
 ence of the sea basin is going on at present over extensive areas of the 
 world, and state that in Britain and elsewhere there exist satisfactory indi- 
 cations of such elevations having occurred also in ages which may be con- 
 sidered remote from the present. 
 
 Hugh Miller, in a lecture which he delivered in Exeter Hall to the Young 
 Men's Christian Association, some years before his death, speaking of one 
 of these indications, said, — " There runs around the shores of Great Britain 
 and Ireland a flat terrace of unequal breadth, backed by an escarpment of 
 varied height and character, which is known to geologists as the Old Coast 
 line. On this flat terrace most of the seaport towns of the empire are built. 
 The subsoil, which underlies its covering of vegetable mould, consists usually 
 of stratified sands and gravels, arranged after the same fashion as on the 
 neighbouring beach, and interspersed in the same manner with seEi-shells. 
 The escarpment behind, when formed of materials of no great coherency, 
 such as gravel or clay, exists as a sloping, grass-covered bank, — at one place 
 running out into promontories that encroach upon the terrace beneath, — 
 at another receding mto picturesque, bay-like recesses ; but where composed, 
 as in many localities, of rock of an enduring quality, we find it worn, as if 
 by the action of the surf, — in some parts relieved into insulated stacks, in 
 others hollowed into deep caverns, — in short, presenting all the appearances 
 of a precipitous coast line, subjected to the action of the waves. Now, no 
 geologist can, or does, doubt that this escarpment was at one time the coast 
 line of the island, — ^the line against which the waves broke at high-water in 
 some distant age, when either the sea stood from 20 to 30 feet higher along 
 our shores than it does now, or the land sat from 20 to 30 feet lower. Nor 
 can geologist doubt that along the flat terrace beneath, with its stratified 
 beds of sand or gravel, and its accumulations of sea-shells, the tides must 
 have risen and fallen twice every day, as they now rise and fall along the 
 beach that girdles our country. But, in reference to at least human history, 
 the age of the old coast line and terrace must be a very remote one. 
 Though geologically recent, it lies far beyond the reach of any written re- 
 oord. It has been shown by Mr Smith of Jordanhill, one of our highest 
 authorities on the subject, that the wall of Antoninus, erected by the 
 Romans as a protection against the northern Caledonians, was made to 
 terminate at the Friths of Forth and Clyde, with relation, not to the level 
 of the old coast line, but to that of the existing one ; and so we must infer 
 that, ere the year a.d. 140 (the year during which, according to our 
 antiquaries, the greater part of the waU was erected), the old coast line had 
 
132 HTDEOIiOGT OV SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 attained to its present elevation over the sea. But -we know, historically, 
 that for at least twenty centuries the sea has been toiling in these modem 
 caves ; and who shall dare af&nn that it has not been toiling in them for 
 at least ten centuries more 'i But if the sea has stood for but even two 
 thousand six hundred years against the present coast line ( and no geologist 
 would dare fix his estimate lower), then must it have stood against the old 
 line, ere it could have excavated caves one-third deeper, three thousand nine 
 hundred years. And both periods united (six thousand five hundred years) 
 more than exhaust the Hebrew chronology. Yet what a mere beginning 
 of geologic history does not the epoch of the old coast line form ! It is but 
 a mere starting-point from the recent period. Not a single shell seems to 
 have become extinct during the last six thousand five hundred years. The 
 shells which lie embedded in the subsoils beneath the old coast line are 
 exactly those which still live in our seas. Above this ancient linQ of coast, we 
 findatvarious heights beds of shells of vastly older date than those of the low- 
 lying terrace, and many of which are no longer to be found living around our 
 shores. I spent some time last autumn in exploring one of these beds,— once a 
 sea-bottom, but now raised 230 feet above the sea, — in which there occurred 
 great numbers of shells now not British, though found in many parts of 
 Britain at heights varying from 200' to nearly 1400 feet over the existing 
 sea-level. But though no longer British shells, they are shells that still 
 continue to live in high northern latitudes, as on the shores of Iceland und 
 Spitzbergen ; and the abundance in which they were developed on the sub- 
 merged plains and hill sides of what are now England and Scotland, during 
 what is termed the Pleistocene period, shows of itself what a very protracted 
 period that was. But in a still earlier period, of which there exists unequi- 
 vocal evidence in the buried forests of Happisburg and Cromer, the country 
 had not only its head above water, as now, but seems to have possessed 
 even more than its present breadth of surface." 
 
 And there are other shores on which the same thing can be seen. In the 
 Morea there are no less than three, or perhaps four, ranges of what were 
 once sea-chfis — well preserved — rising one above the other, at different 
 distances from the shore, the summit of the highest and oldest occasionally 
 exceeding 1000 feet in elevation ; and at the base of each there is usually a 
 terrace which is in some places a few yards, in others above a hundred yards, 
 wide — the ocean shore of a former time. 
 
 I have before me notes of an excursion, made some years ago by the 
 members of the Geological Society of Edinburgh, along the coast from 
 Portobello to Newhaven. Near Seafield they examined an ancient oyster 
 scalp, which is situated about two feet above ordinary high water mark, 
 and extends for about 118 yards along the coast. This oyster bed lies 
 beneath a stratified deposit of sand and gravel of from four to five feet in 
 depth, and it has been traced inland to a height of more than forty feet 
 above the level of the sea, and nearly a quarter of a mile from the shore. 
 Mr Smyth, by whom the company were conducted, stated that, as the habitat 
 of oysters in the Firth of Forth was from four to seven fathom's deep, this 
 ancient oyster scalp showed that there must have been an upheaval of about 
 thirty feet since it was formed. No storm wave,he said, could have transported 
 those shells for such a long distance inland, and to a height of forty feet. 
 It had been ascertained from actual measurement, he added, that the 
 highest storm-wave along a level coast never exceeded, even in the greatest 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 133 
 
 hurricane, an altitude of 28 feet above the usual level of the sea. Mr 
 Smyth then pointed out a boulder on the shore, which must have been 
 embedded there for ages, and from -which parties forty years ago were in 
 the habit, when about to bathe, of stepping into the sea at ordinary high 
 tides. At the present day the same parties would have to walk over sixty- 
 sis yards of a sandy beach before they could touch the water at those tides, 
 and, vertically, the boulder is 2 feet 1 inch above the present level of ordi- 
 nary high tides. The same difference of level has been observed on the 
 solid rock near Cockbumspath, Tantallon, South Queensferry, and elsewhere, 
 and from the examination of several old maps, the testimony of many 
 witnesses still alive, and Mr Smyth stated that, from the comparison of the 
 records of various tide-gauges along the coast, he had arrived at the con- 
 clusion that the whole of the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, and that 
 part of the east coast of Scotland between North Berwick and St Abb's 
 Head, are at present rising at the rate of about five feet per century. And 
 what is supposed to be going on there is going on also elsewhere. 
 
 By Page it is stated, — " As in Scotland, so in England, evidences of a 
 former sea-beach have been detected along the coasts of Lancashire, York- 
 shire, and Durham, in the valley of the Mersey, and in the Bristol Channel. 
 The same terraced appearances, with the remains of existing sea-shells, are 
 found on the coasts of France, Portugal, Sicily, Greece, Norway, Sweden, 
 and other parts of the European sea-board. In the Mediterranean, one 
 terrace, nearly 50 feet above the sea, and full of shells, is discernible at many 
 distant parts of the shore ; on the coast of Norway, accumulations of marine 
 shells are found nearly 200 feet above the existing beach ; and along the 
 borders of the Baltic, well-defined plateaux of marine detritus occur at 
 elevations varying from 50 to 100 feet. All these examples, with many 
 others which might be adduced from the coasts of South and North 
 America, point to successive elevations of the land, analogous to those by 
 which the stratified formations were raised from their seas of deposit into 
 open day. The remains found in the gravel and sand of these beaches are 
 chiefly shells belonging to species now inhabiting the ocean, though a careful 
 examination detects varieties apparently extinct. The more elevated terraces, 
 like those of Scotland and Scandinavia, are evidently of great antiquity." 
 
 The Khone, it is said, has gained from four to six miles on the Medi- 
 terranean within the last thousand years. Notre Dame de Port was a 
 harbour in a.d. 898, but it is now a league from the shore. Psalmodi was 
 an island in a.d. 815, but it is now two leagues from the sea. The town of 
 Tignaux, on the shore in a.d. 1737, is now a French mile distant from it. 
 
 I have slept in a Chateau, separated from the Gulf of Finland by a belt 
 of fir trees half-ar-mile broad, but which, within the memory of the older 
 inhabitants of the district, stood within a hundred yards of the waves on 
 the beach. In returning thence to St Petersburg I saw" a fortress miles 
 distant from the gulf, which in the last century was approached by boat. 
 In some cases the encroachment of land upon the sea near the mouths of 
 rivers may be attributable to the lodging there of detritus brought down by 
 the river from its upper course, but we cannot thus account for raised 
 beaches such as have been seen in various parts of the world. 
 
 Sometimes the process is sudden — almost instantaneous — and the pheno- 
 menon of submergence is not unknown. In 1596 several towns in Japan 
 
134 HYDBOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 •were covered by the sea ; in 1638 St Euphemia became a lake ; in 1692 
 Port Eoyal, in Jamaica, was submerged; in 1775 tbe great earthquake of 
 Lisbon sank many parts of the Portuguese and African shores 100 fathoms 
 under water ; in 1819, at the mouth of the Indus, a large tract of country, 
 with villages, was submerged, while a new tract was elevated, called the 
 " Ullah Bund ;" in 1822 about 100 miles of the Chili coast was elevated to 
 the height of four or six feet. 
 
 The late Professor Nicol gave the following beautiful illustration of the 
 fact of depression and upheaval of land going on over extensive areas of 
 the world's surface, in his work entitled The System of the World : — 
 
 " The vast expanses of the Southern ocean are peopled near the surface 
 by inconceivable throngs of creatures of extreme minuteness, whose continual, 
 incessant, and inexplicable activities, are nevertheless, efficient towards 
 building up the Coral rooks. The chemistry by which the Nautilus 
 elaborates its gorgeous shell, apprehended by the instinct of these living 
 molecules, enables them, as they work in myriads, now to erect a fabric 
 solid and extensive as a bed of limestone, now regular and convolved hke 
 the human brain, and again so delicate in fibre and of whitenes so snowy 
 that it equ.als some cherished plant in fragility and beauty. Now when 
 traversing the Pacific, the Naturalist meets with a display of this archi- 
 tecture of most peculiar arrangement, and which by its magnitude, and 
 immense difiusion — for its separate instances are strewn along many thou- 
 sand miles — has never failed to fill him with a just astonishment. It is an 
 island — if island it may be called — which consists simply of a circular coral 
 reef, of the average width of a quarter of a mile, enclosing an area varying 
 from a mile to fifty or sixty in diameter. The features even of one such 
 object are sufficiently singular. The insects, for instance, that formed it 
 cannot live beneath a certain depth, and the coral fabric often arises in the 
 midst of waters so deep that we can nowise fancy it to have been built up 
 from the bottom of the ocean. The difficulty was at first apparently over- 
 come by the supposition that the creatures had reared their stupendous 
 walls on the rim of the crater of a submarine volcano long probably extinct ; 
 but, overlooking the improbability of craters existing there of a size that 
 rather likened them to the prodigious formations in the Moon than to any 
 exemplar upon Earth, the explanation failed in regard of the two most 
 important and characteristic facts of the case. In the first place, the 
 existence of the coral reef has been recognised at depths quite beyond the limit 
 at which any insect can. now carry on its work : but, inasmuch as this 
 phenomenon might be supposed only to point to a disappearance, in the course 
 of the world's history, of species of creatures fitted to live at such profundities, 
 I insist the most on another argument, which seems to admit of no reply. 
 The proposed solution takes no account whatever of the countless number 
 of those islands which stud the Pacific, along a line of upwards of four 
 thousand miles. The question as to the various depths at which corals, 
 living or extinct, could possibly have elaborated these rocks, is doubtful 
 only in regard to a number of feet wholly insignificant in respect of any 
 large elevation ; so that the foregoing hypothesis would imply the existence 
 over that immense extension of ranges or groups of submarine volcanos, or 
 other mountains differing hy no appreciable amount in altitiide ; and this also 
 without regard to the absolute depths of the ocean on whose floor they rest. 
 It were, in fact, as if over some wide continent — irrespective of vaUey, lowland, 
 
PRIMABY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 135 
 
 or table-lanct — groups and ridges arose, across whose peaks a plane might 
 be stretched so as nearly to touch them all ; and surely nothing can be con- 
 ceived more opposite to what is visible — nothing less analogous to the jagged 
 and varying outline of -the most regular masses of existing mountains. That 
 these coral reefs must rest on the tops of submarine elevations, is manifest ; 
 but some new feature or element is thus clearly wanting to render the theory 
 inclusive of all the phenomena. Now this element is supplied, if, as sug- 
 gested by the sagacity of our admirable Darwin, we suppose these mountains 
 placed on an area of subsidence. Picture, for instance, some island, whose 
 coasts are now encircled by a fringe of coral, gradually sinking, first beneath 
 the surface of the waters, and by continuation of the same mysterious 
 workings of Nature, afterwards deeper and deeper in the sea. The process, 
 as usual with mighty operations, being eminently slow and gradual, 
 contains nothing to disturb the labours of the tiny architects who 
 had, in the shape of a fringe, laid the foundation of their waU. 
 Ever as the island sank, their edifice would rise to the surface ; on the dis- 
 appearance of dry land in its interior, it would first assume the aspect of a 
 circle of coral ; and this, ever added to with perseverance the most 
 marvellous, might, througjji all future ages, preserve its crest on a level with 
 the waves, although the solid land that constitutes its base had long disap- 
 peared among the profoundest depths of the ocean. But the explanation, 
 which thus meets every difficulty in the case of a single atoll, can account 
 for their diffusion over. any extent, or in whatever numbers. Suppose, for 
 instance, that these islands of ours had, in the course of the mutability of 
 Nature, passed through their epoch of stability, and were now slowly sub- 
 siding. In the course of centuries — ^their mainland having sunk under the 
 confluence of the Atlantic and German Oceans — there would remain, of 
 their present greatness, only a number of islets, constituted by our moun- 
 tains, around which we may fancy coral fringes to begin to grow. Now — 
 subsidence continuing — the lowest peaks would first disappear, bequeathing 
 only an atoU as their memorial, and although Ben Nevis might remain for 
 centuries longer, with its crest above the waters, it, too, would be submerged, 
 and we should have no other trace of its existence. The area of Great 
 Britain would thus be changed into a sea of circles of coral, presenting, in 
 miniature, what exists at present over an immense expanse of the Pacific. 
 The conclusion, however strange, seems irresistible. Occupying that mighty 
 area, — in length, according to Darwin, 4500 miles, and now filled only by 
 these atolls and a few groups of islets (summits of mountains not yet wholly 
 submerged) — a majestic continent must have existed, and taken part in the 
 history of the Earth's evolutions, during epochs comparatively recent ; and, 
 of all the gorgeous life and lofty activities which must have thronged it, 
 there remains but the incessant working of those infinitesimal creatures, 
 whose structures so emphatically indicate the place of its tomb. 
 
 " But other features of those seas are equally pregnant ; and we must 
 peruse them ere the picture can be complete. Whilst immense and unin- 
 terrupted tracts are characterized by the exclusive presence of these atolls, 
 many in their neighbourhood exhibit a totally different character. They 
 are occupied, also, by islands ; but, among them the coral rocks abound in 
 the interior, often rising in terraces as we proceed inward, until we follow 
 them almost to the tops of the highest interior elevations. Now, it cannot 
 for a moment be doubted that these corals were formed under the only con- 
 dition in which coral can be formed, viz., below the surface of the waves ; 
 
136 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH APRIOA. 
 
 and knowing of energies manifested in the volcanoes, which can rend the 
 solid earth, and force large mountains through its crevices, the inference is 
 easy, that these islands must have been elevated, and, as indicated by the 
 terraces, perhaps gradually, from a former inferior level. But this inference 
 is rather sustained and its significance extended by two important facts : 
 First, as in the previous case, the symptoms of elevation exclusively charac- 
 terize large isolated tracts, being, for the most part, unmixed except at their 
 margin, by symptoms of depression, so that we cannot refer them to partial 
 elevating movements, but to an action including great areas within its range ; 
 and this is confirmed by the circumstances, that to these areas our clearest 
 evidence of the energy of a protruding or upheaving force from below, viz., 
 the volcano, is at present confined. How extraordinary the scene we have 
 here unfolded ! Through all the wide solitude of the Pacific, from which 
 no tidings were wont to come, except of scattered tribes of savage people, 
 or of new and rich aromas, we are now summoned to discern the manifest 
 progress of the most stupendous changes to which our world can be subject ; 
 mighty movements of its solid crust, here subsiding and carrying for ever 
 from human sight the marvels of great continents, and, elsewhere, promising 
 the birth of new ones, amidst the deepest silences of the ocean." 
 
 And he goes en to say,^" That there is no portion of these continents 
 which hasijiot been subject to such memorable revolutions. That the whole 
 land now protruded above the waves, had long lain at the bottom of oceans, 
 appears from the character and contents of all the sedimentary rocks ; for 
 while these demonstrate, by their structure, that they must have been 
 deposited by the agency of superincumbent waters, they envelope, now 
 turned into stone, the remains of the sea-creatures that lived on the floor of 
 the ocean, when the stratum of mud, or sand, or lime, was there spread out, 
 which through the course of ages has become hardened into a corresponding 
 rock. To dwell on a consideration, at the present time so generally under- 
 stood and accepted, does not appear needful ; but a careful analysis of the 
 rocks of these continents has revealed another feature in the history of the 
 changes which have affected the Earth by far too remarkable to be passed 
 slightly by. Not only have our existing masses of land been subjected to a 
 process of emersion, such as thole tracts in the Pacific are undergoing, by 
 whose gradual rise novel forms and combinations are visibly preparing, but 
 it is certain that they have experienced many and signal oscillations, now 
 sinking beneath the sea, now reappearing, so that those grand metamorphoses 
 of the surface of our Planet seem almost without limit or end. Look in 
 illustration to the south-eastern counties of England. We discern there, as 
 characteristic of extensive localities, three singular formations of consider- 
 able thickness. 
 
 " The lower and upper formations are marine, that is, they contain solely 
 the relics of creatures that lived in the sea ; while the middle one, consis- 
 ting of three distinct beds, is entirely, or very nearly, of fresh-water origin. 
 Now observe the significance of this curious intermixture. When the 
 stratum No. 1 was deposited, it is indubitable that the whole wide surface 
 over which it is diffused must have been the floor of the ocean. On the 
 deposition of No. 2, which required the agency of a lake or river, the first 
 bed must have arisen from its previous depths, and constituted part of the 
 dry land. Ages then had passed,— the beds of No. 2 being meanwhile 
 formed, in quiet and perfect order ; and, at the close of this period, the 
 land must again have sunk, and received from the ocean the ' superincumbent 
 
PRIMAET CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 137 
 
 chalk of No. 3, whicli by one more of those stupendous revolutions has since 
 been heaved up, so as now to constitute the bright cliffs of that portion of 
 our island. Two grand movements of upheaval, and one at least of 
 subsidence, are thus demanded for the explanation of this mere leaf in the 
 annals of the earth ; and a minuter inquiry would only add to the variety, 
 and the better impress the majesty of these changes. The intermediate 
 fresh-water formation, for instance (the Wealden), was the estuary of a river 
 rivalling the Ganges, which there delivered its volume of water into the 
 ocean. Now that river must have drained some continent of magnitude 
 corresponding, — a continent (as we learn from the scattered bones buried 
 in the mud of its estuary) filled with life in some of its strangest and most 
 gigantic developments ; and that has whoUy disappeared ; carried downwards, 
 either entirely or in parts, by the subsidence which prepared the Wealden 
 to receive the chalk." 
 
 As has been already intimated, in many atlases published in illustration 
 of physical geography, there may be found maps representing the results 
 of observations carefully made by scientific men of similar changes in various 
 parts of the world, horizontal hues being employed to indicate areas of sub- 
 sidence, while those of elevation are marked by vertical lines, and inter- 
 mediate districts of indecision are pointed out by crossings of the two sets 
 of lines. 
 
 By a representation of these already spoken of, it appears, as has been inti- 
 mated, that throughout the region of the West Indies and the western coast of 
 Mexico and South America, and throughout a triangular space included by a 
 line through these places, subtending an angle at and including the Sand- 
 wich Islands, a right angled triangle, measuring upwards of 100° of longi- 
 tude and 75° of latitude, the land and ocean bed are rising ; that, throughout 
 an irregularly formed figure, including Australia and the islands of the 
 South Pacific, 145° of longitude and 75° of latitude, the land and ocean bed 
 are being depressed ; that, throughout the gulf of Bengal, the China Sea, 
 and east to the Carolina's, including Sumatra, Borneo, and the Phillipine 
 Islands, the land is being elevated, which is also the case in the Mailritius, 
 Madagascar, and along the east coast of Africa,'^ whUe that portion of the 
 Indian Ocean which lies between these and the west coast of India is being 
 depressed. 
 
 In regard to these statements this general remark must be made, — the 
 measure of the elevation or of the depression, and the evidence of the fact, 
 varies greatly in different localities in the regions specified ; but, with every 
 allowance which may legitimately be demanded on this account, enough wiU 
 remain to show that we have evidence of the process of change of elevation 
 going on now on the coast, and of its having been going on long, and that 
 to an extent corresponding to the elevation of the continent in its present 
 form and contour — not of South Africa alone, the Cape of Goood Hope and 
 lands adjacent, but of the whole of the vast continent of which this is the 
 southern extremity. 
 
 2. This may prove more credible if, pausing here, information be given in 
 regard to the process or operation by which the depression and upheaval is 
 supposed to be effected. 
 
 There is scarcely a river in the world that is not carrying down in its 
 waters the debris of mountains and of the lands through which it flows. 
 
 R 
 
138 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH APEIOA. 
 
 Few are limped and transparent, and the discolouration of these which are not 
 is owing to solid matter suspended in these waters. Analysis will show 
 that many which are limpid, are stealing, concealing, and bearing away other 
 matter in solution ; and if any there be which can pass such a trial and 
 come forth with a full acquittal, watch them closely and you will see 
 them, it may be stealthily, rolling down golden sand or other material 
 from the upper country, too heavy to be suspended in their waters. The 
 quantity of solid matter thus conveyed and transported is immense. 
 
 Look at any runnel after rain ; look at any river in the colony coming 
 down in torrents where shortly before there were only shingle and pools ; 
 look to rivers and river-beds in other lands, and the ocean or ocean-beds 
 beyond. Of the Mississippi, it is stated that the whole valley of the river- 
 bed, measuring from thirty to fifty miles in breadth, and at its mouth 120 
 miles or more, is filled with debris, which has been thus brought down from 
 the higher lying country. And, according to Captain Hall, deposits are 
 formed of rafts of drift trees matted together into networks many yards in 
 thickness, and stretching over a hundred of square leagues, or a thousand 
 square miles. 
 
 The sediment of the Amazon discolours the waters of the ocean for 
 three hundred miles off from the shore. 
 
 The Delta of the Ganges occupies no less than 44,000 square miles, and 
 the sea does only recover its transparency sixty miles from the coast. 
 
 Sir George Staunton inferred from certain experiments that the Hoango-ho 
 contains one part of sfediment in every two hundred parts of its water, and 
 estimating its average depth at 120 feet, he calculates that this river by 
 itself is capable of converting an English square mile of the coast at its 
 mouth into solid land in seventy days. 
 
 At the head of the Adriatic, the Po and other streams have brought 
 down so much sediment, that from the northernmost point of the Gulf of 
 Trieste, round and down to the south of Ravenna, there is an uninterrupted 
 series of recent accessions of land more than 100 miles in length, which 
 within the last 2000 years have increased from ten to twenty miles in breadth. 
 
 AU the solid matter brought down by these and other rivers is borne 
 away by them from higher lying lands. But the material thus transported 
 is not only removed from the place where it was, it is deposited elsewhere. 
 Much of it is deposited in the basin of the sea ; and from this important 
 consequences must follow. 
 
 One of the first lessons of children, over extensive districts of Britain, 
 some fifty years ago, told of a thirsty raven or crow coming to a jug Qon- 
 taining a little water, but this in the bottom of the vessel beyond the reach 
 of its bill, and of its gathering and dropping into the jar pebble after pebble, 
 looking at the result and hopping off to get another and again to get another 
 until at length the water was raised to the neck of the jug, when it was 
 enabled to quench its thirst. Even in an infant-school may be found many 
 who can tell that if into a basin full of water you pour sand or mud it will 
 overflow. And what seem to be effects something similar may be seen in the 
 ocean-bed. 
 
 Under the clear waters of the Mediterranean, it is said, may be seen in 
 some places buildings wKich at one time must have stood on dry land, on 
 or above and beyond the level of the beach ; and on other shores may be 
 seen trunks of trees, not as in a growing position, but deep under the surface 
 of the water. 
 
PEIMART CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 139 
 
 But these are only a part of the phenomena of the present time ; and it 
 would be rash, in ignorance of all, to conclude that in this effect of material 
 brought down by the rivers of all lainds, and deposited in seas connected 
 with the whole ocean waters of the world, we have learned aU that may be 
 learned in regard to the process whereby, in some quarters, the land gains 
 upon the sea, and in others the sea gains upon the land. We must examine 
 more fully the facts of the case. 
 
 Water always finds its level ; but we do not see everywhere along all 
 shores indications of the rising of the water. In some places the rising of 
 the waves of ocean, rolling in upon the land in their pride, has apparently 
 been stopped at the same point for ages, and in other places they never 
 reach the high-water mark of a former day. We see indications of acces- 
 sions of land having been gained by alluvial deposits on the shore ; but 
 there are other phenomena, similar in character to these, which cannot be 
 thus accounted for, and to these also we must attend. 
 
 The ocean-bed must, throughout very lengthened periods, be within a 
 very limited range of variations, always the same ; and we are thus led to 
 the conclusion that the encroachment of the ocean in some portion of its 
 many-bayed and tortuous shore, and the subsidence of it in others, must be 
 the counterparts of each other. And assuming that the level of the whole 
 remains nearly the same, that these correlated phenomena must have been 
 occasioned by the depression of some portion of the ocean-bed together, it 
 may be, with adjacent land, as in some parts of the Mediterranean, and by 
 the elevation of some portion of the sea-bed and adjacent land, or of some 
 portion of the ocean-bed alone, at a distance from all dry land — island and 
 continent alike — a power or force adequate to the production of this we 
 have in the solid matter carried down by rivers and deposited in the depths 
 of the sea. 
 
 According to a generally-received opinion, the earth is a hollow globe of 
 solid crust, enclosing a mass of material in a state of fusion. The crust, 
 though solid, is to some extent elastic. The weight of matter deposited 
 from rivers causing a depression — slight, it may be, but appreciable — a 
 corresponding elevation must take place elsewhere ; and thus regions of the 
 earth's surface of immense extent may be elevated and depressed, producing 
 such encroachments of the sea upon the dry land, and of the dry land upon 
 the sea, as those to which I have referred as seen in the present time." 
 To some such operation as this may be attributed the elevation of the 
 vast continent of Africa, and the elevation of it in a mass ; and it happens 
 that we have what may be considered by some a corroborative testimony to 
 the correctness of the supposition in evidence supplied by the outlying 
 island of St Helena of the depression of the ocean-bed beyond from what 
 was once its level. But it would be premature to do more here than allude 
 to that circumstance as an intimation that, while advancing what it is 
 deemed proper to advance, there is more to follow. The subject I shall 
 treat in sections. 
 
 Section I. — Objections to the Hypothesis. 
 
 It may be objected, that the alleged fact of this upheaval is a mere con- 
 jecture, and by some it may be contemptuously spoken of as a mere theory. 
 
140 HTDEOLOGY OT SOUTH APKIOA. 
 
 It is more of a theory than a conjecture, but I do not yet claim for it even 
 this title ; all that I allege at present is, that it is a hypothesis which is in 
 accordance with the general contour and the geological formations of 
 Southern Africa — a hypothesis which much that I have seen, and much 
 that I have read of the country, supports — while nothing has come under 
 my own observation, or been reported to me of the observations of others, 
 which is inconsistent with its truth^ — and I find it to be a hypothesis which 
 enables us to account satisfactorily to a great extent for the desiccation of 
 the land. 
 
 The general contour of the country I have already described. A succes- 
 sion of mountain ranges, separating plains or level valleys, at higher and 
 yet higher elevations as they recede from the sea, until, in the interior, 
 is reached a vast basin-shaped expanse, finding outlet — if outlet it have — 
 far away from the southern promontory of the Cape. It has been conjec- 
 tured that one outlet is by the Congo, and that another is the Nile ; while 
 the Zambesi drains a portion intermediate between the valley of the Orange 
 Kiver and the extensive basin of Central Africa. 
 
 Some idea of the superficial aspect of the continent as thus depicted may 
 be suggested by the accumulation of ice sometimes seen on the banks of a 
 river, on which the continuous sheet has successively given way at different 
 places in consequence of the rising of the water under the continuous sheet, 
 and has subsequently collapsed when the river had again subsided within 
 its usual limits, or, escaping by the rents, had overflowed the dislocated ice. ■ 
 The overlapping sheets of ice, and even some which are not overlapping, 
 are somewhat precipitous at the edge of the rent looking towards the bank, 
 but slope more gently from the summit of that precipice towards the river 
 beyond. While the unbroken sheet of ice beyond that, though not through- 
 out its extent lower than the ice at the edge, is much lower than the up- 
 tilted edges of sheets of ice between, and in some places depressed below even 
 the ice at the edge, and is overflowed with water, as was at one time the 
 Great Sahara. 
 
 It is the contour of the continent of Africa alone which I seek thus to 
 illustrate. But I proceed to remark that such a contour of the continent 
 is in accordance with the supposition that the whole has been upheaven in 
 a mass, excepting where it may have given way, and, by rents and fissures, 
 allowed of one portion being elevated, while another remained for a 
 time at the elevation it had attained, or temporarily sunk back again 
 beneath it. 
 
 The contour of the continent speaks not of a sudden upheaval but of an 
 elevation of the land, effected by a slow and lengthened process, in the 
 course of which the comparatively thin crust of solid matter supposed to 
 cover the molten mass of the globe, though yielding to the pressure from 
 below, being unable to maintain itself unbroken, has given way in long 
 rents, which, though now appearing as dykes, while empty, or filled only 
 with the matter they now contain in a state of solution or fusion, allowed 
 the portion raised highest to raise also the portion on the other side of the 
 rent by the tenacious consistence of the crust, and its continuous hold at 
 one or both of the extremities of the rent. 
 
 And the hypothesis is not otherwise than in accordance with the geological 
 observations brought forward in a preceding chapter. 
 
 Of some of the mountain ranges I have given an account which may be 
 thought to be different and somewhat at variance with what is now advanced ; 
 
PBIMABT CAUSE OF DBSICOATION. 141 
 
 but it is not so. The mountains and mountain ranges referred to are not 
 overlapping edges of continuous sheets terminated there by a rent or dyke, 
 but, as has been intimated, portions of the elevated land left standing, whUe 
 the portion on one side or other, or all round, was washed away by ocean cur- 
 rents. And here lies the only groimd on which I anticipate that an objection 
 to the hypothesis is likely to be raised, a hypothesis which I scarcely need say 
 is not one which I have had the honour of originating, but is one generally 
 received, and is only adduced by me to show its applicability to South Africa, 
 and the extent to which it enables us to account satisfactorily for the desicca- 
 tion of the country. The difficulty in the way of its acceptance by others, 
 which I anticipate, is one arising from the consideration of the extent of 
 the country which must have been elevated in a mass, if the hypothesis be 
 applied to the phenomenon — the immensity of the force which would be 
 required for the production of this. It is not the mountain range alone, 
 nor even at successive times one mountain range with the tableau beyond, 
 but the whole of Southern Africa, nor yet the whole of Southern Africa 
 alone, but the whole vast continent of what it is but the southern extremity, 
 which it is alleged has been raised ; and great is the elevation to which the 
 whole continent, throughout its vast extent, must have been raised, if this 
 hypothesis be correct. 
 
 Even on this southern extremity projecting into the oc§an, and continuous 
 with its unfathomable depths, there are not only mountains but extensive 
 plateaux, thousands of feet above the level of the ocean. The plains of the 
 Free State are 5000 feet, the plateaux of Damaraland are 6,000 feet, above 
 the level of the sea ; and besides these plateaux there are mountains, con- 
 necte(J therewith, or apart, of still greater height. There is the Stormberg 
 range, near Queenstown, the average height of which is 7,000 feet ; the great 
 Winterberg, near Fort Beaufort, 7,800 feet in height ; Komsberg, in the 
 Eoggeveld mountains, estimated to be upwards of 8,000 ; the Mont aux 
 Sources, in Basuto land, estimated by the French missionaries by whom it 
 was first visited at 10,000 feet above the level of the sea; and Lievenberg, 
 Omhotozu, and the Omatko mountains, in Damaraland, reported by Messrs 
 Galton and Anderson as respectively 7,200, 7,300, and 8,800 feet in height: 
 the lowest of them more than double the height of Table Mountain above 
 the sea, this being only 3582 feet. 
 
 Nor is it mountains and mountain ranges alone which force themselves 
 upon our thoughts, but along with these the observations previously referred 
 to that several of them owe their elevations above the height of circum- 
 jacent land, not to an upheaval of themselves above that level, but to some 
 accidental occurrence determining their conservation, while the kloofs and 
 valleys on their flanks, and the valleys or the plains beyond, were scooped 
 away by a process of denudation occasioned by ocean currents, or terrestrial 
 torrents of resistless force, leaving them as intimations of the elevation from 
 which the intervening earth had been cut down to form these kloofs, and 
 valleys, and plains, and their summits leaving indications that they, too, 
 had been subjected, for times more ar less protracted — it may have been 
 ages — to the same denuding operation, whereby they were reduced to 
 mere stumps compared with what otherwise they had been. 
 
 And the mention of this sends the thoughts onward to the mountains and 
 mountain ranges of the interior, towering to a height above the level of the 
 sea of Who shall say what 1 
 
 We have not the evidence necessary to prove that the whole continent at 
 
142 HTDHOIiOGT OP SOUTH APEIOA. 
 
 any one time exhibited the form of an extensive bulging, of which these 
 mountains remain the measurement of the height of the arc above the level 
 of the sea or of the sea-basin, but something of the kind is suggested ; and 
 the question or doubt raised by the consideration of the whole case is, How 
 is it possible that any upheaval at all corresponding to this could be 
 effected 'i And it may be felt by some that this question must be met before 
 the hypothesis can be entertained, even for consideration. It does not 
 seem to me to be unreasonable that such an objection should be started, 
 but neither does it appear to me to be unreasonable to meet it, not in 
 argument for victory but in the quest after the truth, with the question in 
 reply — There it is, once under the sea, now far above its level ; and if not 
 by upheaval of the whole land how has this come to be the case 1 
 
 To escape from the necessity of connecting all that has been remarked 
 with some supposed upheaval, and that an upheaval of the whole continent 
 to such an elevation as any reading of the phenomena would demand, it 
 may be asked — Could not the whole be accounted for satisfactorily by the 
 supposition of a falling in or depression of the basin of the sea when the 
 waters were gathered together into one place 1 If it were, again my answer, 
 if given, would be in Scottish fashion — answering one question by asking 
 another, — How, when, or where did any such depression ever occur ? And 
 if it be admitted to be only a supposition I would ask. Would it not be as 
 difficult, or perhaps more so, to account for such a depression as to account 
 for the upheaval if taken by itself alone 1 And yet again — How would the 
 supposition account for the indications of portions of this land, at least, 
 having been submerged subsequently to their first emergence, and having 
 again emerged, and this, it may be, oftener than once 1 
 
 This much, however, may be admitted :, the hypothesis in question embodies 
 the supposition of some such depression as being the cause or occasion of 
 the upheaval, or prior con-sequence with the upheaval of a common cause ; 
 and to this correlated depression is attributed one-half of the elevation of 
 the mountain summit above the lowest ocean depth, as one-half of the 
 apparent height of the wave on lake, river, or sea may be attributed to the 
 corresponding depression which precedes or follows it. But it must be 
 borne in mind that the sea level taken generally as a standard of measure- 
 ment corresponds to the medial line which that measurement of the wave 
 supposes ; and it is only an approximation to the truth that even that 
 illustration supplies. Assuming that in both cases the elevation and 
 depression are correlated — the one depressed as much below as the other is 
 elevated above the true level — if it be the case that at one time the waters 
 covered the whole earth, the cubic contents of the depression below the 
 water line must necessarily be greater than the cubic bulk of the elevations 
 above, — containing, as they must do in such a case, not only all the water 
 displaced by the upheaval of the land, but in addition to this all the waters 
 covering at a prior time their own surface. 
 
 At the present day the proportion of land to sea is reckoned as one to 
 three in superficial extent — one-fourth of the earth's surface being land, and 
 three-fourths covered with sea — and while Chimborazo in America towers 
 21,450 feet above the level of the sea, and Jamatri and Dhawalagiri, in the 
 Himialaya range of mountains, rise respectively 25,500 feet and 26,862 feet 
 above that level, it is estimated that the extreme depths of the Atlantic 
 are about 50,000 feet, or more than nine miles, below the surface of 
 the ocean. 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 143 
 
 Such are the elevations and depressions with which we have to do in such 
 investigations as those upon which we have entered, and while it may 
 surprise, it may also prepare for the further prosecution of the investigation 
 to state, that, great as such measurements may seem, compared with the 
 littleness of man, they are actually as nothing compared with the bulk of 
 the globe. A mile more or less in height of a mountain, or a mile more or 
 less in the depth of an ocean bed, is only l-8000th part of the earth's 
 diameter, and has been compared to a single grain of sand, more or less 
 bulky, or a scratch with a pin, more or less deep,on a globe a foot or more in 
 circumference. 
 
 And with regard to the extent of the surface supposed to have been 
 affected, we have evidence that within certain limits such changes of elevation 
 and depression are even now going on in extensive regions of the earth's 
 surface. Facts have been stated showing that such is the case, from the 
 East Indies and eastern coast of America, round by the Paciiic and the 
 Indian Ocean, to the eastern coast of this continent, where upheaval is stiU 
 going on. 
 
 These are facts or phenomena with which scientific men are well acquainted; 
 they lie at the very threshold of the cognate sciences of Physical Geography 
 and Geology ; the means by which they are brought about have been to 
 some extent determined, and that thus, as has already been intimated, it 
 is by many scientific observers held, that the earth is a mass of matter in a 
 state of fusion inclosed within a crust consolidated by the cooling of its 
 external surface, which crust, though reckoned thick when measured by 
 measurements with which we are familiar, is really thin when comparedwith 
 the bulk of the earth. Objections have been raised against this view of the 
 constitution of the earth, and other views have been ofiered, but this view 
 is held by many. 
 
 It is not impossible that irregular contractions of this crust, as it cooled 
 and became consolidated at difierent depths, may have caused blisters, con- 
 tortions, eruptions, and in-egularities of surface, or inequalities in elevation 
 of superficial portions, and these irregularities of surface may have been 
 still further magnified and increased by volcanic action, of the occurrence 
 of which, while, or when, the earth was stiU covered deep with the primeval 
 ocean, we have innumerable indications in many lands. 
 
 Even there and then there may have been levelling and transporting in- 
 fluences at work, and that with similar efiects to those which we see upon 
 dry land; and as these we have it in our power to study, to these we must 
 give for a little our attention. 
 
 It may have been remarked in the course of ordinary observations of what 
 is taking place around us, that, whatever is raised in elevation upon the 
 earth's surface tends by gravitation to descend to a lower level, as if the 
 object were, as the tendency is, to reduce the surface of the earth to a 
 smooth and perfect spheroid : undermine what constitutes its support, and 
 down it rolls to the lowest level it can reach. And thus has the under- 
 mining of rocks by the lashing of the waves allowed mountain masses to 
 find a resting-place in the ocean-bed. 
 
 What has been effected thus is probably trifling compared with what 
 has been efiected by the continous action of the rain and the dew, which, 
 compared with that, may seem scarcely deserving of a thought. 
 
 Besides the masses which were thus buried in the sea, there were many 
 fragments of rock, fragments some of them small as the dust of the street, 
 
144 HYDEOLOGY OP SOUTH AFEIOi. 
 
 left behind, and similar fragments are to be found in numerous plain's beside. 
 They too would follow the mountain mass, but supports, which under these 
 would have been crushed, sustain them far above the ocean-bed, and there 
 they must abide their time. All that they require is a little water to 
 partially float them over the barrier, and that water put in motion to pro- 
 mote their downward movement, and they too are off and away for the 
 deep deep sea. This, it may be the dew or the mist-cloud, or failing these 
 the first shower of rain, may supply, and accordingly we find that not a 
 shower falls but some of them seize their opportunity and run. 
 
 The water which forms the dew-drop, or falls in the form of rain, is pure 
 and limped as is the air of heaven ; but in the runnel or the streamlet it is 
 discoloured with mud, which mud is composed of such fragments of earth 
 as it is aiding to escape. It is the feeder of a river. By the streamlet to 
 the river, by the river to the sea, is aided on the mud — and at length it also 
 finds its resting-place in the ocean-bed. The quantity of debris thus borne 
 downward is almost incredible. 
 
 The power of water to tear away and transport earthy matter has been 
 made the subject of calculation and experiment. Water moving with the 
 velocity of 3 inches per second will tear up fine olay ; moving with double 
 that velocity, or 6 inches per second, it will lift fine sand ; with a velocity 
 of 8 inches it will raise sand as coarse as linseed; and of 12 inches, fine 
 gravel ; with a velocity of 24 inches it will roll along rounded pebbles an 
 inch in diameter ; and with a velocity of 36 inches per second it wiU sweep 
 away angular stones of the size of a hen's egg. Rivers in flood often acquire 
 a much greater velocity than this, and stones of considerable weight are 
 then borne down by their current, while the ocean in ,a storm has moved 
 stones tons in weight. 
 
 Water in motion can not only bear away, but it can tear away, the solid 
 matter over which it flows. Loose soil, clay, and sand yield readily to its 
 impulse — granite or basalt ofier more resistance ; but all rivers carry down 
 sand and gravel, and these rubbing and striking against rocks, with the 
 momentum given to them by the velocity of the stream, they rasp, or file, 
 or hammer away the hardest of these. " The Nerbuddah, a river of India, 
 has thus scooped out a channel in basaltic rock 100 feet deep. Messrs 
 Sedgwick and Murchison give an account of gorges scooped out in beds of 
 the rock called conglomerate, in the valleys of the eastern Alps, 600 and 
 700 feet deep. A stream of lava, which was vomited from ^tna in 1630, 
 happened to flow across the channel of the river Simeto. Since that time, 
 the stream has cut a passage through the compact rock to the depth of 
 between 40 and 50 feet, and to the breadth of between 50 and several 
 hundred feet. Allusions have already been made to the Niagara, the Ganges, 
 and the Amazon. The cataract of Niagara, in North America, has, as has 
 already been intimated, receded nearly 50 yards during the last 40 years. 
 Below the falls the river flows in a channel upwards of 150 feet deep and 
 160 yards wide, for a distance of seven miles ; and this channel has evidently 
 been produced by the river." 
 
 To the presence of material thus being removed from a higher to a lower 
 level do turbid rivers owe their turpidity. And it is alleged that 
 the transference of the pressure from the land whence the material i» 
 brought to the basin of the sea is sufficient, in the elastic condition of the 
 earth's crust, to deepen the depression of the ocean-bed, and to allow of 
 compensation being obtained, by the incompressible matter in a state of 
 
PBIMARY CAUSE OF DESIOCATIOH". 145 
 
 fusion, for the space when it is displaced, by pressing up to a corresponding 
 extent some portion of the crust elsewhere. And thus may objections 
 taken in limente to the hypothesis be met. 
 
 Section II. — Application of the hypothesis to the Geohgicai Phemomena and 
 Physical Geography of South Africa. 
 
 If a hypothesis be complete and true it should fit in with aU the facts 
 and phenomena observed, as does a key with the wards of a lock for which 
 it was made ; then, and not till then, may it be legitimately employed as a 
 working hypothesis in directing inquiries designed to elicit information in 
 regard to the unknown. I know of no test which can be supplied by the 
 geological phenomena or physical geography of South Africa with which 
 this hypothesis does not fit in exactly; of this I shall give a single 
 illustration. 
 
 In Europe miners meet often with what are called dykes and faults — 
 dykes and faults which occasion to them no little expense and trouble. 
 Dykes, in accordance with the Scottish use of the term, is the designation 
 applied by geologists and miners to interruptions to the continuity of strata, 
 which seem like a wall to terminate, or bound, or separate one portion from 
 a continuation of it which lies beyond. Sometimes these dykes are a few 
 feet in thickness, sometimes they are as many yards ; sometimes they are 
 composed of igneous rock ejected from below, sometimes of clay and gravel 
 washed in from above ; in every case they appear to have been cracks or 
 rents occasioned by a disturbance of level, extending, in the case of those 
 filled with igneous rock, to the matter in a state of fusion below, but in the 
 case of the others, extending only a comparatively little way below the sur- 
 face, and indicating thus their relative position in regard to the upheaval by 
 which they were occasioned — the one,itmaybe,beingmade nearer to the centre 
 of depression, the other nearer to the centre of upheaval. In some cases, 
 when the dyke is cut through it is found that the strata beyond are not the 
 same as those by which the dyke has been reached, but strata corresponding 
 to strata far above or far beneath — indicating in the latter case that the 
 portion wrought had been wrenched away and upheaven, in the former that 
 the portion reached had been thus upheaven. Sometimes it is found, also, 
 that the inclination of the strata has been changed, through variations in 
 the direction of the upheaval. It is to such disturbances that the designa- 
 tion fofldt has been given ; and there may be a fault where there is no 
 dyke, no vacant space having been left between the masses on the 
 sides of the rent. 
 
 This mode of fracture is one with which the working of coal-fields has made 
 geologists and miners well acquainted, and they tell of the irregularities in 
 the upheavings or depressions which have taken place as illustrating, in a 
 striking manner, the nature of the agitations which have taken place. 
 Something like to them may sometimes be seen in accumulations of ice 
 thrown upon a river's bank when the sheet of ice covering the river has 
 broken up. 
 
 " In the vale of the Esk, in Mid-Lothian, which does not measure more 
 than 10 miles each way, the coal-field shows 120 ascertained dislocations ; 
 one of which at Sheriflfhall throws down the strata [or upheaves them]^ 500 
 feet. In the Newcastle coal-field there is a famous slip, called the ninety 
 
 a 
 
146 HYDBOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 fathom hitch, the deviation from the line of stratification being no less than 
 450 feet. The coal-fields of Fife and Clackmannan abound in such disloca- 
 tions, several of them throwing the strata from 400 to 1200 feet up or down, 
 as the case may be, from the general position." 
 
 All of these speak of upheaval ; and such dykes are not awanting in 
 South Africa, in accordance with the hypothesis in question. 
 
 Dr Kubidge, in a paper written shortly before his death, maintains that 
 " The elevated lands, whether mountains, hills, or chains of hummocks 
 (locally called ' Koppies'), have generally dykes of igneous rock for their axes, 
 and these run in straight lines through the country for miles, some of them, 
 perhaps, for hundreds of miles ;" and I may remark, in passing, such igneous 
 rocks manifest much greater power of resisting the erosive action of water cur- 
 rents than do Silurian and Devonian deposits ; and thus may they, when they 
 projected above or beyond masses of these, have diverted the flow, and thus 
 to some extent determined the direction and the contour of the valley 
 created by the process of denudation. 
 
 The rents in the rocks into which flows the Zambesi at the Victoria Falls, 
 and which extends for thirty or forty miles beyond, is suggestive of the 
 back-bone of a mountain range, or elevated table-land, having broken, 
 through the disturbance of level. The dicynodon valley is seamed with 
 dyhes; and Dr Eubidge's observations in the Copper Mines show ihaX faults 
 exist as well as dyhes ; so that thus far the key fits the ward of the lock. 
 So is it also with all the geological phenomena reported in preceding 
 chapters, and in the preceding sections of this. And a similar accordance may 
 be remarked all along, as we proceed to make the application of it to these 
 phenoiUena and others, in iUustration of the effect of the upheaval of the 
 land on its desiccation, and the production of the aridity by which it is 
 now characterized. 
 
 In Table Mountain we have a mass of deposit well-nigh 4000 feet in 
 thickness overlying the granite, and evidently deposited from water in which 
 it had been suspended, floating not on the surface but in the water. The 
 weight of such a deposit, whencesoever it may have come, may have been 
 sufficient to occasion some depression, more or less extensive, throughout 
 the locality in which it was formed. And thus may it have been in the 
 district in which Table Mountain stands. 
 
 Overlying sandstone, which was apparently a continuation of that with 
 which Table Mountain and the Lion's Head are capped, there is in some 
 places a deposit of dark-gray and brownish shales, of an aggregate thickness 
 of 1100 feet; and there are not awanting indications that this proved 
 sufficient, notwithstanding the increased thickness of the earth's crust, to 
 produce a local depression where it was deposited, for, from observations 
 made by Mr Wylie when Geological Surveyor to the Colony, and from 
 memoranda furnished to him by Captain Bayley of the trigonometrical 
 survey, the Table Mountain sandstone, identified by the former in the Lower 
 Devonian, dips southward at about an angle of 70° ; and from the same 
 memoranda, says Mr Wylie, " It would appear that the Potteberg sandstone 
 dips the opposite way, or northward, thus indicating a basin in the Devonian 
 rocks extending from the Drakenstein eastward to the sea, m the hollow of 
 which it is that the Upper Devonian or fossiliferous shales probably occur 
 all along from theBosjesveldt to Cape Barracouta and the Kafirkuils Eiver." 
 
 All the strata which have been brought under oui- notice are the results 
 of denudation, being formed of deposits of the debris of older deposits, or 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 147 
 
 of primitive rocks, and the chauges ihus produced by the removal of the 
 superincumbent weight from one locality to another may have been 
 followed by local changes of elevation, leading to yet other changes in the 
 course of the ages, the eras — or. by whatsoever name may be indicated the 
 lapse of time during the transformation of the globe into its existing 
 condition — which followed. 
 
 Passing other deposits of 500, 800, 1000, 1200, and 1500 feet in 
 thickness, we find — higher, and, it may Be, much higher in the series of 
 deposits than these, though probably not overlying even portions of the 
 whole of them — the Keptilian or Dicynodon beds of purple, greenish, and 
 gray shales, a lacustrine deposit 1800 feet in thickness. Even this may 
 have sufficed to produce the lacustrine basin, or at least to deepen the 
 depression in which it was formed. 
 
 But notwithstanding, and over and above all this, there appears to have 
 been produced contemporaneously or subsequently a depression of the ocean- 
 bed beyond, but continuous with the immense mud-banks, sand-banks, and 
 rocky islands of the nascent continent, a depression of the ocean-bed 
 correlated thereto, — the continuous, or oft-renewed, increased, and extended 
 depression of which may have caused an elevation of the whole mass, not 
 only in its entire thickness, but throughout its vast extent to~ its present 
 elevation above the sea. This could not be effected without a far greater 
 extent of the surface being raised with it ; but it is with this portion of the 
 continert alone I have at present to do. 
 
 It may be asked, Can any indications of such depression be adduced 1 
 And the demand implied in such an enquiry is not unreasonable. It is 
 easily met. 
 
 We have both »indications of such depression having occurred in the 
 remote past, and indications of a similar depression going on at the present 
 time having apparently gone on for ages. 
 
 The former is that which bears primarily upon the subject now under 
 discussion; the bearing of the latter is adventitious, only illustrating upon a 
 smaller scale by what is going on in the present what the hypothesis 
 assumes has gone on in the same land on an extensive scale in the past. 
 
 Much that has been said in regard to the Baltic and the Mediterranean 
 and'the South Seas might be cited in illustration of such depressions and 
 such upheavals as these imply having gone on elsewhere. What is called 
 for are indications of such depressions having occurred in the vicinity of 
 Southern Africa, and these are supplied by the island of St Helena. In 
 regard to this I find amongst my memoranda the following : — 
 
 " The island of St Helena is composed of basaltic streams of a gentle, 
 inclination. Taking a section of the coast cliffs and bottom of the sea, we 
 find that from the foot of High Knoll to the edge of Ladder Hill they slope 
 from an elevation of 1600 feet to one of 510 feet above the level of the sea. 
 Were this line produced it would extend at least to a point now covered by 
 the sea to a depth of 30 fathoms, and it is probable much farther, for the 
 inclination of the streams is less near the coast than further inland. And 
 other sections of the coast would have given still more striking results if 
 the exact data had been at command. Thus, on the windward side the 
 cliffs are about 2000 feet in height and the cut-off lava streams very gently 
 inclined, and the bottom of the sea has nearly a similar slope all round the 
 island. 
 
148 HTDHOLOGY OP SOUTH APBIOA. 
 
 " Everything thus leads to the conclusion that this is a mountain of 
 volcanic origin— composed, in its external covering at least, of matter which 
 had been thrown up in a molten state, which found emission somewhere 
 near the centre of the mass, and which, running over on all sides — a viscid 
 mass — moving onwards till it reached the more level ground at the base of 
 its nucleus, if nucleus it have of other matter than the basalt of which it is 
 composed, and if it have not, the more level ground of the ocean-bed. 
 
 " If so, the question is raised,— How has all the hard basaltic rock, which 
 once extended beneath the surface of the sea, been worn away ] According 
 to Captain Austin, by whom the coast was surveyed, the bottom is uneven 
 and rocky only to that very small distance from the beach within which 
 the depth is from 5 to 6 fathoms ; outside this line, to a depth of about 100 
 fathoms, the bottom is smooth, gently inclined, and formed of mud and 
 sand J outside the 100 fathoms it plunges suddenly into unfathomable 
 depths, as is very commonly the case on all coasts where sediment is 
 accumulating. At greater depths than the 5 fathoms it seems impossible, 
 under existing circumstances, that the sea can both have worn away hard 
 rock, in parts to a thickness of at least 150 feet, and have deposited a 
 smooth bed of fine sediment. 
 
 " But now, if we had any reason to suppose that St Helena had, during 
 a long period, gone on slowly subsiding, every difficulty would be removed ; 
 for, looking at the diagram and imagining a fresh amount of subsidence, we 
 can see that the waves would then act on the coast cliffs with fresh and 
 unimpaired vigour, whilst the rock ledge near the beach would be carried 
 down to that depth at which sand and mud would be deposited on its bare 
 and uneven surface ; after the formation, near the shore, of a new rocky 
 shoal, fresh subsidence would carry it down and allow it to be smoothly 
 covered up." And thus does this island appear to supply evidence of the 
 gentle subsidence of the bottom of the ocean. 
 
 For this illustration I am indebted, if I mistake not, to the late Dr 
 Daubeny, Professor of Botany and Chemistry in the University of Oxford. 
 And the argument founded on the outline of the island, illustrative of the 
 probable chronological history of the reduction of the volcanic rock, I under- 
 stand to be this, — 
 
 The lava stream of which the superficial rocks are composed, extended 
 originally far — very far — beyond the present outline of the rock. The 
 ledge, now extending a short distance beyond the present beach, and upon 
 which the water is from five to six fathoms in depth, has been formed by 
 the action of the waves on rook, which formerly covered that space, to a 
 height cerresponding to the height of the mountains on the face of the 
 island rising from that shore. The ocean and the atmosphere, the water 
 and the air, through, it may be, a long succession of ages, disintegrating 
 these solid rooks, the debris was deposited, it may be in part, in a gently 
 inclining plain ; while a part may have fallen from the edge into the depth 
 beyond, and there found a resting place 100 fathoms deep. 
 
 But that this resting place is only a ledge, is shown by the circumstance 
 that beyond it the plumet plunges into an unfathomable deep ; from which 
 it may be inferred that that ledge was formed in the same way in which 
 that now used as a roadstead was formed, — for there, too, " the bottom is 
 smooth, gently inclined, and formed of mud and sand." But the action of 
 the waves being limited to a depth of five fathoms, we seem to be shut up to 
 the adoption of the inference that that ledge, and probably all intermediate 
 
PRIMAEY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 149 
 
 points above it, must have been in earlier times level with the ocean 
 surface. And it is more reasonable to suppose that the ocean-bed has been 
 depressed, carrying this island with it, than to suppose that the ocean ha^ 
 otherwise increased, throughout its extent, in a corresponding volume oJF 
 its waters, or that the island has sunk in altitude through a displa cement 
 of its base, or its interpenetration of underlying rocks. And the thought 
 is suggested — May not the precipitous frontage of these rocks on all sides be 
 the result of the continuous, or occasionally interrupted, operation of the 
 disintegrating process by which these two ledges have been formed, the 
 diversity of vertical outline on this side of the island being attributable to 
 some difference in the density, friability, or facility of decomposition of rocks 
 found at or about the levels at which these ledges occur t 
 
 Be this as it may, the island seems to stand like a measuring-rod indica- 
 tion of depression to which the oceau-bed then has been subjected by the 
 deposit of earthy debris, supplying another illustration of the hypothesis 
 fitting in with the phenomena. 
 
 That island is surrounded by unfathomable depths, and such depths 
 apparently have at one time covered the land of South Africa ; but 
 it should be borne in mind that we are not shut up to the conclusion that 
 the depths were such as, without change, to receive in succession all the 
 successive deposits found upon it. 
 
 The science of geology has made us acquainted with numerous indications 
 of repeated alternations of elevations, and of subsidence beneath the sea 
 level of extensive areas of the earth's surface ; there may have been 
 accompanying alternations of elevation and depression elsewhere at a lower 
 level ; and there may have been either continuous or intermitted depression 
 brought about by the same means. But it is the general question of 
 upheaval in connection with the Hydrology of South Africa with which we 
 have at present chiefly to do, and in connection with this I proceed to 
 remark that, as has been already stated, there may be seen at Sea Point, 
 and along the beach towards Table Bay, and even on the streets of Cape- 
 Town — as at a street at the back of the Custom-House at North Wharf — 
 strata of these slate-like flakes, which look not less like successive deposits from 
 water than do any strata of sand, and much more so than do many strata 
 attributed to such deposition ; but these, instead of lying horizontally, as 
 layers of deposit of solid matter from water in which it had been deposited 
 generally do, are inclined, and in some places, almost perpendicular to the 
 horizon— a line of deposit of solid matter from water in which it has been 
 suspended which is almost impossible. 
 
 These thin flakes or strata have the usual appearance of thin flakes or 
 strata of slate deposited from water, but their position gives them very 
 much the appearance of having been subsequently uptilted. Looking at 
 " them as they crop up, and examining them with attention and care, there 
 seems to be nothing unreasonable in supposing that they were originally 
 deposited in a position almost horizontal, but that, at a time while they 
 were yet elastic, if not plastic, a little of the land adjacent had been 
 upheaved by the protrusion of a quantity of granite in a state of fusion, 
 which, bursting through them, bent upward the edges of the fissure, so 
 that they assumed the position of reclining against the base of the 
 protruded mass — a position which they may still be seen retaining at the 
 base of the Lion's Head. 
 
160 HYDKOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 The hypothesis enables us to account for this by supposing the pressure 
 at some part of the ocean-bed on which debris had accumulated to have 
 been greater than the cohesion of these strata could resist when it was 
 bearing upon them from below, in accordance with the hydraulic paradox of 
 a few ounces of water in a long tube of small bore raising a greater weight 
 on a wider upturned tube with which.it is " connected, and in accordance 
 with the practical application of such pressurein the hydraulic press ; and 
 the cohesion which held them together on an extended level giving way, 
 relief from the pressure was obtained by the protrusion of what is now soUd 
 granite, but what was then this material in a state of fusion. 
 
 But if the strata had not given way, and the pressure had been the same, 
 and if no rent had been obtained for the pressure elsewhere, the crust being 
 elastic, there must have been raised what would look like a blister, and 
 according to the tenacity of the cohesion this would have been more or less 
 extensive. This, according to the hypothesis, is what subsequently 
 occurred, extensive regions being more or less elevated according as the 
 cohesion of their substance was more or less tenacious ; and the result of 
 the process came to be the slow steady elevation of the whole by a 
 force from beneath, as steady in its operation as the force of the hydraulic 
 press, which slowly, but apparently with a force irresistible by the material 
 to which it is applied, elevates the board on which this rests. 
 
 With the view thus obtained of the comparatively puny application of 
 force in the hydraulic press, to which tons are as ounces to the-imaided 
 powers of man, we can look upon the whole continent of Africa as a blister 
 thus raised by the pressure of the fused material below, in consequence of 
 the pressure to which it is subjected by the deposit, on the equally elastic 
 crust of the ocean, of the material carried down by runnels and rivers from 
 this and other lands which have been so upheaven from the ocean's depth 
 to the elevation they have reached above the ocean's surface. 
 
 There may be mountain ranges — whole ranges of mountains — formed of 
 material protruded ages and ages ago through lengthened rents in the earlier 
 formed strata, as was the granite protruded through the slaty deposit, prior 
 to the deposit of the Silurian and Old Red Sandstone, with which both now 
 are covered. But most of the mountains which have come under our consider- 
 ation are apparently indebted for their mountainous character to the removal 
 of material, by ocean currents, from the district around them, leaving them 
 as indications of the elevation to which the whole district had been raised. 
 
 Thus may be obtained some idea of the pressure which the deposit, 
 formed here must have exerted when it was a portion of the ocean-bed ; 
 and thus may be obtained some idea of the pressure to which portions of 
 what is now the ocean-bed may be being subjected. 
 
 Excavators, to facilitate the measurement of work done by them, often 
 leave, in the excavated plot, pillars of the soil and underlying material, by 
 the height of which may be determined how much and what have been re- 
 moved. I look, as I have formerly intimated, upon the mountain ranges to 
 which I have referred asthe counterpart to these. 
 
 I have had occasion to speak of the Gates of the Oomzimvooboo, or St. 
 John's River, in Kaffraria, and I have spoken of these as upwards of 1200 
 feet in height, with the land behind varying in height from 800 to 1000 
 feet. At a distance of about 25 miles is Thaba 'Nkooloo, a remarkable 
 mountain, which, from' its outline, its formation, and its composition, 
 appears to have been at oiie time continuous with the so-called Gates of 
 
FBIHABY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 151 
 
 the Oomzimvooboo. This is a mountain which may be considered a 
 counterpart of the excavator's pillars to which I have referred. And the 
 description given to me by Mr A. S. White of Oomzimvooboo, who had 
 been long resident in the district, was that this, with, the Gates and the 
 Ingweli mountains, indicated clearly what must have been at one time the 
 level of the whole of the intermediate country. 
 
 So does it appear to have been the case with the land intermediate 
 between Table Mountain and the motmtains beyond. If an unexperienced 
 observer would form for himself some idea of what the thickness of this 
 deposit must have been, let him pace on a straightroad three-quarters of a mile; 
 thus wiU he learn something of what the statement that a moimtain is 4000 
 feet in height means ; or let him, if he care to do so, take his stand on the 
 exposed granite at Sea Point, and with his eye measure the elevation of the 
 Lion's Head ; let him then, with the data thus obtained, walk round this 
 by the Kloof road, and compare with the height of the Lion's Head the 
 height of Table Mountain, and estimate then the elevation of Table Moun- 
 tain above the level of the sea,~ and bear in mind that this is 3582 feet. 
 
 With the data thus obtained let him next endeavour to form a definite 
 idea of the mountains and elevated lands beyond. The summit of Riebeck'a 
 Casteel is 3109 feet. The summit of Sneewkop, in the Hottentot Holland 
 Mountains, bounding the flats connecting Table Bay and False Bay, and 
 bounded on the nearer side by the Table Mountain range, is 5066 feet. 
 Let him then estimate, if he can, what must have been the pressure of a 
 continuous sheet of deposit, of such a thickness, over the whole district and 
 far beyond. 
 
 When he has done this, or perhaps before it is accomplished, incredulity 
 will steal over him, and he will be ready to say, No — It is impossible — or 
 at least incredible, that any ocean-current can have so deeply furrowed the 
 earth's crust ! 
 
 But, there, are the strata capping Table Mountain and the Lion's Head 
 distinctly seen by whoever looks upon them ; and, there, is the testimony of 
 a geologist that what must have been a continuation of them remains on 
 the mountains far beyond ; there, are the uptilted strata of clay slate 
 resting on the protruded granite exposed at the base of the Lion's Hill, 
 the exposed extremities of which exhibit not any of the forms usually seen 
 in a mass uptilted from a horizontal position, the curves of a plastic and 
 ductile mass, or the sharp comers of a mass more solid and unyielding, but it 
 is comparatively level, as if aU projections had been planed down, an appear- 
 ance with which geologists are familiar, and which they attribute to a, 
 process of denudation affected by water in movement bearing along sus- 
 pended in it stones, sand, or mud, whereby is effected, what the fraction 
 occasioned by a flow of pure water might have done, but would have done 
 more slowly. 
 
 The force of a wave, "or of a torrent, or even of a douche bath may be more 
 than a man can withstand, and before such force mud, saiid, and stones may 
 be borne away like chaff before the wind. Sand driven before wind will 
 polish hard rock over which it paases. I have seen fossils beautifully polished 
 by being exposed to such a current of sand blown over a beach by a west- 
 erly wind ; and figures are now beautifully traced on glass by simply expos- 
 ing to a current of sand the portion requiring to be groimd down. "The flow 
 of water alone might suffice to have effected the denudation ; but the flow 
 of water suspending stones and sand and mud would effect it more rapidly ; 
 
152 HTDBOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 nor are there awanting deposits of stones and sands and mud which may- 
 have been thus borne along. 
 
 Mention has been made of conglomerate. In this jve have rounded stones 
 imbeded fast in ironstone or clay or other cement, and there are whole 
 mountains composed of such material, the stones in which are not angular 
 but rounded, as would be the shape of stones subjected to mutual attrition 
 in being rolled about together and striking one upon another as they might 
 have done in the rapid of a river, or on a shingly beach, or in an ocean current, 
 till every angular projection of a rough fracture was worn down. Much 
 more would require to be known about them than is here stated before 
 we would be warranted in affirming that the last stated was the occasion of 
 their collision^ but they cannot have been rounded in the place in which 
 they are : the mud which now hardened around them cements them into a 
 conglomerated mass would when soft have prevented attrition. The moun- 
 tain masses of conglomerate must then have been transported from some 
 other spot, and must have been deposited after these stones had acquired 
 their somewhat rounded form. 
 
 The current by which these were borne along, whencesoever it may be 
 they were brought, must have been a current of great force and of great 
 depth ; and such a current may have sufiBced to sweep away the four thousand 
 feet thickness of material formerly covering the Flats and plains beyond. The 
 submarine valley connected with an ocean current which Commander 
 Belknap, of the American Navy, attempted to fathom in his surveying voyage 
 in the east coast of Japan, was one of much greater- depth than those 
 with which we are conversant at the Cape ; and by Geikie it has been shown, 
 as I have formerly intimated, that both the longitudinal outline of moun- 
 tain ranges in the Highlands of Scotland, but also intersecting and connecting 
 valleys, may be the result of a process of denudation ; it is not less manifestly 
 the case that thus also it may have been here. 
 
 Imagine then the pressure which must have been exercised by such a 
 mass of material collected here before relief was afforded by these ocean- 
 currents relieving it by scooping out the plains, and carrying away the 
 material to deposit it elsewhere ; and mark a consequence, the ocean-bed 
 has been deeply depressed in the locality in which St Helena stands, and 
 there has been a corresponding bulging upward here. The plateau of the 
 Great Karroo is 3000 feet above the level of the sea ; the plateau of Bush- 
 manland 3500 feet ; the plateau of Damaraland is 6000 feet ; the town of 
 Colesberg is about 4000 feet ; and the plains of the Orange Kiver Free State 
 are about 5000 feet above the ocean level. 
 
 As the land rose the water would recede, drain oif, leaving latteral valleys, 
 as lakes ; as it rose these would tilt up and drain off j by the same courses rain 
 which subsequently fell would follow their waters to the sea, and the dry 
 channels would become open di-ains by which the land, to at least the depth 
 of these channels, would be drained dry; and by rents and cracks which 
 occurred in connection with the disturbance of the level in the upheaval of 
 the land, other channels were opened up for the draining off of the rainfall, 
 and that, perhaps, to an extent of which few of the inhabitants of the land 
 have any conception. It is in view of all this that I have spoken of the 
 upheaval of the land as the primary and principal cause of the desiccation 
 and consequent aridity of South Africa. 
 
 It may be alleged this that is only saying of South Africa what may be 
 
PBIHABY CAtJSB OF DESICCATION. 153 
 
 said of any land under heaven. It is — and something is accomplished if it 
 have been made apparent that so far there is nothing exceptional in the 
 primary cause of the aridity which it is desired to counteract— and something 
 more may be effected if it can be made apparent how the effect, such as it is, 
 has been brought about. 
 
 In connection with this I would call attention to the circumstances that 
 in the general contour of the country we have many indications that the 
 upheaval has been in general gradual and slow. 
 
 By Sir John Herschel it is stated, in a treatise on Physical Geography, — 
 " In the upheaval of any extensive tract of land from the sea hollows fitted 
 for lake-basins cannot fail to be left. If the upheaval be rude and parox- 
 ysmal, resulting in the formation of mountain chains, and accompanied with 
 fracture and dislocation of the strata, such hollows will be deep, precipitous, 
 and narrow, in proportion to their length. Such is the general character 
 of the lakes in mountainous regions- — of the Swiss lakes for instance, those 
 of North Italy, of Cumberland, Westmoreland, Scotland, &c. On the other 
 hand, where the upheaving forces have acted more gently, and gradually, 
 and have raised the country with more uniformity, producing extensive 
 plains and low steppes, lakes wiU not only be more numerous, by reason of 
 the less erosive power of running water to drain them by deepening the out- 
 lets, but will affect more rounded forms, and cover the country with shallow 
 pools or ponds void of all picturesque beauty, as we see exemplified in Poland, 
 and in the districts between the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea, which 
 are almost connected by a chain of shallow lakes. Some of them (as those 
 of Onega and Ladoga) very extensive." And such seems to have been the 
 character of most of the sheets of water which covered South Africa, both in 
 times more recent and in times more remote. The drainage of the lakes 
 may in some cases have been sudden, but the formation of the lake slow, 
 and the lake have been in its origin a product of the sea, rather than a product 
 of the land. In the precipitous banks of most of the water courses we have 
 indications of the upheaval having been continued to comparatively recent 
 times, if it be not still continued ; and we see the result. 
 
 As the land rose the water would flow off. As the mountain ranges rose 
 above the level' of the sea the water would drain off from their summits and 
 their sides. When water was retained in hollows by erosion waterfalls 
 would be converted into rapids and rapids into waterfalls, — each successive 
 change producing a state of things more favourable to the escape and flow 
 of the water from the lake than was the state of things before. At the same 
 time, these lakes and expanses of water, formed by the spreading out of 
 water traversing a valley in its flow towards the lower level, would be silted 
 up with the debris brought from a higher level, and the bottom of the outlet 
 would be worn down ; and by the silting up of the one and the lowering of 
 the other going on simultaneously a medium level would be reached by both, 
 and the lake become a plain, while the river-bed now dry would remain a 
 channel for the rapid conveyance of what might fall as rain, and draining off 
 what might percolate through the soil, till the land became dry, and drier, 
 and drier still. 
 
 This much is open and seen ; but the fountains, the hot-springs, both of 
 which are numerous in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope and sub- 
 terranean rivers, which are not unknown, teU of the draining off or flow of 
 water from the higher lying lands by other channels than the superficial 
 river-courses. In other lands there is much of the rainfall carried off thus, 
 
 T 
 
154 HYDBOLOOY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 and there is abundance of indications, if not of evidence, that as it is in 
 these so is it in this. 
 
 Marsh, citing Thomassy's Ussai sur V Hydrologie, says—" In the low 
 peninsula" of Florida, rivers, which must have their sources in mountains 
 hundreds of miles distant, pour forth from the earth with a volume 
 sufiacient to permit steamboats to ascend to their basins of irruption. In 
 January 1857 a submarine fresh-water river burst from the bottom of the 
 sea not far from the southern extremity of the peninsula, and for a whole 
 month discharged a current not inferior in volume to the River Mississippi, 
 or eleven times the mean delivery of the Po, and more than six times that 
 of the Nile. We can explain this phenomenon only by supposing that the 
 bed of the sea was suddenly burst up by the hydrostatic upward pressure 
 of the water in a deep reservoir communicating with some great sub- 
 terranean river or receptacle in the mountains of Georgia, or of Cuba, or 
 perhaps even in the valley of the Mississippi." And he goes on to say, — 
 " Late southern journals inform us that the creek under the natural bridge 
 in Virginia has suddenly disappeared, being swallowed up by newly-formed 
 fissures of unknown depth in its channel. It does not appear that an outlet 
 for the waters thus absorbed has been discovered, and it is not improbable 
 that they are filling some underground cavity like that which supplied the 
 submarine river just mentioned." 
 
 Sir John Hersohel, writing of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, where 
 " the river, 1000 yards in breadth, is suddenly swallowed up in a narrow 
 perpendicular cleft, 100 feet deep, in a black basaltic rock directly across 
 its course, which is prolonged from the bank 40 or 50 miles, in which the 
 river takes its new course, compressed in a deep channel of 15 or 20 yards," 
 goes on to say, — " The hydraulic system of the interior of South Africa, 
 disclosed by Dr Livingstone.'s travels, is anomalous in the extreme, and is 
 only compatible with the idea of a generally level plateau deluged with 
 periodical rains, but not, like the plain of the Amazon, dominated by a 
 great range of high-lands on one side, with a slope to the other, but as if 
 the periodical rains fell on a gently rising convexity so as to leave the waters 
 undecided by what channels to seek the main external drainage. It would 
 seem very probable that the clift of the Victoria Falls has been of comparer 
 tively recent origin, and has determined a new system of drainage by which 
 the water of these regions has been carried off more rapidly than heretofore, 
 since the general tenor of Dr Livingstone's narrative points to what may be 
 termed secular desiccation of the districts traversed by him." 
 
 By the consideration of such cracks and rents in the rock crust 
 of the earth, thought is directed to the possibillity of a quantity of water 
 being carried off by subterraneous as well as by superficial rivers. There are 
 more than one Zonder einde river in South Africa— rivers which have no 
 issue, but are apparently lost in the sand, as is the Kuruman. 
 
 One name of the Zambesi is Leeambye, both names mean the same thing 
 — the River — yet Livingstone writes in his Missionary Travels in South 
 Africa, — " An imtravelled gentleman who had spent a great part of his life 
 in the study of the geography of Africa, and knew everything written on 
 thesubject from the time of Ptolemy downwards, actually asserted in the 
 Am^^m, while I was coming up the Red Sea [on return from Africa], that 
 the'&agnificent river the Leeambye had ' no connection with the Zambesi, 
 but flowed under the Kalahari desert and became lost.' " To this I refer, not 
 to call attention to the mistake, but to intimate that the phenomenou of the 
 
PRIMAET CAUSE OF DESICCATION. , 155 
 
 disappearance of rivers in Africa is one of such frequent occurrence that a 
 student of the riyer system of the country publicly refers to this as the 
 probable or certain termination of a mighty flowing river which he had failed 
 to trace to the sea. And while rivers thus lost may have been evaporated 
 or abstracted, or partly both, subterranean rivers are not unknown in South 
 Africa — such is the Mooi river throughout a part of its course. 
 
 This Mooi river is formed by the commingling waters of some three 
 or four streams, eight, ten, or twelve feet wide, and it may be sixteen 
 inches deep. 
 
 In the Gatzrand there is an immense cavern called Wonder Fontein ; 
 and it is stated that chaff thrown into this cavern has come out in the 
 Mooi river, some eighteen miles distant, conveyed by a subterranean stream. 
 This information my informant, the Eev. Dr Murray, of Wellington, who 
 had laboured as a minister over the whole of that region, gave me as he 
 received it — without discrediting it — but vouching only for the fact, that it is 
 said ; and it is only in keeping with what the whole of the facts commu- 
 nicated to me in regard to that district or region would lead me to consider 
 possible. 
 
 AU fountains, indeed, may be considered outlets of subterraneous water- 
 courses, of greater or lesser size, carrying away water from a higher level, and 
 some of them must be of considerable magnitude. Such is the Kuruman, 
 described by Mr Backhouse, at its source, as " A stream, which would turn a 
 mill, issuing from under sand rocks." It is a clear permanent stream, but 
 one which, unlike most, is largest at its source, and ceases about ten miles to 
 the northwest, disappearing and reappearing at intervals, and at length 
 terminating in a dry water-course, which is only filled in rainy weather. It 
 is thus described by Dr Moffat : — 
 
 " It issues from caverns in a little hill, which is composed of blue and 
 grey limestone, mixed with considerable quantities of flint, but not In 
 nodules as found in beds of chalk. From the appearance of the oaves, and 
 the irregularity of the strata, one might be led to suppose they have been 
 the results of internal convulsions. The water, which is pure and wholesome, 
 is rather calcareous. It is evident that its source must be at a very great 
 distance, as all the rains which fall on the hills and plains for forty miles 
 round, in one year, could not possibly supply such a stream for one month. 
 Although there are no sandstone formations nearer than thirty miles, great 
 quantities of exceedingly fine sand come from it ; it appears to boil up 
 out of the smaller springs in front of the larger, and it is to be found in 
 deposit in the bed of the river for miles distant. The substratum of the 
 whole of the country, as far as the Orange River, is compact limestone, 
 which in some of the Hamhana hills rises considerably above the neighbour- 
 ing plain; but these only form the basis of argillaceous hills and iron-schist, 
 on the top of which the compass moves at random, or according to the 
 position in which it is placed. The strata of these schistose formations are 
 often found to bend and curve into all shapes, frequently exhibiting an 
 appearance of golden asbestos, but extremely hard. The common blue 
 asbestos is to be found at Gamaperi, in the neighbourhood, the same as that 
 found near the Orange River. The limestone extends to Old Lithako, where 
 there are hills of basalt and primitive limestone ; among which masses of 
 serpentine rock of various colours, usually called pipe-stone, are to be met 
 with. Beyond the Batlapi dominions, towards the Molapo, there is abun- 
 dance of granite, green stotie, etc., while the limestone foundation, towards 
 
156 HTDBOLOaY OF SOUTH iPRIOA. 
 
 the west, terminates among the sandy -wilds of the southern Zahara. 
 Foimtains, throughout the whole extent of the limestone basin, are pre- 
 carious, and independent of causes described in a preceding chapter ; nor 
 does that of the Kuruman continue to send forth the torrents it once did." 
 
 The mention of limestone, and the mention of its being so abundant and 
 extensively difiPused over the district, is in accordance with the supposition 
 that there may be there numerous and extensive lines of caves, and in 
 accordance with the fact of there being there this subterranean river, 
 which only from its issue is called the Kuruman ; and the Kuruman is only 
 one of -such. 
 
 There is, I am informed, a large plateau in the latitude of Delagoa Bay, 
 26° S., and extending from 28° to 30° E. long., from which the river 
 systems of the Limpopo to the north, and of the Orange Eiver on the south, 
 take their rise. It may be about 7000 feet above the level of the sea. On 
 this plateau, if I have understood my informant correctly, there are what 
 can scarcely be called springs — they surpass so much in magnitude what 
 are generally so designated — but streams, issuing like Minerva from the 
 head of her father, in the full perfection of strength ; not springs giving 
 birth. to rills and streamlets, spending their infancy and childhood in play 
 amongst the hills, glancing or glinting in the sunshine, tumbling over stones, 
 and playing such like childish freaks, — ^but streams in all the vigour of early 
 manhood, like that of the Kuruman which has just been described. There 
 are more than thirty such earth-born streams to the north of this plateau, 
 and upwards of twenty to the south, but they do not all die in their bed 
 like the Kuruman, some of them commingling themselves, and unitedly 
 draining the valleys of the Limpopo and Gariep ; and besides these there 
 are many of a smaller size. 
 
 I am further informed that there are here and there scattered over the 
 plateau hollows with somewhat precipitous sides, it may be 100 feet deep 
 and from 100 to 200 feet across, which may have been formed by a swirl of 
 water drawn oflF into a subterranean channel when the plateau was a water- 
 bed, or may have been formed by a subsidence of superficial strata roofing 
 a cavern, which I consider more likely to have been the case, but which, in 
 either case, are indicative of subterranean hoUows, which might serve as 
 reservoirs or water-courses. 
 
 I may not ignore the existence of subterranean cavities of great extent 
 into which water may escape by percolation or by rents in the rock, but 
 I attach not importance to these as by themselves affecting the withdrawal 
 ' of water from the surface of the land. I look upon them as bearing the 
 same relation to subterranean rivers which lakes do to the rivers which flow 
 through them, and estimate the drainage by the flow at the exit, not by the 
 contents of the reservoir. 
 
 Besides these, the numerous hot springs — some of them such as those at 
 Brand Vley near Worcester, at Caledon, at Balmoral near Uitenhage, and 
 elsewhere, of considerable magnitude — and the water found, as it used to be 
 found, by the divining rod [!], all tell of the draining off of water from higher 
 levels by subterranean water-courses. 
 
 With so many fountains, hot springs, and subterranean rivers, within the 
 region colonized, it is reasonable to suppose that many more may find an 
 exit under the sea. When coming frctai a higher level thoy must flow freely, 
 notwithstanding the depth of water above the orifice, as in the oases cited 
 by Tomassy and by Marsh. Cases of such fresh-water springs under the 
 
PRIMARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 157 
 
 sea are by no means rare ; and not more rare are cases of fountains existing 
 on islands at a higher level than that of the surface of the ocean, and of a 
 greater flow than can be attributed to the percolation of a water from a 
 higher level on the island itself, — leaving room for the supposition that it 
 may have come from some more distant locality, and suggestive of the 
 thought that we know not, and cannot know, the quantity of water which 
 may thus be drawn off from the land. 
 
 Thus does it appear that irom the higher position to which the land has 
 been elevated over its surface, from it, and under it, water is constantly 
 flowing off to the sea : and the channels thus created so facilitate the flow that 
 apparently all the water that falls upon it — and other source it has none — finds 
 its way, without let, or hindrance, or detention, to the same great reservoir. 
 Does a thunder-storm pass over a district, deluging the district with rain, 
 the water thus precipitated rushes headlong to the sea. Every year do the 
 newspapers record the fact, and no phenomena enter so largely into the 
 subjects of talk and conversation of travellers within and beyond the colony. 
 Some of the water may escape by cracks and rents, but only to find another 
 course to the same resting-place ; and if the land be soaked and saturated 
 by the rain, not a little of the water so retained .for a time is drained off 
 into some one or other of the water-courses leading to the sea. In view of 
 all this it is that I attribute the desiccation of South Africa, primarily and 
 principally, to its upheaval and elevation above the level of the sea. Thus 
 have the waters which covered it been drained off; and thus have been 
 drained ofi' all the rains which have subsequently fallen upon it. 
 
 It would only be a controversy about the propriety of the phraseology 
 employed which would be involved in the discussion, whether the relative 
 position in regard to the elevation of the land and the sea — or the upheaval 
 of the land — or the depression of the ocean-bed — or the cause of these 
 disturbances — or the gravitation which brings the water from the higher to 
 the lower level — should be spoken of as the primary cause of that desicca- 
 tion : to the relative position in regard to the level of the land, of the bed 
 of the ocean, and to the upheaval of the land as the cause of this, and to 
 the drainage thus occasioned may be attributed, primarily and principally, 
 the desiccation and consequent aridity of South Africa ; and thus to the 
 elevation of the land may be traced back the desiccation of the land. 
 
 But we meet with yet another class of phenomena connected with the 
 desiccation of South Africa — the drying up of lakes from which there is. no 
 apparent outlet, and the drying up of these subsequently to the draining off 
 of the waters to the level of the only outlet seen — the level of which may 
 be somewhat, and in some cases is considerably, above the level of the 
 lowest part of the bed of the lake ; and to the cause or occasion of these 
 phenomena we must next inquire. 
 
158 HTDROLOOT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 SECONDARY CAUSES OF THE DESICCATION AND CONSEQUENT ARIDITY OP 
 
 SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 The rush of waters, whether from the lakes and inland seas of a former 
 age or from districts on which the' thunder-showers now fall, may be 
 attributed to the upheaval of the^^ land, and to this rush of waters may be 
 attributed the fretting away or undermining and fall of barriers by which 
 it was at one time restrained. 
 
 The removal of some of these barriers must have occurred long, long ago, 
 and there are indications that the process of upheaval may be still going on, 
 and thus may the rainfall be allowed to be carried off more rapidly, and in 
 increased proportion, to the sea. 
 
 And thus the disturbance of level of the elevation of the land may be 
 proved to have been the primary and principal cause or occasion of the 
 desiccation of the land; but it is not the only cause or occasion of this. It does 
 not account for all the phenomena observed. We have had under consi- 
 deration lakes drying up after the surface of the water had fallen below the 
 level of the outlet,- and that expression — drying up — at once describes the 
 fact and indicates the cause. Water exposed to the atmosphere dries up ; 
 the greater the heat and the drier the air the more rapid is the process : the 
 water assumes the form of vapour, and it is said to evaporate or to evapo- 
 rate away ; — and to this, as a secondary cause or occasion of desiccation, 
 may be attributed the aridity which prevails. 
 
 Section I. — Phenomena of Evaporation, and Modifications of this produced 
 by Atmospheric Moisture and hy Shade. 
 
 To such a process of evaporation may be traced all the supply of water 
 brought to man, and bird, and beast, wheresover in the wide, wide world 
 man, or bird, or beast doth live. 
 
 While there are, in round numbers, about fifty millions of square miles 
 of the earth's surface dry land, there are about an hundred and fifty 
 millions of square miles of its surface covered with water. To evaporation 
 from this is attributed the continuous supply of* moisture, condensed into 
 clouds, and precipitated as hail, and snow, and rain, and dew, all the world 
 over, and to a portion of what is thus precipitated the formation and 
 supply of all the streamlets, and streams, and rivers, and torrents, which 
 fertilize and beautify, or tear up and destroy, the lands through which they 
 flow. The supposition is not far from the truth, and it is in accordance 
 with what was written by the Hebrew poets : " All the rivers run into the 
 sea ; yet the sea is not full : unto the place from which the rivers came, 
 thither they return again. They go up by the mountains ; they go down 
 by the valleys, unto the place which Thou hast founded for them. Thou 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 150 
 
 hast set a bound that they may not pass over ; that they turn not again to 
 cover the earth," having " placed the sand for a bound of the sea by a 
 perpetual decree that it cannot pass it : and though the waves thereof toss 
 themselves yet can they not prevail ; though they war yet can they not 
 pass over it." 
 
 The evaporation from such an extent of ocean must be great. From 
 shallow water in warm and temperate regions it is probably proportionately 
 greater. The annual evaporation from the Mediterranean', the Black Sea, 
 and the Sea of Azov, is reckoned at 50 inches of their depth over the whole 
 extent of their surface. This surface being equal to about 1,500,000 
 square miles, a simple calculation shows that, if the fact be as stated, 
 the quantity of fresh water thus evaporated would measure upwards of 500 
 cubic miles of water ; a corresponding estimate and calculation shows that 
 the annual evaporation from the Red Sea must amount to 165 cubic miles 
 of water. Of the evaporation of moisture from the sea, some idea may be 
 formed from the quantity returned to it daily by rivers throughout the 
 earth. This is calculated by Metcalfe to be'135,000,000,000 cubic metres 
 per day, by Keith Johnston to be 175,000,000,000 cubic metres, by 
 Elesfee Reclus to be 85,000,000,000 cuWo metres, — quantities of which it is 
 impossible to form an idea. From lakes situated inland and raised to a higher 
 temperature, under a drier atmosphere, the evaporation may be expected 
 to be greater stiU ; and to this may be attributed the partial drying up of 
 the lake Gnami, and the complete drying up of the salt-pans mentioned by 
 Livingstone and by Chapman, and of others, which have been dried up within 
 the memory of man, and the previous final drying up, at what may be called, 
 in comparison with times which we have had under consideration, compara- 
 tively recent times, and of others of which mention has been made in the 
 review which has been given of the hydrographic records presented in the 
 geological phenomena and in the physical geography of the country. 
 
 When one breathes upon a cold sheet of polished steel, the condensed 
 vapour seems to remain for a time confounded, knowing not what to do ; 
 after this it begins slowly to evaporate, and the process goes on with acceler- 
 ating rapidity, until at last the dew-drops seem to run or fly as fast as feet 
 or wings will bear them. So seems it to be with the drying up of a lake in 
 a hot and arid atmosphere, — the rapidity of the evaporation increases as the 
 depth and quantity of the water is diminished. With still greater rapidity is 
 moisture evaporated from what is only moistened land. And it can not only 
 be proved by experiment that the drier the atmosphere the more rapid will 
 the evaporation proceed, but it can be shown how it comes to pass that 
 such is the case. 
 
 Pirgt, In whatever way it be brought about — be' it in accordance with the 
 law of gaseous diffusion or through chemical affinity — ^when the two are in 
 contact moisture is absorbed by the air of the atmosphere up to a point of 
 saturation varying with the temperature ; by adhesion, or it may be, by 
 chemical affinity, but more probably the former, moisture is retained by the 
 soil, but up to a certain point, varying with the composition of the soil, 
 the absorbent power of the air is in general more powerful than is the 
 retaining power of the soil ; the excess of power of absorption manifested 
 by the air over the power of retention manifested by the soil appears to 
 diminish as the air approaches to saturation ; and the statement that the 
 
160 HYDHOLOGV OS' south AFEICi. 
 
 drier the atmosphere the more rapidly will the evaporation proceed is only 
 one which is the converse of this. 
 
 Marsh, citing Der Boden und das Wasser, by Wilhelm, a work published 
 in Vienna in 1861, and Set Klimaat van Nederland, by Krecke, says : — 
 " The relative evaporating action of earth and water is a very complicated 
 problem, and the results of observations on the subject are conflicting. 
 Sohuebler found that at Geneva the evaporation from bare loose earth in 
 the months of December, January, and February, was from two and a-half 
 to six times as great as from a like surface of water in the other months. 
 The evaporation from water was from about once and a-half to six times as 
 ^reat as from earth. Taking the whole year together the evaporation from 
 the two surfaces was 199 and 8-12ths lines from the earth, and 536 and 
 1-1 2th lines from water. Experiments by Van der Steer, at the Helder, in 
 the years 1861 and 1862, showed for the former year an evaporation of 
 602'9 millimfetres from water, 1399'6 millimetres from ground covered with 
 clover and other grasses ; in 1862 the evaporation from water was 584'5 
 millimtoes, from grass ground, 875'5." 
 
 "On the other hand," he says, citing Saggio Idrologica sul J^ilo, by 
 Lombardini, a work published in Milan in 1864, "the evaporation from the 
 Nile in Egypt and Nubia is stated to be three times, as great as that from 
 an equal surface of the soil which borders it. The thermometrical condi- 
 tions of land and water in the same vicinity are constantly varying, and the 
 hydrometricar state of both is equally unstable." 
 
 Secondly, The power of absorption is increased with the temperature of the 
 air ; the air is raised in temperature by the sun's rays penetrating to the 
 earth ; these rays are compound, or produce at least the three correlated 
 phenomena of light, heat, and chemical action ; there are substances 
 permiable by some but not by others of these constituent rays ; glass of a 
 particular colour is impermiable by the chemical ray, and photographers 
 avail themselves of this to secure, without detriment to their work, the 
 light necessary to manipulate their negative photographs ; glass allows free 
 passage to solar but not to reflected heat, hence its use in horticulture ; and 
 water allows not a free passage even to radiated heat ; in accordance with 
 this a cloud throws back the heat which falls upon it from the sun, 
 lowering the temperature of a hot day wherever its shadow falls ; and it 
 throws back the heat radiating from the earth, and raises thus the tempera- 
 ture in a day of intense frost in the same way that a thin veil increases 
 warmth by throwing back the heat radiated from the face which it protects ; 
 this it does whether it be in the solid, the liquid, or the gaseous state which it 
 is in the air by which it is absorbed or held in a state of solution. And 
 the n-ore of it is thus held the greater will be the reflection ; the less or the 
 drier the air the freer the passage for the solar heat ; the drier the atmos- 
 phere the greater will be the difi'erence of temperature between day and 
 night, and, it may be, between summer and winter; and the higher 
 temperature of the air during sunshine will increase its power of absorption 
 beyond what will be compensated by the diminished power of absorption 
 during the night, — in this way also bringing to pass that the drier the 
 atmosphere the more rapidly will the evaporation proceed. 
 
 But whatever may impede or reflect the rays of heat wiU, as does the mois- 
 ture in the way now stated, retard desiccation ; and the removal of anything 
 that does so, will promote it — operating negatively. 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 161 
 
 Experience and obBervation have shown that desiccation, both of atmos- 
 phere and of soil, is impeded and prevented by vegetation. Throughout the 
 whole period embraced by the memory of its inhabitants, and in earlier 
 times, there has been canied on one continuous destruction of grass and 
 herbage by fire, and partly by the hand of man, the effect of which must 
 have been, as in some cases it has been seen to be, to facilitate evaporation, 
 and thus to expedite the process of desiccation ; and to this, as the immediate 
 cause, I attribute the degree of aridity which now prevails. 
 
 Far more moisture, it may be, is carried off by drainage than by evapor- 
 ation j and the increase of evaporation, attributable to the removal of vege- 
 tation it may be, bears but a small proportion to the evaporation which 
 goes on irrespective of this, but yet the quantity of moisture thus with- 
 drawn from the soil may be absolutely great ; and whether it be great or 
 small, seeing that it is this which has crowned or completed the process 
 whereby the desiccation has been carried to the extent that it has been, it 
 deserves, if it do not demand, attention ; and when attention is given to it, 
 it may be found that it is no less deserving of attention than are the indi- 
 cations of the former hydrographic condition of the country, and of water 
 having been drained off extensively by the elevation of the land to the 
 altitude it has attained. 
 
 That trees have some effect, whatever that effect may be, in attracting, 
 or creating, or retaining moisture, is extensively believed ; and therefore 
 would I refer, first, to the great and extensive destruction of trees which has 
 taken place in South Africa, and to the effect which this must have had upon 
 the climate and soil as promoting the desiccation, and so producing the aridity. 
 
 The records of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope do not happen to 
 supply evidence that this has been the case. But St. Helena, which, in 
 connection with this discussion, may be considered a South African island, 
 supplies illustrations of effects produced on the climate, both by the" 
 destruction of trees and by extensive sylviculture. 
 
 From a note appended by Emsman to his German translation of a work 
 on meteorology, in relation to cosmical phenomena by Foissac,* it appears 
 that in the beginning of the sixteenth century the forests of St Helena must 
 have been extensive, for it is stated by him, on the authority of the intro- 
 ductory chapters in Beatson's St. Helena, that "it was the goats which 
 destroyed the beautiful forests which, three hundred and fifty years ago, 
 covered a continuous surface of not less than two thousand acres in the 
 interior of the island, not to mention scattered groups of trees. 
 
 While I was at the Cape I wrote to St. Helena for information on the 
 subject, and in reply his Excellency, H. E. Janisch, now Governor of the 
 island, at once supplied me with the following information, embodied in 
 notes published in the Natural History of St. Helena : — " Viewed from the 
 sea the island offers little or nothing to the eye but an assemblage of lofty and 
 barren hills, intersected in all directions with deep and narrow valleys, in 
 many cases little better than ravines, and generally devoid of vegetation, 
 excepting here and there patches of prickly pear samphire and profitless 
 weeds, the wooded peaks in the interior being in most positions hidden from 
 view by the almost perpendicular cliffs running down to the sea. But when 
 first discovered, in 1502, it was in the valleys almost covered with trees 
 
 * Meteorologie mil Rucksight auf die Lehere vom Kosmos. Deutsch von A. H. 
 EmBman, Leipzig, 1859. 
 
 U 
 
162 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 right down to the water's edge. These trees appear to have been principally 
 gum-wood, ebony, and red-wood." The gum-wood flourished nearest to the 
 sea ; the ebony and red-wood covered the slopes of the mountain ; while the 
 hill tops appear to have been covered with the, cabbage tree and ferns — the 
 former presenting from a little distance the appearance of a singular-looking 
 tree bearing stocks of cabbage, or of brocoli, at the extremeties of its 
 branches. While such was the state of vegetation, it must have been an 
 island weU watered everywhere. 
 
 But the earlier governors and settlers made sad havoc among the trees ; 
 and herds of goats and of swine being allowed to run loose on the land, 
 yOung growing trees, which might have supplied the waste, were destroyed, 
 and the island became almost denuded. All the ebony trees have long 
 since disappeared ] the last, a tree remarkable for its excessive hardness, 
 size, and density, was found on Deadwood. The red-wood is now scarce, and, 
 like the ebony, would altogether have disappeared, had not Governor 
 Byefield caused two young trees to be set at Plantation House, from which 
 two all at present on the island have been propagated. And a comparison 
 of the cabbage trees of the present with the remains of those of the past 
 tell of a stunted growth. What was the consequence of this extensive 
 destruction of trees ? " Incidentally we find," says my correspondent, "in the 
 records of the last centirry, accounts of repeated and almost periodical visita- 
 tions of very severe drought, occasioning ruinous losses of cattle and crops." 
 
 Towards the close of the last century, however, the denudation of the 
 island had been carried so far that wiser governors saw it to be necessary 
 to adopt some strenuous measure to restore the veg-etation. Nurseries were 
 made, and experienced gardeners were introduced by the Company, and 
 trees from all parts of the world were introduced and flourished. Prizes 
 were given for the number of trees reared, irrespective of their character. 
 The cluster pine (pinus pinaster) was sown very extensively, and several 
 plantations of this tree remain in a thriving condition. But a variety of 
 other forest trees, greatly preferred both for beauty and use, were planted 
 about the same period and have flourished well. Lists have been sent to 
 me of 133 exotic trees and shrubs, and of 39 fruit-bearing plaiits, now 
 growing on the island. And what have been the results ? My corres- 
 pondent writes : — " For may years past, since the general growth of oirr 
 trees, we have been preserved from this scourge ; and droughts, such as were 
 formerly recorded, are now altogether unknown. We- have no means, how- 
 ever, of otherwise comparing the rain-fall of the two periods, as no tables, 
 or even estimates, of the rainfall can be had for the earlier dates. Our fall 
 of rain now is equal to that of England, and is spread almost evenly over the 
 year. The showers fall more heavily in two or three months of the year. 
 But this period, though called on this account the rainy season, is in no way 
 to be compared to what is understood by an inter-tropical rainy season." 
 
 Meteorological observations are or were kept at Longwood and at Planta- 
 tion. I have at command only the record of the rainfall from 1841 to 1848. 
 The amount of rain which fell in these years was : — 
 
 1841, 68'925 1845, 19'509 
 
 1842, 90-458 1846, 26-556 
 
 1843, 37-189 1847, 42-441 
 
 1844, 20-026 1848, 45-630 
 
 Giving as the mean annual fall 43-813 inches — a rainfall corresponding to 
 that at Wynberg, at the back of Table Mountain. 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 163 
 
 In illustration of the importance of noting the locality in which such 
 observations may be made, I give the following records of the rain which fell 
 during a period of nine months in the iirst of these years (1841), at four 
 stations, varying in altitude, but comprehended within a circle of little 
 more than a mile radius : — 
 
 At 414 feet of elevation 7 '6 3 inches. 
 At 1782 „ 43-42 „ 
 
 At 1991 „ 27-11 „ 
 
 At 2644 „ 22-63 „ 
 
 While proper corrections and eliminations may be necessary to make any 
 series of meterological registers of great value, in the absence of these, 
 general popular observations become of considerable importance. And the 
 observations 1 have cited may command an attention which a bare record 
 of observations — made by we know not whom, and instruments we know 
 not what — cannot. 
 
 The statement furnished by Mr Janisch is not only in accordance with 
 popular opinion, but in accordance with the testimony of others, in regard 
 to what has been observed elsewhere in regard to the rainfall on mountains 
 and forests. 
 
 " There is good reason," says Marsh, in his work on The Earth, as 
 modified hy Human Action, " to believe that the surface of the habitable 
 earth, in all the climates and regions which have been the abodes of dense 
 and civilized populations, was, with few exceptions, already covered with a 
 forest growth when it first became the home of man. This we infer from 
 the extensive vegetable remains — trunks, branches, roots, fruits, and leaves 
 of trees — so often found in conjunction with works of primitive art, in the 
 boggy soil of districts where no forests appear to have existed within the 
 eras through which written annals reach ; from ancient historical records, 
 which prove that large provinces where the earth has long been wholly bare 
 of trees were clothed with vast and. almost unbroken woods when first made 
 known to Greek and Koman civilization ; and from the state of much of 
 North and South America, as well as of many islands, when they were 
 discovered and colonized by the European race." 
 
 In a foot-note he says — ■" The recorded evidence in support of the 
 supposition in the text has been collected by L. F. Alfred Maury, in his 
 Histoire des grandes Forets de la Gaule et de I'Ancienne France; and by 
 Becquerel, in his important work, Des Climats et de I'Infiuence qu' exercent 
 les Sols boises et non-boises. Liv. II., C. I-IV." And he goes on to say — 
 " We may rank among historical evidences on this point, if not technically 
 among historical records, old geographical names and terminations etymo- 
 logically indicating forest or grove, which are too common in many parts of 
 the eastern continent now entirely stripped of woods, — such as in Southern 
 Europe, Breuil, Broglio, Brolio, Brolo ; in Northern, Brueil, and the 
 endings, dean, den, don, ham, holt, herst, hurst, lund, skaw, shot, skog, 
 skov, wald, weald, wold, wood. The island of Madeira, whose noble forests 
 were devastated by fire not long after its colonization by European settlers, 
 takes its name from the Portuguese word for wood." 
 
 The name given originally to the island by the Portuguese was Materia, 
 in allusion to the apparently inexhaustible materials it supplied for ship- 
 building and for the construction of houses. 
 
 And in another foot-note, appended to a statement that the surface of 
 
164 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Palestine is composed in a great measure of rounded limestone hills, ■whiclx 
 were once, no doubt, coYered with forests which were partially removed 
 before the Jewish conquest. Marsh remarks, — " ' Forests,' ' woods,' and 
 'groves,' are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament as existing at 
 particular places, and they are often referred to, by way of illustration, as 
 familiar objects. 'Wood' is twice spoken of as a material in the New 
 Testament, but otherwise — at least according to Cruden — not one of the 
 above words occur in that volume. In like manner, while the box, the 
 cedar, the fir, the oak, the pine, ' beams,' and ' timber,' are very frequently 
 mentioned in the Old Testament, not one of these words are found in the 
 New, except the case of the ' beam in the eye,' in the parable in Matthew 
 and Luke. 
 
 " This interesting fact, were other evidence wanting, would go far to prove 
 that a great change had taken place, in this respect, between the periods 
 when the Old Testament and the New were respectively composed. ; for the 
 Scriptural writers, and speakers introduced into their narratives, are 
 remarkable for their frequent allusions to the natural objects, and the social 
 and industrial habits, which characterized their ages and their country." 
 
 And following up the statement in the text, he says,- — " These evidences 
 are strengthened by observation of the natural economy of our own time ; 
 for whenever a tract of country, once inhabited and cultivated by man, is 
 abandoned by him and domestic animals, and surrendered to the undisturbed 
 influences of spontaneous nature, its soil sooner or later clothes itself with 
 herbaceous and arborescent plants, and at no long interval with a dense 
 forest growth. Indeed, upon surfaces of a certain stability, and not 
 absolutely precipitous inclination, the special conditions required for the 
 spontaneous propagation of trees may all be negatively expressed, and 
 reduced to these three -.^-exemption from defect or excess of moisture, 
 from perpetual frost, and from the depredations of men and browzing 
 quadrupeds. When these requisites are secured, the hardest rock is as 
 certain to be over-grown with wood as, the most fertile plain, though for 
 drier seasons the process is slower in the former than in the latter case. 
 Lichens and mosses first prepare the vay for a more highly organized vege- 
 tation. They retain the moisture of rains and dews, aud bring it to act, in 
 combination with the gases evolved by their organic processes, in decom- 
 posing the surface of the rook they cover ; they arrest and confine the dust 
 which the wind scatters over them, and their final decay adds new material 
 to the soil already half-formed beneath and upon them. A very thin 
 stratum of mould is sufficient for the germination of seeds of the hardy 
 evergreens and the birches, the roots of which are often found in immediate 
 contact with the rock, supplying their trees with nourishment from a soil 
 deepened and enriched from the decomposition of their foliage, or sending 
 out long rootlets into the surrounding eartli in search of juices to feed them." 
 
 But with all the provisions which have been made for the production of 
 forests, and for the restoration of small portions which have been destroyed, 
 it is possible for man to counteract these ; and he has done so. But what 
 have been some of the consequences which have followed ? 
 
 According to a summary of some of these given by Marsh, — " With the 
 extirpation of the forest all is changed. At one season the earth parts with 
 its warmth by radiation to an open sky ; receives, at another, an immoderate 
 heat from the unobstructed rays of the sun. Hence the climate becomes 
 excessive, and the soil is alternately parched by the fervours of summer. 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OF DBSICOATIOK. 165 
 
 and seared by the rigotirs of winter. Bleak winds sweep unresisted over its 
 Buface, drift away the snow that sheltered it from the frost, and dry up its 
 scanty moisture. The precipitation becomes as irregular as the temperature ; 
 the melting snows and varied rains, no longer absorbed by a loose and 
 bibular vegetable mould, rush over the frozen surface, and pour down the 
 valleys seawards, instead of filling a retentive bed of absorbent earth, and 
 storing up a supply of moisture to feed perennial springs. ■ The soil is 
 bared of its covering of leaves, broken and loosened by the plough, deprived 
 of the fibrous rootlets which held it together, dried and pulverized by sun 
 and wind, and at last exhausted by new combinations. The face of the 
 earth is no longer a sponge, but a dust heap ; and the floods which the 
 waters of the sky poured over it hurry swiftly along its slopes, carrying in 
 suspension vast quantities of earthy particles, which increase the abrading 
 power and mechanical force of the current, and, augmented by the sand and 
 gravel of falling banks, fill the beds of the streams, divert them into new 
 channels, and obstruct their outlets. The rivulets, wanting their former 
 regularity of supply, and deprived of the protecting shade of the woods, are 
 heated, evaporated, and thus reduced in their former currents, — but 
 swollen to raging torrents in autumn and in spring. 
 
 " From these causes there is a constant degradation of uplands, and a 
 consequent elevation of the beds of water-courses, and of lakes, by the 
 deposition of the mineral and vegetable matter carried down by the waters. 
 The channels of great rivers become unnavigable, their estuaries are choked 
 up, and harbours which once sheltered large navies are shoaled by danger- 
 ous sand-bars. 
 
 " The earth stript of its vegetable glebe grows less and less productive, and 
 consequently less able to protect itself by weaving a new net-work of roots 
 to bind its particles together, a new carpeting of turf to shield it from wind 
 and sun and scouring rain. Gradually it becomes altogether barren. The 
 washing of the soil from the mountains leave bare ridges of sterile rock, 
 and the rich organic mould which covered them, now swept down into the 
 dark low grounds, promotes a luxuriance of aquatic vegetation that breeds 
 fever and more insidious forms of mortal disease by its decay, and thus the 
 earth is rendered no longer fit for the habitation of man." 
 
 In accordance with these views are the views of all the students of Forest 
 Science whom I know to have given attention to the subject. " Almost 
 everywhere," says Schleiden, Professor of Botany in the University of .Jena, 
 " in the great characters in which nature writes her chronicles, in fossilized 
 woods, layers of peat, and the like, or even in the little notes of men, for 
 instance in the records of the Old Testament, occur proof, or at least 
 indications, that those countries which are now treeless and arid deserts, 
 part of Egypt, Syria, Persia, and so forth, were formerly thickly wooded, 
 traversed by streams now dried up or shrunk within narrow bounds ; while 
 now the burning glow of the sun, and particularly the want of water, allow 
 but a sparse population. In contrast must not a jovial toper laugh indeed, 
 who looks from Johannisberg out over the Uhine country, and drinks a 
 health in Etidesheimer to the noblest of the German rivers, if he recall 
 the statement of Tacitus, that not even a cherry, much less a grape, 
 would ripen on the Rhine ! And if we ask the cause of this mighty 
 change, we are directed to the disappearance of the forests. With the 
 careless destruction of the growth of trees, man interferes to alter greatly 
 the natural conditions of the country. We can indeed now raise one of the 
 
166 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH ATRIOA. 
 
 finest vines upon the Khine, where two thousand years ago no cherry 
 ripened ; but on the other hand, those lands where the dense population of 
 the Jews was nourished by a fruitful culture are in the present day half deserts. 
 The cultivation ofclover, requiring a moist atmosphere, has passed from Greece 
 to Italy, from thence to Southern Germany, and already is beginning to fly 
 from the continually drier summers there to be coniined to the moister north. 
 Bivers which formerly scattered their blessings with equal fulness through- 
 out the whole year, now leave the dry and thirsty bed to split and gape in 
 summer, while in spring they suddenly pour out the masses of snow, 
 accumulated in winter, over the dwelling-places of affrighted men. If the 
 continued clearing and destruction of forests is at first followed by greater 
 warmth, more southern climate, and more luxuriant thriving of the more 
 delicate plants, yet it draws close behind this desirable condition another 
 which restrains the habitability of a region within as narrow, and perhaps 
 even narrower, limits than before. In Egypt, no Pythagoras need now 
 forbid his scholars to live upon the beans ; long has that land been 
 incapable of producing them. The wine of Mendes and Mareotis, which 
 inspired the guests of Cleopatra, — which was celebrated even by Horace, — 
 it grows no more. No assassin now finds the holy pine-grove of Poseidon, 
 in which to hide and lie in ambush for the singers hastening to the feast. 
 The pine has long since retired from the invading desert climate to the 
 heights of the Arcadian Mountains. Where are the pastures now, where 
 are the fields around the holy citadel of Dardanus, which at the foot of the 
 richly-watered Ida supported three thousand mares 1 Who can talk now of 
 the ' Xanthus,' with its hurrying waters 1 Who would understand now the 
 ' Argos feeder of horses V " 
 
 And so has it been elsewhere. It is said in Barbadoes and Jamaica the 
 felling of forests has been attended by a diminution of rain. 
 
 The effect of the destruction of forests upon the climate has been 
 questioned, but these facts remain. And so has it been seen again and 
 again in the history of the nations. The term savage, from its etymo- 
 logical derivation, speaks of a sylvan life ; and from the sylvan or 
 savage life to that of the civilized or city life, the progress of man may 
 be traced, to some extent, by the destruction of forests. The one has, 
 until attention was given to consequences which have followed the destruc- 
 tion of forests, been the accompaniment or complement of the other, opera- 
 ting sometimes as a cause, manifesting itself sometimes as a consequence 
 — if both be not con-sequences of a common cause. But it is possible that 
 the destruction of forests may be carried too far. According to the 
 testimony of Dr Hooker, cited in the preface, " In the estimation of an 
 average Briton forests are of infinitely less importance than the game they 
 shelter, and it is not long since the wanton destruction of a fine young tree 
 was considered a \cnial offence compared with the snaring of a pheasant or 
 rabbit. Wherever the English rule extends, with the single exception of 
 India, the same apathy or inaction prevails. ... In Demerara the 
 useful timber trees have all been removed from accessible regions, and no 
 care or tiiought of planting others ; from Trinidad we have the same story ; 
 in New Zealand there is not now a good Kauri pine to be found near the 
 coast ; and I believe that the annals of almost every English colony would 
 repeat the tale of wanton waste and improvidence." 
 
 In view of this waste, Schleiden, to whom I have already referred, writes, if 
 not in the words, yet following the train of thought of one of the noblest 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 167 
 
 veterans of our science, the venerable Elias Fries, of Lund : " A broad band 
 of waste land follows gradually in the steps of cultivation. If it expands, 
 its centre and cradle dies, and on the outer borders only do we find green 
 shoots. But it is not impossible, it is only difficult, for man, without 
 renouncing the advantage of culture itself, one day to make reparation for 
 the injury which he has inflicted, he is appointed lord of creation. True 
 it is that thorns and thistles, ill-favoured and poisonous plants, well named 
 by botanists, 'rubbish plants,' mark the track which man has proudly 
 traversed through the earth. Before him lay original nature in her wild 
 but sublime beauty. Behind him he leaves the desert, a deformed and 
 ruined land ; for childish desire of destruction, or thoughtless squandering 
 of vegetable treasures, have destroyed the character of nature ; and man 
 himself flies terrified from the arena of his actions, leaving the impoverished 
 earth to barbarous races or animals, so long as yet another spot in virgin 
 beauty smiles before him. Here again, in selfish pursuit of profit, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, he begins anew the work of destruction. Thus 
 did cultivation, driven out, leave the East, and the deserts perhaps 
 previously robbed of their coverings ; like the wild hordes of old over 
 beautiful Greece, thus rolls this conquest with fearful rapidity from east to 
 west through America, and the planter often now leaves the already 
 exhausted land, the eastern climate become infertile through the demolition 
 of the forests, to introduce a similar revolution into the far west. But we 
 see, too, that th6 nobler races, or truly cultivated men, even now raise their 
 warning voices, put their small hand to the mighty work of restoricg to 
 nature her strength and fulness in yet a higher stage than that of wild 
 nature ; one dependent on the law of purpose given by man, arranged 
 according to plans which are copied from the development of manhood 
 itself All this, indeed, remains at present but a powerless, and for the 
 whole, an insignificantly small enterprise, but it preserves the faith in the 
 vocation of man and his power to fulfil it. In future times he will and 
 must, when he rules, leads, and protects the whole, free nature from the 
 tyrannous slavery to which he now abases her, and in which he can only 
 keep her by restless giant struggles against the eternally resisting. We 
 see in the gray cloudy distance of the future a realm of peace and beauty 
 on the earth and in nature, but to reach it must man long, study in the 
 school of nature, and, before all, free himseK from the bonds of that 
 exclusive selfishness by which he is actuated." 
 
 Seotion II. — Denudation of South Africa hy the destruction of Herbage 
 
 and Trees. 
 
 The destruction of forests in South Africa has been extensive. Ever 
 since the discovery of Natal by Vasco de Gama in 1495, South Africa 
 has justified the designation which he gave it of Terra de fume. The 
 extensive burning of bush, herbage, and grass, the smoke of which procured 
 for it that designation, has been continued by the native tribes, and by the 
 European colonists ; and thus have many trees been destroyed. 
 
 Dr Gasilis, Secretary of the Paris Missionary Society, who was long 
 resident at the Cape, in a work entitled " The Basutos, or Twenty-three 
 years in South Africa," says, " The grass reaches such a height that it is 
 necessary to destroy it eveiy winter by means of fire ; and it is perhaps to 
 
168 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 these annual conflagrations that we must ascribe the remarkable scarcity of 
 trees. These are hardly ever to be found except on the banks of rivers, 
 and in high mountain passes." 
 
 This conjecture of Dr Casilis is to some extent verified by an observation 
 of Dr Livingstone, and his reasoning thereon. On one of his earlier expedi- 
 tions he left at one place, suspended from a tree, the boat in which a part 
 of the journey had been made, and which would be required again on the 
 return of his party ; but long ere their return it was consumed — ^burned ! 
 The natives in the vicinity of the locality were very desirous of persuading 
 him that this had been the work of a hostile tribe ; " but," says he, " on 
 scanning the spot, we saw that it was more likely to have caught fire in the 
 grass-burning of the country. Had we intended being so long in returning 
 to it, we should have hoisted it bottom upwards ; for, as it was, it is probable 
 that a quantity of dry leaves lay in the inside, and a spark ignited the 
 whole. All the trees within fifty yards were scorched and kiUed, and the 
 nails, iron and copper sheathing, all lay undisturbed beneath. Had the 
 Ajaiva done the deed, they would have taken away the copper and iron." 
 
 The reasoning is satisfactory ; and we note the fact observed : " AU the 
 trees within fifty yards were scorched and killed." 
 
 To this conjecture and observation of Dr Livingstone, may be added the 
 testimony of his father-in-law, Dr Mofiat, who says explicitly " the natives 
 have- the yearly custom of burning the dry grass, which on some occasions 
 destroys shrubs and trees even on the very summit of the mountains ;" and 
 he speaks, as of an unquestioned and unquestionable fact, of" the accidental 
 destruction of whole plains of the Olea dmilis (wild olive), by fire near 
 Griqua town," and of a gradual decrease of rain which succeeded in that 
 region. But he also adverts to the destruction of forests by native tribes, 
 effected otherwise than .by fire. He relates that on his settlement at 
 Latakoo " the natives were wont to tell of the floods of ancient times, the 
 incessant showers which clothed the very rooks with verdure, and the giant 
 trees and forests which once studded the brows of the Hamhana hills and 
 neighbouring plains. They boasted of the Kuruman and other rivers, with 
 their impassable torrents, in which the hippopotami played, while the lowing 
 herds walked to their necks in grass, filling their maJmhas (milk sacks) with 
 milk, making every heart to sing for joy." And he mentions that 
 " independent of this fact being handed down by their forefathers, they had 
 before their eyes the fragments of more fruitful years in the immense 
 number of stumps and roots of enormous trunks of Acacia giraffaea, where 
 now scarcely one is to be seen raising its stately head above the shrubs ; 
 while the sloping sides of hills and the ancient beds of rivers plainly evinced 
 that they were denuded of the herbage which once clothed their surface. 
 Indeed, the whole country north of the Orange river lying east of the 
 Kalagari desert presented to the eye of a European something like an old 
 neglected garden or field." He found no difficulty in accounting for this. 
 '• The Bechuanas, especially the Batlapis, and the neighbouring tribes," skys 
 he, " are a nation of levellers ; not reducing hiUs to comparative plains, for 
 the sake of building their towns, but cutting down every species of timber 
 without regard to scenery or economy. Houses are chiefly composed of 
 small timber, and their fences of branches and shrubs. Thus, when they 
 fix on a site for a town, their first consideration is to be as near a thicket as 
 possible. The whole is presently levelled, leaving only a few trees, one in 
 each great man's fold, to afford shelter from the heat, and under which the 
 men work aud recline. 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 169 
 
 " The ground to be occupied for cultivation is the next object of attentlo'Q. 
 The large trees being too hard for their iron axes, they bum them down by 
 keeping up a fire at the root. These supply them with branches for fences, 
 while th6 sparrows, so destructive to their grain, are thus deprived of an 
 asylum. These fences, as well as those in towns, require constant repairs, 
 and indeed the former must be renewed every year ; and by this means the 
 country for many miles round becomes entirely cleared of timber ; while in 
 the more sequestered spots, where they have their outposts, the same work 
 of destruction goes on. Thus, of whole forests, where the giraffe and 
 elephant were wont to seek their daily food, nothing remains. 
 
 " When the natives remove from that district, which may be after only a 
 few years, the minor species of the acacia soon grows, but the Acacia giraffaea, 
 requires an age to become a tree, and many ages must pass before they 
 attain the dimensions of their predecessors. In the course of my journeys 
 I have met with trunks of enormous size, which, if the time were calculated 
 necessary for their growth, as well as their decay, one may be led to 
 conclude that they sprung up immediately after the flood, if not before it," 
 
 Much of the information I possess in regard to forests and trees to the 
 north of the Kuruman was derived from the late Mr Chapman. By him I 
 was informed that around the mountains of Shoshong — the residence of 
 Sekom6 — which he passed in travelling from the Trans- Vaal State to the 
 Victoria Falls, the most conspicuous product of the soU is the Kameel- 
 Doorn or Acacia giraffaea. 
 
 At a distance of twenty or thirty miles from Shoshong the forests of this 
 tree are dense, but within that distance so many have been cut down for 
 use as fuel and for other purposes, and to remove shade from their gardens 
 or cultivated ground, that there it is chiefly stumps that are seen. 
 
 He gave as the report of the natives, that the land around the village was 
 formerly very prolific, but now rarely yields a good crop above once in five 
 or six years ; and that the rain seemed to fall all around, but to leave this 
 locality dry. 
 
 I have learned much in regard to this district from the missionary 
 resident at Shoshong, the Eev. John Mackenzie, of the London Missionary 
 Society, who has given a story of every-day life and work among the South 
 African tribes in his work entitled " Ten Years North of the Orange Kiver." 
 He alleges that the complaints of the natives in regard to the rain, and in 
 regard to their crops, may be attributable in some measure to a disposition 
 to grumble, which they share in common with others. But nothing learned 
 from him, or from Dr Gustavus Fritsch, who penetrated thus far in the 
 prosecution of ethnological and zoological researches, and from whom I 
 learned much, affected the statement of Mr Chapman, regarding the 
 existing evidence of the destruction of trees. 
 
 While the tribes of Bechuanas may have been influenced only by such 
 motives as have been indicated in their destruction of trees, Kaffirs on the 
 east coast, I have been informed by Mr White, who was for a very long 
 time resident on the St. John's river (the Oomzimvooboo), maintain, and do 
 so probably with reason, that the soil on which trees have grown is the best 
 land for their gardens, and, therefore, every bush and tree disappears from 
 around their place of residence. In, illustration of the progress of destruc- 
 tion, he stated that there were numerous extensive patches of bush, and 
 some of trees, in existence when he went to Natal in 1850, which, when I 
 saw him in 1865, had entirely disappeared, and from the Oomtamfoona to 
 
 X 
 
170 HYDROLOGY OT' SOtTTH AFBIOA. 
 
 the Ibisi, scarcely a patch of bush was to he- seen from the road to 
 Maritzburg from the Oom^iimYOoboo. 
 
 This work of destruction has been going on for we know not how long. 
 In an article having the initials of the late Mr Smith, who was overseer of 
 the Government plantations on the white sands of the Cape Flats, which ' 
 appeared in the "Cape Monthly Magazine" for June 1851, the writer 
 says, — " Some years ago, I heard there was a tradition among the elder 
 Hottentots, that the whole of this vaUey (the valley of the river Zonder- 
 ende) was once covered with large timber trees, and that it was laid waste 
 with fire during the wars of the early colonists with the natives. On 
 examining the river banks for some miles, the truth of this tale became 
 apparent, as I found numbers of large stumps and roots protruding from 
 the banks where the current of the river had washed away portions of the 
 soil, and laid them bare. A close inspection of many of them showed them 
 to have been charred with fire. Those which I examined were principally 
 Yellow Wood \Podocarpus\, and Assegay \_Gurtisia\, with some others 1 
 could not identify. Many of them when growing must have been magnifi- 
 cent specimens. One piece of a trunk measured 16 feet in length, with a 
 circumference of 5 feet. The whole of one side was charred its entire 
 length, but the remainder was perfectly sound, and of a beautiful red 
 colour. The fires which occasioned this havoc must have happened far 
 beyond the memory of any man now living — unless a landslip occurred in 
 that jieighbourhood — as a layer of clay, and several feet of alluvial soil now 
 cover the stumps of the trees just mentioned ; but as they are all evergreens, 
 it might have been expected that the roots would send up abundance of 
 young shoots to supply the place of the destroyed stems, and we may he 
 sure that such did take place. At the same time, an abundance of rank 
 grass and bushes would spring up, and the first ' grass-fire ' that occurred in 
 the vicinity would updoubtedly destroy the whole of the young plants. 1 
 can state this confidently, having seen a native forest of the same trees, and 
 in this state, cut up three times in ten years by these ' grass-fires.' 
 
 " How long, under such circumstances, the roots will continue to send up 
 shoots I cannot say. There can be no doubt that ultimately they must 
 become exhausted, and cease to make further efforts, and, of course, to 
 exist. In this latter case of the destroyed forest, there was evidence of the 
 loss of the greater part of a spring of fine water, as a little further down the 
 valley there is a large enclosed, but at present neglected, piece of ground, 
 which, from numerous marks of old water-courses, had once been irrigated ; 
 and the present stream would not supply one-tenth of the enclosure." 
 
 It has been suggested that possibly the stumps seen by Mr Smith may 
 have come from the Kloofs of the Zonder-ende mountains. I have not the 
 means of determining this point ; but even if it were so, evidence is thus 
 obtained of the former growth of trees now destroyed. 
 
 I have not the means of determining the period at which these^rees 
 must have been destroyed ; but, apparently, the further back we go, the 
 more we find indications of the former existence of trees where now no trees 
 are to be found. From the journal of Mrs M. E. Barber, extracts from 
 which appeared in the "Cape Magazine" for 1871, we learn that the 
 diggings in the diamond-fields have brought to light numerous flint arrow- 
 heads and other stone implements, which indicate the former existence of a 
 people in that district anterior to its being taken possession of by the 
 
HBCONDAEY CAD8E OP DESICCATION. 171 
 
 Kaffirs and the Bechuanas from the north, which may be said to be an 
 event of yesterday, the traditional narrative being still preserved by the 
 tribes ; and, says Mrs Barber, who is a naturalist well known and highly 
 esteemed at the Cape, and who is not likely to be rash in the assertion, "many 
 circular incrustations of tufa lime which once enveloped the roots of trees, 
 but are now filled with red soil, are scattered through the claims, in the 
 Colesberg Kop." Such is the evidence we obtain when we go b^ck to 
 pre-historic times. Let us return to the present. 
 
 The South African practice of burning the rank herbage has been adopted 
 by the European colonists. Extensive districts, once covered with grass, 
 are now covered with the useless Ehinoster bush ( Elytropappus Bhinocerotis, 
 Less.), the down surmounted seeds of which, borne hj the wind, had found 
 an appropriate soil cleared for them by the fire ; and, apparently, thus have 
 plains been cleared of trees. The well-defined outlines of forests on their 
 lower range speak not of forests spreading from the summit of the Kloof 
 to the plain, but of forests driven to the Kloofs for shelter, and there 
 making a stand for life ; and even in these, their fastnesses, the work of 
 destruction has been continued. In forest districts, I have been told of 
 encroachments made on the forests thus : — ^the veldt has been burned, the 
 flames have come up to the verge of the forest, and then been stopped, but 
 not until they had scorched and killed a narrow strip or belt of brushwood 
 and trees. The veldt was burned in the following season, and the brush- 
 wood and trees, previously scorched and killed, fell victims to the flames, 
 and in burning scorched and killed a broader belt, which in a subsequent 
 year met with a similar fate, with similar efi'eots. And I have seen moun- 
 tain sides now naked and bare, which some years ago were covered with 
 trees, all of which had been destroyed by fire. 
 
 In the vicinity of Wynberg, some ten miles from Cape Town, are 
 c'onstantly to be seen extensive patches of Silver trees ( Leucodendron 
 argenteum), and still more extensive plateaux studded thick with Sugar 
 bush (Protea mellifera), Kjeupelboom (Protea. Conoca/rpwm), and other 
 arborescent shrubs, burned and blackened, killed by fire. Long before any 
 one patch has recovered itself another is laid bare; and, times more 
 frequent than I can now number, I have seen the mountains bright with a 
 zone of fire, burning up herbage and bush, and imperilling plantations of 
 considerable extent. I was told by a gentleman in the neighbourhood of 
 Wynberg that on the abolition of slavery he anticipated a difficulty in 
 obtaining the labour necessary to keep in cultivation extensive vineyards 
 which were in his possession. He determined, therefore, to abandon the 
 cultivation of the vine over a ^ large portion of his property, and to plant 
 that portion with the seeds of the Stone pine (Pirms Pinea). The expense 
 was trifling. Three muids, or nine bushels of seed, were sown by fourteen 
 men in three days. Within fifteen years he had a revenue of about £.300 
 per annum from the sale of spars, &c. But unhappily, through a neighbour 
 burning the bush, the fire extended to his plantation, and reduced it to 
 ashes ; at that time the value of it was estimated at £10,000. 
 
 On the face of Table mountain are extensive plantations of the Cluster 
 pine (Pinus Pinaster) : for years might be seen from Cape Town and from 
 Table Bay a far-reaching broad belt of blackened trees killed by fire ; and 
 everywhere throughout the colony are the Crown forests subjected to a 
 wasteful treatment, under which they are here and there gradually disap- 
 
172 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 peariug; The revenue is diminishing year by year. When I was in the 
 colony, in the Zuurberg forest this had fallen short of the expense of conser- 
 vation by an annual deficit of upwards of .£100, and there was a correspond- 
 ing deficit in the revenues derived from Olifants Hook, and of the Klein 
 and Van Staden's rivers; and from some forests, such as the Cedar-tree 
 fbrests of Clanwilliam, and others in the eastern province, no revenue 
 whatever appears to be received. 
 
 In regard to the Cedarberg forests, Dr Pappe, in his " Silva Capensis," 
 writes : — " Sir James Alexander in his exploring expedition into the 
 interior of Africa (vol. i. p. 230 sqq.), in making mention of the Cedar tree, 
 remarks that one of them was cut down in 18.36 which was 36 feet in girth, 
 and out of whose giant arms 1,000 feet of planking were sawn." He 
 bitterly complains that this noble tree is fast disappearing in the Cedar 
 mountains. Mr W. von Meyer (in Rdsen en Sud^Africa wahrend der Jahre, 
 1840 und 1841," Hamburg 1843, p. 131) says that "in former days the 
 whole of the mountainous chain to which the Cedar mountains belong was 
 studded with those trees ; that of late the axe and conflagrations have done 
 their utmost to destroy the valuable forests." 
 
 Under a system of forest management which, borrowing a term employed 
 in works on forest science in France, I may call primitive Jardinage, the 
 forests in the colony have been long gradually disappearing. The system 
 followed was to out down trees such as may be required, leaving others 
 standing, but doing nothing to promote their growth or to replace those 
 which are removed. 
 
 I have before me a chart of the forests of the Tzizi Kamma. From 
 information supplied to me by Captain Harrison, the Conservator of forests 
 in the district, I have gathered the following particulars, which I give, as 
 illustrative of what I may call the first stage of the work of destruction 
 under the treatment which I have called primitive jardinage. 
 
 On the west bank of Storm Eiver, there is — or was at that time — a piece 
 of what may be described as virgin forest, in which operations were begun 
 about ten years ago. On the east bank of that river is a patch of scrub 
 destitute of timber. 
 
 Below this is a large piece of ground in two divisions, which is mostly 
 private property, and in which the Crown property had been denuded of 
 timber previous to Captain Harrison entering on his duties as Conservator 
 of forests in the district. 
 
 Continuous with this, and at the mouth of the river, is a patch in which 
 wood-cutting has been actively carried on for years, and in which timber is 
 consequently becoming scarcer, but Wagon-wood is still plentiful. 
 
 A little to the east of this is a patch which still contains some very large 
 Yellow-wood trees j and half-way between this and the mouth of the Faure 
 River, which is stiU further to the east, is a large patch from which an 
 immense quantity of timber has been cut out of late years, and in which 
 the work is now going on daily. 
 
 In the upper district of the Faure River, skirting its east bank, is a patch, 
 the timber of which has been nearly exhausted, but in which there are an 
 immense number of young trees. And half-way towards its mouth is a 
 patch which has been nearly destroyed by fire. It is a patch of Kuerboom 
 —Virginia capensis ; and there is valuable timber in it. 
 
 A small patch skirted by the Kruis River on the east, has a few Yellow- 
 voods close to the river; but the other timber has been cut out. 
 
BEOONDARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 173 
 
 To the north of this, near the source of a tributary of the Kruis Eiver, is 
 a larger patch, from which the timber has been cut out, but in which a few 
 young trees are growing up. 
 
 Below the confluence of this tributary of the Kruis Eiver, traversed by 
 another shorter tributary stream, is a patch in which Stink-wood is becoming 
 scarce, but in which Yellow-wood and Wagon-wood are plentiful. 
 
 Continuous with this, lying in the fork formed by the confluence of the 
 Kruis and Eland's Eiver, is a patch which was formerly private property, 
 but which is now the property of the Crown, and which contains valuable 
 timber at its lower extremity. Near the confluence of the rivers continuous 
 with this, but on the eastern bank of the Eland's Eiver, and extending 
 towards its source, is a patch of valuable timber of all kinds, but the trees 
 are growing in deep kloofs. Below this, and continuous with it to the 
 banks of the Stinkwood Eiver, and the confluence of this and the Eland's 
 Eiver, is a large portion of the same patch, containing valuable timber of 
 all sorts, of more easy access. And continuous with this, on the eastern 
 bank of the Stinkwood Eiver, is Eobbe Hoek, in which is sound, valuable 
 timber, but it is difficult of access, in consequence of its growing in deep 
 kloofs. In this patch Wagon-wood is plentiful. 
 
 Above this are three small patches in which no valuable timber has been 
 left uncut, but in which a few young trees are growing up. Still higher, 
 skirted on the east by the Witte-els Eiver, and traversed in part by the 
 upper bed of the Stinkwood Eiver, is the Witte-els Bush, near to which is 
 the residence of the conservator. It abounds in Witte-els and contains 
 good Wagon-wood, but the Stink-wood and Yellow-woods have, been nearly 
 cut out. 
 
 On the south or seaward side of the Eerste Eiver, where it follows a 
 course parallel with the Eland, is a large portion of an extensive patch 
 traversed by that river, in which there is plenty of Wagon-wood and some 
 very large Yellow-wood trees, but little Stink-wood has been left in it. 
 
 On the north bank of this river and on the same side of the river, where 
 it takes a southerly course, are three patches, from which all old timber 
 has been cut, excepting such as is not generally used, and these patches 
 are now closed to allow young timber to grow. 
 
 Such is the first stage of the work of destruction under the treatment 
 which I have designated primitive jardinage, here arrested, it is to be 
 hoped, by the judicious measures adopted by Captain Harrison. But the 
 progress of the work can be traced a little further in an adjoining district 
 in regard to one Crown forest, in which the forest warder wrote to me some 
 time since : " I would suggest that Government should, without delay, get 
 
 this portion surveyed, as and are appropriating the forest 
 
 to themselves. No licences are exhibited, and to my knowledge, as much 
 as £750 worth of timber has been removed within the last ten years, while 
 for the cutting of timber out of the said forest I have only issued two 
 licences [each for the removal of a single load.] The same amount of value 
 in timber has been destroyed, through the reckless behaviour of these 
 individuals, and those in their employment, igniting the grass, which has 
 caused fearful destruction. There are a few other small patches and stripes 
 of bush ; but comparatively speaking, they are nothing, only adapted for 
 fuel ; most of the valuable timber has been removed, and by fire greatly 
 destroyed. The great evils are men cutting without licences, and grass fires. 
 " To my kuovledge, there is on an average 10 loads oifud,polet, and tpar§ 
 
174 HYDEOLOflT OP SOUTH AVEIOA. 
 
 removed weekly to Port Elizabetli from the forests between the Gamptoos 
 and the Van Staden Rivers, for cutting timber in which I have never issued 
 one licence for the benefit of Government. I feel convinced that it all 
 comes from the Crown forest ; but as it is a case of disputed boundary and 
 licences, I am not empowered to move in the matter. If this state of things 
 continues much longer, the -whole of the forest will be eradicated and 
 destroyed." 
 
 Such an issue as is thus indicated may be considered the second stage of 
 the destruction of forests under primitive jardinage, the conversion of 
 forests into hush. In Krakakamma, between the Zitzikamma and Port 
 Elizabeth, there is a good deal of arborescent vegetation, but it can scarcely 
 be reckoned forest ; the same may be said of the Kadouw Bush, between 
 Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown ; and such, I am informed, is the present 
 condition of what within the last thirty years was an extensive forest in the 
 valley of the Kowie, in the neighbourhood of Bathurst : the old timber 
 having been destroyed, but not replaced, the forest character has been lost. 
 
 But this second stage of the progress of the work of destruction is not 
 unfrequently succeeded by a third, in which even the arborescent bush may 
 disappear. From more than one of my correspondents I have heard of the 
 mountainous country around Somerset having abounded in forest trees of 
 various kinds — Yellow-wood (Podocarpus), Iron-wood (Olea), Assegai-wood 
 (Curtida), but of these fast disappearing. Mr Leonard, of Somerset, in 
 reply to a query issued from the Colonial Office in 1864, having remarked 
 that the Yellow-wood tree forms a much less conspicuous element in the 
 scenery than his memory pictured it doing some four-and-twenty years 
 before, goes on to say,- — " Of other forest trees there used to be an abundant 
 supply in the forest that skirts our mountain here, but the large demand 
 that rules in an age of bullock waggons for disselbooms and other waggon 
 wood, is sure to clear out any but an inexhaustible supply of Assegai and 
 Iron-wood trees, while the durability possessed by the olive post soon 
 marked it out for the woodman's axe, in procuring timber for the ever 
 memorable Hartebest house of the first pioneers; and subsequently the 
 same durability in the nature of the wood caused the continuous destruc- 
 tion of the tree for fencing stakes, when advancing civilization demanded 
 and gave way to buildings of brick and stone. 
 
 " Yellow-wood trees of any size, as well as Assegai, Olive, and Iron-wood 
 trees are now becoming so scarce here that we may easily predict the 
 speedy extirpation of them from amongst our natural productions ; and, 
 unless human care and culture produce specimens, when those of the kloof 
 and the rivulet have disappeared, the next generation will have to refer to 
 some botanical collection to see what they are like." 
 
 About the same time the late Rev. J. W. Pears, the minister of the Dutch 
 Reformed Church at Somerset, previously professor in the South African 
 College, Capetown, writing to myself on another subject, says : — " When I 
 came to the frontier 38 years ago, there was grass everywhere in abundance, 
 in the plains sweet, and in the mountains sour ; and this, sometimes five or 
 six feet high ; now none, excepting near rivers or on the tops of mountains, 
 is to be found. Formerly, also, the mountains were unoccupied, as no one 
 chose to pay for them ; the herbage was abundant ; and the moisture was 
 long detained, so that aU the little streams continued to flow through the 
 whole year. Now these mountains are all occupied, and generally burned 
 auimaUy, and the consequence is that the water has failed. For instance, 
 
SECOND AEY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 176 
 
 the mountain behind my house, which rises to the height of 1,756 feet, was 
 covered with high grass and thousands of beautiful bulbous flowering plants 
 and shrubs, and its whole face and oiFshoots adorned with YeUqw-wood or 
 other valuable trees ; now these are all gone ; not a Yellow-wood or other 
 tree worth anything left, and only a useless growth -of bushes occupy their 
 place, and the consequence is that a stream that supplied my garden and 
 some others, runs now only after rain. The whole face of the mountain, if 
 planted with oaks, firs, and other useful timbers, might not only be 
 valuable, but again it might protect the water. But almost every year, by 
 the idle and reckless, the mountain is fired, and all i's destroyed. It is now 
 burning fiercely. In the kloofs there still stands the charred stumps of 
 large Yellow-wood trees." 
 
 Such appear to be the only remains of the forests once flourishing in the 
 neighbourhood of Somerset. 
 
 This may be considered as a third stage of the destruction of forests — 
 the final — in which they entirely disappear. And to this those spoken of 
 as being destroyed in the vicinity of the Gamptoos Eiver are likely soon to 
 come. I am informed that " the whole of the Crown Forest Eeserve and 
 vacant land in the ward of Van Staden's Eiver, which comprises also the 
 Field Cometzy and ward of Eland's Eiver, is to be disposed of on a twenty- 
 one years' lease ; other portions, not of great extent and value, are to be 
 annexed to the properties adjoining them ; and the ofiice of Forest Eanger 
 is to be abolished." 
 
 I have said that I have seen in the colony mountain-sides now naked and 
 bare, which some years ago were covered with trees, which have been 
 destroyed by fire ; and that what I have stated has been confirmed by 
 many of my correspondents. 
 
 The Honourable Mr Barrington, of Portland, New Belvidere, on the 
 Knysna, besides confirming what I have stated in regard to encroachments 
 having been made on the forests, wrote that what I had seen of mountain 
 sides entirely stript of trees with which they were covered a few years 
 before, I might also have seen in the neighbouring district of George. 
 Another of my correspondents in the same district, writing to me of the 
 destructing of the forest, says, — " One way in which the forests are greatly 
 encroached upon and damaged is by burning them, which in spite of the 
 Forest and Herbage Act cannot be prevented. Large tracts of land are for 
 a time left untilled, until in the course of a few years quantities of rank 
 grass, herbage, and underwood, have grown up in thick masses and partially 
 decayed ; then in a dry season, and generally when a northerly wind, or as 
 it is here called a berg wind, is blowing, it gets ignited, and it sweeps ofi" 
 thousands of acres, including large patches of forest which otherwise would 
 not have burned." 
 
 About the same time the late Mr PuUen, Eanger of the Crown Forests at Van 
 Staden's Eiver, wrote to me, — " There are many who burn the pasturage at 
 an untimely season, for example, in the month of January when the bush 
 leaves are dry ; at such a time the least spark sets the forest in flames, and 
 the veldt is adjacent to the bush leaves. A vagrant, it may be, in quest of 
 game, or of honey, to clear a passage through the thick-set grass and dense 
 bush makes use of his tinder-box ; the result may be anticipated ; the fire 
 spreads and cannot be subdued and extinguished ; consequently great tracts 
 of forests are destroyed. The intense heat proves also pernicious to the 
 
176 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 tender plants at a distance where the fire never arrives 5 and, moreover, the 
 bush-worker's oxen suffer materially thereby, and frequently die from the 
 poisonous herbage which makes its appearance subsequent to the burning 
 of the grass country. 
 
 " I attribute the calamitous drought that has been our visitation of recent 
 years in a great measure to our unfenced forests being so denuded, for it is 
 a notorious fact that the forests attract rain, and I am justified in affirming 
 that there is not so much wood felled in ten years as I have seen destroyed 
 and scorched in ten minutes by one single fire. I have had ocular demon- 
 stration of the facts, so I do not go by information, but by what I have 
 experienced of that which is to me an eye-sore." 
 
 Within little more than a year after Mr PuUen had written this, viz., on 
 December 13, 1865, a terrific fire in the forests of that district gave sad 
 illustration of the fact that such forests are thus destroyed. Of the effects 
 of this fire seen at a distance of upwards of one hundred miles the Somerset 
 Courant gives the following account : — " On Wednesday evening last week 
 a vast column of smoke was seen approaching Bedford from the south-weat, 
 and it was supposed that the grass was extensively on fire in the neighbour- 
 hood. The smoke was first blown towards the ' Schiet Rug,' between 
 Bedford and Adelaide, and by a shift of the wind was brought up along the 
 Hoggberg Range, and enveloped the mountain, over which it appeared to 
 disperse. Inquiries were made next day, and each succeeding day, as to 
 the origin of this extraordinary volume of smoke, which extended some 
 seven or eight miles at least. As travellers came in, it was successively 
 ascertained that it came in the same extraordinay manner, from a greater 
 and greater distance — from Fish River — from Zuurberg, &c. Travellers 
 afiirmed that they had been nearly suffocated by it on the top of the moun- 
 tain, and that it must have come from the Port Elizabeth side of the range. 
 From the Great Eastern received this morning in Bedford, the origin of the 
 smoke is found to have been the burning of some fifteen miles of forest at 
 the Van Staden's River, beyond Port Elizabeth, on the Cape Town road j so 
 that this extraordinary volume of smoke travelled in a compact mass for a 
 distance of some one hundred and twenty miles, crossing the Great Zuurberg, 
 range, and it is said to have passed over the Hoggberg, and to have traversed 
 ' Daggaboer's Neck,' into the division of Cradock. News has come in that 
 the smoke extended to the town of Adelaide, twelve miles distant firom 
 Bedford, and that the people of Adelaide were considerably alarmed at the 
 sudden envelopment of their town in a dense cloud of smoke." 
 
 Mr Pullen, after making an official inspection of the scene of the fire, 
 wrote of it : — " It was awful. I never could have thought that a forest 
 would have burned so ; it is one mass of fire. The fine view formerly to be 
 obtained on coming down the Van Staden's River, is now among the things 
 of the' past. Not a green leaf is to be seen, and the whole of the trees are 
 burned down. I counted no less than thirty bush-bucks roasted to death 
 yesterday, and the quantity of game destroyed must be very considerable. 
 I made an attempt to enter the forest, but the intense heat drove me back. 
 The bridges are all burnt, and the waggons cannot pass with safety. I had 
 to go round a long way to reach the regular road. The rocks on the other 
 side of the river are quite bare, and the numbers of baboons and monkeys 
 that must have perished, almost incredible. Van Halen's place had a very 
 narrow escape, and the orange and fruit trees are entirely destroyed." 
 The following account was sent to one of the provincial newspapers from 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 177 
 
 a station in the district, occupied at the time in connectiou with, the execu- 
 tion of a trigonometrical survey of the Colony. After stating that " the 
 havoc and devastation to the forest, and pasturage, <fec., &c., are indescrib- 
 able, and that the thermometer showed in the shade at 11 a.m. 110°," the 
 writer proceeds : — " It will be a long time ere this part of the country regains 
 its primitive state. Since the farms were granted in 1815, such a fire has 
 not been known of, or witnessed by the eldest surviving residents of this 
 part. For miles the country is denuded of copse and forest, even the rushes 
 about the rivulets, vleys, and rivers are seared and scorched, the timely 
 burns of August and September of the present year have been reburnt, and 
 parched up, umbrageous trees are prostrated athwart the main roads, inter- 
 cepting the traf&c, the two main culverts of the Van Staden's Pass have 
 fallen through, and the road could not be traversed for three days until 
 temporary repairs took place. The fire ignited Mrs Cadle's stable by a 
 spark, distant, as the crow flies, exactly a league, so you can imagine the 
 ravages and scourge that have been inflicted on property. Pullen's farm, 
 'Augusta Park,' was in jeopardy, as the fences of Harrison, a lessee on the 
 place, were fired from the flames of the adjacent farms, at a distance of 
 exactly four miles. The sublime and picturesque scenery of the Van Staden's 
 is absolutely destroyed, and bears an aspect changed from verdancy to 
 opaqueness ; roasted venison could be discovered everywhere ; what have 
 been found by the natives and Europeans exceeds 120 ; feathered game has 
 been destroyed in great quantities, also vermin, and the whole landed property 
 in this ward which has had the frightful visitation has deteriorated in 
 value by the late fire. The ranger of this ward, Mr Pullen, puts down the 
 destruction to Crown Reserve as at least £600 ; of private property on each 
 farm as half of that value. The farm ' Kafir's Kraal,' advertised for sale in 
 your advertisement columns, has been greatly injured, and the fences of the 
 lands burnt, and the private groups of valuable bushes on the farm destroyed, 
 orchard burnt, greater part of the orange grove is destroyed, and the leaves 
 seared, and a great deal of mischief has been done by the late fire. It is 
 to be hoped for the future more precautionary measures well be resorted to." 
 
 Captain Harrison, Conservator of Crown Forests in the district, estimated 
 the value of the ward destroyed much lower, but this does not disprove 
 what is said of the extent of the conflagration. 
 
 I made inquiry into the origin of the fire, and was informed by Captain 
 Harrison that, — " Some four natives kindled a fire on the pasture-lands of 
 Galger Bosche ; the fire ignited the bush, and spread first into the private 
 forests, and subsequently into the Crown Reserve. About a league of 
 government forest has been destroyed, but of this great portions consisted of 
 copse and underwood. There was not so much of umbrageous forest timber 
 destroyed. I attribute the destruction of the forest in a great measure to 
 the boundary of the government property not being properly defined, and 
 no beacon being erected. There are a number of squatters on government 
 lands bordering on the government reserve, being tenants of farmers whose 
 lands are adjacent. These individuals, induced by the fertility of the soil, 
 lay claim to the arable land on the precincts of the forest ; the roots, 
 stumps, and trees dug out are piled along the outskirts of the forest ; and 
 when such fires occur, on reaching this rubbish it finds fuel to strengthen 
 it, and its fury is increased." 
 
 About the same time Captain Harrison had occasion to report a fire ia 
 
 T 
 
178 HYDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 the forest at the Zitzikamma scarcely less destructive. The following is his 
 report : — " It is with regret that I have to report the occurrence of two fires 
 in the forests, — one at Van Staden's River, the .other in the Zitzikamma. 
 I have carefully inspected the damage done at Van Staden's River, and it 
 is with considerable satisfaction that I can state that the number of timber 
 trees destroyed does not exceed twenty, and of these only five were sound. 
 The bush destroyed was a scrub bush, mostly private property, containing 
 spars and poles, with here and there an old yellow-wood tree, spared by the 
 woodcutters on account of decay. The Crown forest lies at the back, 
 towards the sea, and this has suffered but little. The fire in the Zitzikamma 
 is a far more serious matter, and the damage done truly deplorable. What 
 little work is going on I have confined as much as possible to the burnt 
 forest, that the damaged timber may be worked up before it splits and 
 becomes useless ; and I hope to save much of it from waste. This part of the 
 forest had been closed for some years, to allow the young trees to grow up, 
 and its destruction is a serious public loss. No human power could save 
 the forest when once the fire caught the dense, dry, bushy veld of seven 
 years' growth and ten feet in height by which the forests are surrounded. 
 Science is opposed to veld fires, and justly so, if the practice could be 
 suppressed ; but so long as our neighbours burn, we must, in self-defence, 
 burn too, or the forests are destroyed by the very means we take to pre- 
 serve them. Ten years' experience has enabled me to try both systems, 
 burning and non-burning. On my first arrival here the veld was regularly 
 burnt in winter, without any damage "to the forests, but ensuring their 
 protection against accidental fires. Science then said I was wrong, and 
 burning was prohibited. The result is the late disastrous fire. Had the 
 veld been kept burnt, such a fire could not have occurred, or, at all events, 
 it might have been extinguished. Could any other means of protection be 
 suggested, I would readily adopt it ; but the soil here is too stony and full of 
 stumps to admit of ploughing round the forests. This calamity was caused 
 by an old Hottentot herd, who lit a fire near the sea, on ground belonging 
 to his employers, which, from the excessively dry state of the country at the 
 time, and very high winds, was driven into the forest. The fire was not 
 confined to Government property ; damage, estimated at £300, was done to 
 the private forest at Oude Bosch." 
 
 A still more extensive fire, or rather a number of fires, originating in 
 diflFerent centres, and spreading each in its own localitv, occurred on the 9th 
 of February 1869, when " a tract of country 400 miles long, and varying 
 in breadth from 15 to 150 miles, was desolated by a fire unparalleled in the 
 annals of the colony. The weather had been unusually hot and dry for the 
 previous six weeks. On the 9th February the temperature throughout the 
 colony rose to more intense heat than any previously known. During the 
 morning scorching hot winds blew from the NE., and in the afternoon a fire 
 broke out at several places in the burned district, and wrapped millions of acres 
 in an enormous conflagration. The cultivated land, farm buildings, native 
 forest and bush, farm stock, and wild animals, shared the same fate. In a few 
 hours hundreds of pounds worth of property was destroyed. The European 
 colonists and natives alike suffered, and in the majority of cases the sufferers 
 lost all they possessed. Several persons were burned to death. The 
 casualties, in the majority of cases, occurred to the natives, and to the 
 wives aad children of the coloniBts. Those saved had to take shelter in 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 179 
 
 the rivers, water dams, and wet ditches, where many of them were badly 
 scorched. The calamity occurred just after the harvest — an unusually good 
 one — and destroying its produce. This caused great distress in the district 
 of Swellendam, Kiversdale, Mossel Bay,' George, and Oudtzboom, the 
 Kingsna, Humansdorf, and Uitenhage." 
 
 Numerous accounts of the ravages, which appeared in the local journals, 
 were sent to me. I may cite some of the more important of these, and in 
 doing so I shall as much as possible avoid unnecessary repetition. A cor- 
 respondent of the Gape Argus, writing from Humansdorp on the 10th ult., 
 says, — " A calamity of unprecedented severity yesterday befell this district. 
 A bush fire of such dimensions broke out in various places as to find no 
 parallel in the recollection of the oldest residents. The result has been a 
 large loss of life and property, many of the sufi'erers being left houseless and 
 penniless. The morning of the 9th was very sultry, with the wind from the 
 north — an indication which here always means something little short of a 
 sirocco. The thermometer in the shade showed, at 8 a.m., a temperature 
 of 93° ; at 9 A.M., 101° ; and at 2 p.m., 113°. The weather for some time 
 before had been very dry, and the Veldt quite parched. Early in the 
 afternoon a dense mass of smoke was seen in the western part of the Zitzi- 
 kamma district, probably near Clarkson, but no danger was then apprehended. 
 About 3 P.M., however, the wind chopped round to the southwest, blowing 
 a perfect hurricane of dust and smoke, which completely enveloped the 
 village. The imminence of the danger became painfully apparent as dusk 
 came on. The church-bell was rung, and the villagers put on the alert. As 
 seen from the village, the whole Zitzikamma, right away to Cape St 
 Francis, seemed to be one intermittent blaze, whilst the hills to the north 
 were also bathed in flame. It is impossible to give a strictly accurate 
 account of the loss of life and property sustained, as full reports have not 
 yet come in ; but there can be little doubt that about twenty homesteads 
 have been burned to the ground, including that of Mr W. S. G. Meteler-" 
 kamp, of Zuurbron, that six Fingo children have been burned to death at 
 the same place, twelve Fingoes in the Zitzikamma district, two coloured 
 females on their way to Hankey, and a farmer's wife and servant somewhere 
 in the same direction. One of the farm-houses destroyed is but one and a 
 half mile to the south of the village, and another two miles to the north, so 
 we have miraculously escaped this sad visitation. Much alarm was felt 
 this morning, as the Veldt and bush were burning extensively about a mile 
 off, when, fortunately, the wind veered to the south, and then to the south- 
 east, bringing, as usual, a soaking rain, which lasted all forenoon." 
 
 A correspondent, writing from George, says, — " We have just received 
 intelligence that the bush fires which have been raging here and elsewhere 
 for the last month have found their way to the magnificent farms of Forest 
 Hall, belonging to the Hon. Barrington, of Knysna ; Eestford, belonging to 
 B. H. Darnell, Esq. ; and Eastford, lately purchased by the British, all of 
 which, it is reported, are completely destroyed, and the houses, etc., burned 
 to the ground. Several otlfer large farms, Barnard's, Gerber's, etc., between 
 this and Knysna, are completely destroyed, the people saving their lives by 
 rushing into the river, up to the banks of which the fire reached. One very 
 rich old farmer (H. Barnard) had only time to drag his box, with some 
 thousands of sovereigns, etc., in it, to the river, and throwing himself and 
 box into the river, stood up to his chest in water for an hour or more, 
 barely escaping being burned to death by the long rushes, etc., growing on 
 
180 HTDKOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 the water's edge, and which the fire completely destroyed. Mr Darnell is 
 a heavy loser (if report speaks true), thirty head of his valuable cattle being 
 burned to death ; and so we hear disastrous effects of the fire daily. The 
 George and Knysna forests are very extensive — hundreds of miles in extent 
 — and heaven Isnows whej-e the fire will end." 
 
 The following letter from Mr B. H. Darnell, of the Knysna, presents a 
 sad picture of the ravages of the fire in the neighbourhood of his house : — 
 
 " Ash-Wednesdat, 1869. — My dear , There will doubtless be a long 
 
 catalogue of disasters by veld-fires to be chronicled in newspapers about 
 this time ; but as, none of them can be more complete than that which has 
 befallen myself and my nearest neighbours, I must give you a hurried 
 account of it. The weather has been unusually hot and dry here for the 
 last six weeks, but yesterday was such a day as will never be forgotten by 
 those who went through it. On rising early in the morning I found the 
 herff-wind, the sirocco of South Africa, blowing steadily from the north, the 
 thermometer reaching one hundred degrees before eight o'clock. This wind, 
 hateful to man and beast, fortunately rarely blows in the summer, and still 
 more rarely for more than a day at a time, and is almost invariably followed 
 by rain. Little did we dream of what was about to happen, when about nine 
 o'clock in the morning we perceived there was a great fire raging on the 
 flats above us, but a little to the leeward of us. Some wood-cutter on the 
 way to his work, crossing the river higher up, probably knocked out the 
 ashes of his pipe upon the grass. The grass was dry in the fields enclosed 
 round about the house with ditch and mound ; but I had made everything so 
 secure outside by timely burning that danger from an ordinary fire was not 
 to be thought of. My house was situated on an elevation near the head of 
 a small valley, widening into the large v;illey of the Knysna River, and just 
 opposite to its gorge, where, leaving the mountains and krautzes behind, it 
 ceases to be a mountain stream, and pursues a more peaceful but not less 
 romantic course to the ocean as a tidal river. No situation could be more 
 beautiful, as those can testify who have ever looked down upon this valley 
 from the neighbouring hills. As the morning advantcd, denser and denser 
 grew the smoke, and brighter the glare of the fire, whilst the thermometer 
 rose higher every minute. The wind, too, increased rapidly in violence. 
 Still I would believe nothing. I sat quietly teaching my children, and 
 listening to occasional reports of the progress of the fire from my wife, to 
 which I paid the usual amount of attention, until the washerman rushed 
 up from the river and declared that the fire was coming down both sides of 
 it upon us. Such a catastrophe was never heard of. A decent and well- 
 intentioned fire makes a great splutter in the open veld, but stops respect- 
 fully at the edge of the forest, without doing too much damage. But I then 
 went out. At first there was nothing to be seen but thick smoke, and 
 nothing to be heard but the raging and roaring of the wind and fire. But 
 presently above the smoke I saw the liquid fire pouring over the great 
 wooded krantzes, and below it, in the fields, a great stream of fire surging 
 along in the dry grass with inconceivable rapidity. Then 1 knew it was all 
 up with Wcstford, Knysna, and rushing into my house, got out my house- 
 hold, who stood ready, and directed my wife, who alone retained any 
 presence of mind, to fly with them through the garden and down to the d.-iisi. 
 Had it not been for her courage and enduran'ce I should never have ^;ot 
 them to a place of safety. It is not an enviable billet at any time to be the 
 sole guardian of thirteen women and children ; but to conduct them, wholly 
 
•BCONBAKT CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 181 
 
 distracted, and all pulling different ways, over a burning waste for nearly a 
 mile, with the thermometer approaching boiling point, is an experience of 
 Responsible Government such as I trust no colony may ever be called upon 
 to pass through. I tarried a minute behind, but it was almost a minute too 
 long. Instantaneously the whole of the buildings on the place were in a 
 blaze, and at the same moment fire appeared all round, as well as above and 
 below us. It was not merely sparks or flakes of fire that were flying so 
 quickly, but firebrands. The Last Day itself can hardly present accessories 
 more dreadful. We were literally at the mouth of a blow-pipe, as those 
 who know, the position will understand, and the danger rapidly decreased 
 as we got away from it. We had hardly got through the garden and into 
 the road, when the fire was half-way down, rampaging amongst the pumpkins 
 and the fruit-trees. The fiery wind was so violent that it was only by 
 making all cling together that they could be got along at all. Half their 
 clothing blown away. But it would take too long to tell how it took us 
 nearly two hours to get to the only house left by a miracle on the place. 
 Inside it was a fire, which we did not want, and that we soon put out, 
 but we found a bucket of water, which we did want. The inhabitants had 
 taken refuge on the pontoon upon the river. Soon after we reached the 
 house the wind changed suddenly to the westjvard, and there was an end 
 to the hurricane of fire that we had gone through. 
 
 " Since writing the above I have visited the scene of this unparalleled 
 disaster. No destruction can be more complete, nor can it be imagined 
 without being seen. It was not such a fire as steals, in the middle of the 
 night, upon a house surrounded by trees, and after blazing and crackling 
 away for a few hours, lets the morning sun find out the ruin through the 
 thick green leaves glittering with dew. This was a clean sweep of every- 
 thing — houses, trees, gardens, orchards, forest, all gone — the labour and the 
 pleasure of sixteen years swept away in a few minutes. Not a green thing 
 in sight, except some rushes in the dam. Not a thing which the fire does 
 not seem to have passed over or through except an old spade and a couple 
 of white field gates in situ. All the rest black, dust and ashes — dust and 
 ashes ! Not only the natural beauties of the place, and they were great, 
 have disappeared, but its very features seem to be changed. One might 
 as well be on the barest Karroo place as on the banks of the Knysna. 
 What will become of the pic-nickers I cannot imagine. The grass will grow 
 again, and the whole farm will soon be one sheet of emerald green, and for 
 grazing purposes will be as good or better than ever, but all that gave it 
 value in my eyes is gone. Nature neither can nor will she restore the grand 
 old trees, the pride of the forest, not a few of them thirty feet in circum- 
 ference, that stood on the great haugh on the side of the river opposite the 
 house. I took a walk along the river bank. Plenty of bush-bucks roasted 
 alive, and I daresay an elephant or two, but not a sign of life, except an 
 old baboon crooning over the desolation, and not another sound except the 
 crashing of the mighty trees as they fell hissing into the water ; arid I 
 turned away with a heavy heart, probably for the last time, from the 
 blighted and blasted scene. 
 
 " But I cannot say that I felt the full extent of my loss until I had been 
 to see my neighbours' places. I have lost everything I prized in the shape 
 of books, furniture, plate, pictures, and the many memorials of a whole life- 
 time, which insurances can never replace ; but there are many people who 
 have lost their all, and there is at this moment a great fire blazing cheerfulhr 
 
182 HTDBOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA.. 
 
 westward of the Knysna (which itself escaped by a miracle) towards George, 
 and eastwards towards the Zitzikamma, which will furnish in due time 
 many a tale of destruction and woe. Some other pen than mine must 
 chronicle them. I can only concern myself at present with the fire which 
 scathed me and burnt up my poor cows and calves, fowls, pigeons, and dogs, 
 and which seems to have destroyed some half-a-dozen places. At Portland, 
 Mr Barrington's place, there has been, I am sorry to say, a much greater 
 destruction of accumulated property, and of the results of labour, than at 
 Westford ; but the damage done to the farm is not so considerable. At 
 Barnard's, Buffels Vermaak, the farm-house is burnt down, and some of the 
 money melted which they wisely kept in their own chests instead of trusting 
 it to the coffers of the George Bank. Their silver spoons and forks are 
 also melted down ; but the loss these good people seem to feel most is that 
 of their feather-beds ! They are my two nearest neighbours, and I don't 
 know or care much about the others. But I should not conclude this 
 letter, which I feel is too much about myself and my own troubles, without 
 expressing my gratitude for much practical kindness and sympathy from 
 many persons in the Knysna from whom I had no particular reason to 
 expect much consideration." 
 
 On the same day similarly destructive fires raged in the districts of 
 Uitenhage and of Humansdorp, which are thus detailed in the Eastern 
 Province Herald : — " It is our painful duty to have to record a catastrophe as 
 appalling in its eflFects as it was unexpected. For the last three or four 
 days an immense tract of country has been on fire — bush and veld being 
 ablaze — the flames advancing rapidly, and destroying homesteads, crops, 
 live stock, and, alas ! several human beings. It is difficult to ascertain with 
 correctness the particulars of such a wide-spread calamity, but, so far as we 
 have been able to gather them, we publish the facts below. We have been 
 careful not to exaggerate, and we have reason to fear that when the truth 
 is fully known it will exceed what we have as yet been able to ascertain. 
 The first intelligence came to hand on Wednesday last — the day after 
 Tuesday, when the heat was so terrific — and we then learnt that the country 
 in the vicinity of Van Staden's River had been devastated by fire. It is 
 said by some that this fire originated at Captain MaUors's farm by burning 
 weeds, but from others we hear that several parts of the country m that 
 district were on fire simultaneously. Captain MaUors's homestead was 
 totally destroyed, and the flames travelled onwards to Betshanger, the farm 
 of Captain Boys. Despite every effort to avert the catastrophe, the thatched 
 roof caught fire, and in a few minutes the house ar d all its contents were 
 destroyed. Upwards of two hundred sheep were also destroyed, and the 
 remainder of the flock scorched and charred in a dreadful maimer. Captain 
 Boys and his family have taken refuge in a small cottage on the homestead, 
 which escaped the fire, but have literally lost all they possicssed. It is said 
 the house was insured for .£1000, but this will not cover the loss, and the 
 movable property was not insured. Mr Christian Heugh had a narrow 
 escape. He has lost his stacks of grain, but the dwelling-house was saved. 
 Captain Boys's sons came to his assistance, and they fortunately succeeded 
 in saving the premises. The verandah was burnt and charred at the end, 
 and all the kraals are destroyed. The grass burnt up to the very door. 
 We publish below an extract from a private letter received by a friend 
 yesterday, detailing some of the particulars of this fearful time. Further 
 on other homesteads were destroyed. Mr Marthinus Mienaar's house, at 
 
SEOONDARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 183 
 
 Sandfontein, is burnt down, and, sad to relate, on this place there was loss 
 of life. Mrs Mienaar, with a child and native servant, took refuge in a 
 ploughed field ; but the servant and child were caught by the flames and 
 burnt. Close by are the remains of a Hottentot woman and two children, 
 also destroyed ; so that on this homestead are five victims to the fury of the 
 raging fire. A Mr Faver, in the same part of the country, had a water- 
 mill, and went to look after it, and has not been heard of since: The mill 
 was destroyed, and it is feared that he too has perished. Mr George Smith, 
 of Nockton Park, and Mr Parkins, had a narrow escape. A waggon, with a 
 load of goods sent from Port Elizabeth by Messrs A. C. Stewart & Co., a 
 few days ago, has been burnt. — From the division of Humansdorp more 
 disastrous tidings still have reached us. Zuurbron, the property of Mr 
 Metelerkamp, has been totally destroyed, and everything lost. Ten or 
 twelve homesteads besides have been destroyed, but it will be some days 
 yet before we can learn the particulars. It would appear from the intelli- 
 gence received that the destruction of property in the division of Humandorp 
 has been much greater than along Van Staden's River, and we anxiously 
 wait for further particulars. At this moment we have received a telegram 
 from our correspondent at Humansdorp, who says that twenty homesteads 
 have been burnt down, and twenty-six Fiugo huts, and twenty-one lives have 
 been lost. The damage is estimated at £25,000 ! Further particulars are 
 promised us by post. This is, without doubt, the most serious calamity 
 that has ever befallen the colony. We have had nothing like it before. 
 Its very novelty is startling. We have had to mourn over losses by flood, 
 by locusts, by drought, and by Kafir war, but, except in a minor degree, we 
 have been preserved from the devastating effects of fire. Happening at a 
 time when the crops had been gathered in, and the stacks, as was thought, 
 safely secured, it was doubly felt. 
 
 "The following is an extract from a letter to a friend in this town, who 
 has kindly permitted us to publish it. The writer is a lady, who herself 
 witnessed the' terrific scene described, and who narrowly escaped with her 
 precious charge ; — 
 
 "'The 10th day of February 1869. — -After our merciful deliverance 
 from a frightful death, I now sit down to write a few of the events. The 
 day commenced very hot, and the heat increased towards the middle of it 
 to a frightful degree ; when we perceived a thick smoke approaching, with 
 the wind, which commenced to rise. It grew more dense, and, as I had 
 two children in my charge, I began to fear, and, hastily wrapping a blanket 
 or kaross round each (four altogether, with my own), I started for my 
 nearest neighbour's — Capt. Boys' ; my husband and men-servants mean- 
 while starting for the stacks, which were composed of our corn and all our 
 grain, as well as Capt. Boys'. That was all swept away, and my poor 
 husband almost consumed beneath its fall. We reached our destination, 
 and found our neighbours all alarmed, as the fire was almost all round the 
 homestead. Every endeavour was made to save the house, but without 
 avail, as the flames swept across the open space and ignited the thatch, 
 which was instantaneously in a blaze. I took the children to the river, and 
 we all sat in it, covered with blankets, as the cinders and burnt particles 
 flew over our heads. I and they commended ourselves to God, but I 
 expected every moment would be our last. However, the wind seemed to 
 change, and we, with all the members of Captain Boys' family, escaped 
 unhurt. They, poor things, have lost all-— wearing apparel, bedding, and 
 
184 HYDEOLOGY OF SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 everything. Were it not for the kindness of the two young Boys, who at 
 the commencement came over and beat the flames out which had encircled 
 the house already, we should also this night have been homeless. All the 
 clothes my charges had on were consumed. As they were too wet I was 
 afraid of them taking cold, and removed them. We carried them home in 
 blankets. The Lord, truly, is merciful and of great goodness in thus sparing 
 us. I had quite given up all hopes of this life for myself and the poor little 
 ones. . . . We have lost our all, and even our poor pigs were burnt to 
 death in their styes. Two hundred of Captain Boys' sheep were consumed, 
 besides a great many injured. As I now sit writing at nine o'clock p.m., 
 the whole country aroutid is smoking and sparkling. Ob ! if it would only 
 rain. The poor hares and wild bucks came to the houses for protection • 
 from the flames. It appears to me as if this day has been months long. 
 Our only waggon is also consumed. I pray and wish that I may never 
 witness such another day as this. I certainly thought that the last day 
 had arrived. The sun appeared like blood through the dense smoke, and 
 the air like fire. We were all perfectly parched, and could hardly speak. 
 No one who did not see it could imagine this scene, — the fire coming from 
 all directions, and the flames roaring like thunder, and the immense masses 
 of black smoke hastening onwards. It was awful ! ' " 
 
 Not less graphic is the following account, given in the Uitenhage Times ; 
 — " Last Tuesday, February 9, will long be remembered by those who 
 happened to be in Uitenhage on that day as the hottest day within their 
 experience ; and their memory will be no less charged with the terrible 
 calamities which followed and were augmented, if not actually caused, by 
 the intense heat of the atmosphere. 
 
 " There was a dense mist when the morning dawned, but as this wore 
 away the heat began to increase. By nine o'clock a.m. a scorching hot 
 wind blew from the northeast, and from that time till the afternoon it was 
 almost impossible to breathe the heated air out of doors. It was like flame. 
 People shut themselves up in their houses and excluded as much heat as 
 they could. Our own compositors closed the printing office, and even then 
 were unable to continue work ; they took refuge from the oppressive atmos- 
 phere beneath the cases and benches, and we believe that in almost every 
 house everything like work or exercise was suspended. Poultry ran gasping 
 about and poked their heads into holes and crevices for relief. 
 
 " Such was the heat in the town. At noon the thermometer stood at 
 112 outside, in-the shade. About halfpast five p.m., the wind veered 
 round, and a regular hurricane blew from the southwest, bringing with it 
 clouds of dust and smoke which completely obscured the sun. The ther- 
 mometer then stood at 100 in the shade, and in a dining-room which had 
 been darkened and shut up all day, at 90. 
 
 " It was evident that the smoke proceeded from a bush fire in the Van 
 Staden's neighbourhood, but it was hoped it was only the bush ; although 
 for some time the thatched houses of the town were in a jeopardy, for now 
 and then sparks were seen to fly overhead, and the thatch, already heated 
 nearly up to combustion, would have almost exploded had a spark fallen on 
 it, and been fanned by the wind which was then blowing. An ' old inhabit- 
 ant' did take the precaution to throw water on his thatch ; but fortunately 
 no fire took place in the town. Later in the evening the wind subsided 
 and a heavy dew fell ; when it got dark the sky over Van Staden's moun- 
 tain was lit up with the reflection of the fire which was still raging. 
 
BECONDARY 0AU8K OP DB8I0CAT1ON. 185 
 
 "Learning that the fire had been very destructive in the neighbourhood of 
 the Maitland Mines, we started for the locality yesterday, in order to get 
 an eye-witness's account for our readers. We had not got far on the Cape 
 road before we came upon traces of the fire ; indeed, it is almost a wonder 
 that with the wind blowing full behind it, the fire did not continue its course 
 along the dense bush which runs almost down to the river. On the hill behind 
 Mimosadale the fire must have raged furiously, and had anyone been travel- 
 ling on that road at the time, escape would have been utterly impossible. 
 
 " During Wednesday various reports were current in town, telling of 
 farms, stacks, cattle, etc., swept away. Eager as everyone was to believe 
 that rumour had as usual exaggerated, when the truth came to be ascer- 
 tained it was found that she had erred on the other side, and had under- 
 stated the mischief done. 
 
 " The homestead at Mimosadale had a narrow escape. The residents 
 were greatly alarmed, and at one time prepared for flight. Fortunately, 
 some 16- or 20 loads of firewood was the extent of Mr KingweU's loss. 
 
 " We pushed on towards Captain Boys', having heard that his homestead 
 had been destroyed and that the family had fled. On our way there we 
 drove over miles of ashes ; both the bush and the grass veldt had yielded 
 to the fire. We came upon a few straggling sheep, yet alive, but with their 
 wool burnt off close to their skins. 
 
 " On reaching the homestead we found that although the family were 
 stiU there, the house and nearly everything in it had been destroyed. 
 Notwithstanding the devastation and ruin which overspread the place, we 
 could see that a more beautiful site for a homestead could scarcely be found 
 in the Colony. It is situated in a sort of horseshoe-shaped kloof or valley, 
 nearly surrounded by hills, which were densely wooded before the fire, but 
 are now black and bare. The river runs partly round the place at the foot 
 of the hill, entering at an opening which faces the sea and admits at the 
 same time the bracing sea air. There were two other buildings within 
 about fifty yards of Captain Boys' dwelling-house; and although covered 
 with thatch, through almost superhuman efibrts on the part of the captain's 
 sons, they were saved, and into them the family have retreated for the 
 present. The dwelling-house itself seems to have been unusually comfort- 
 able and commodious, and was furnished in accordance with refined taste 
 and pretty liberal means. There was a good library, paintings — among 
 which the old Dutch masters were represented, articles of vertu, family 
 relics, and other household treasures which acquired an unappreciable 
 extrinsic value from associations. These went with the rest ; indeed, young 
 Mr Boys' words were when we arrived, ' We've lost everything but what we 
 stand in.' 
 
 "We will endeavour to give that gentleman's account of the fire. Early 
 in the afternoon, while he was copying some music, he saw smoke in the 
 direction of Mr C. Heugh's farm ; and believing that place to be in danger 
 went to render assistance. He found Mr Heugh vainly endeavouring to 
 secure his stacks, but seeing that impracticable, he and Mr Heugh applied 
 themselves to beating out the fire round the house. Mrs Heugh and her 
 own family, with two little girls, visitors from Port Elizabeth, wrapped 
 themselves up in blankets and fled to Captain Boys', miraculously escaping 
 suffocation by the way. When they arrived at the homestead it was already 
 on fire. But young Mr Boys, having rendered all assistance he could, was 
 alarmed about his mother and sisters, who were left at the homestead, and 
 
 z 
 
186 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 made all haste back, arriving there before Mrs Heugh. The fire had already 
 climbed up to the top of the mountain on the opposite side", and was flying 
 along the summit. In a few seconds a gust of wind swept the flame down, 
 and like a flash of lightning the whole mountain side was on fire. At this 
 moment a ' spark ' or piece of fire shot into the air, and fell upon the thatch 
 of the dwelling-house. He gave the alarm, and was instantly on the roof, 
 but too late ; the thatch burst into flame all at once. The young ladies, at 
 the imminent peril of their lives, endeavoured to save something, and did 
 manage to get the piano and one small box away to the other building. 
 Several other articles were got out to the front of the house and would have 
 been saved, but the grass had already taken fire, and so the devouring 
 element communicated to this property, and it was all destroyed. Personal 
 safety now became the only consideration ; the valley was heated like an 
 oven ; wild bucks from the surrounding bush came and crouched about, 
 terror-stricken, and one, half scorched to death, took refuge on the stoop of 
 the building. The ladies , shut themselves up to exclude the hot air, 
 expecting every moment, however, that the roof above them would burst 
 into flame. Both Mrs Boys and her four daughters exhibited the most 
 remarkable presence of mind, and made preparations, as a last resource, to 
 wrap themselves in blankets (the building in which they had taken refuge 
 was used for an occasional sleeping apartment) and run into the river. But, 
 thanks to Providence and the efibrts of the young men outside, the fire was 
 kept off the house, although the grass had been burned to within five feet 
 of it. The fire travelled and did its work so quickly that, like a wave or a 
 tempest, it soon swept past and climbed the opposite mountain. At this 
 time considerable alarm existed for the safety of Captain Boys, who had 
 gone in the morning to meet the gentlemen of the Austrian expedition at a 
 neighbouring farm. He was at length seen returning down the hill. The 
 first sight that met his eyes was his house a mass of smoking ruins, but the 
 joy of the family was unbounded when they saw him approach. 
 
 " We went with young Mr Boys up the mountain to look at the sheep 
 which had been burned. It was a sad sight. About forty vultures retreated 
 as we approached, and arranged themselves in a line at a short distance, 
 eagerly watching the opportunity to return to the feast we had disturbed. 
 Here there had been only long grass. This was burned to the roots, and 
 between 200 or 300 sheep, all more or less charred, were lying dead — the 
 ewe and lamb together in some instances, showing how to the last the one 
 had clung to the other for protection. In some instances the brains had 
 been boiled and seethed out of the head. Had these poor animals gone ten 
 yards in the right direction they would have escaped destruction. From 
 this hill a view of the surrounding homesteads was obtainable. It is 
 remarkable that almost the only patches of green remaining were just round 
 the houses. Whether the fire had been arrested there by the occupants, or 
 whether grass, so to speak, civilized, is less inflammable, we don't know. 
 Whatever the cause, the effect was to save many houses. The stacks at a 
 little distance were all destroyed. 
 
 " Captain Boys' loss is not less than £2000, most of which is uninsured. 
 Indeed the building only was insured. The valuable furniture, the wearing 
 apparel, the crops of produce, the sheep, and the stores of provisions, 
 linen, &c., which had just been laid in for the year, are all lost and are all 
 iminsured. It is, indeed, a very hard case ; a family living in refinement 
 and comfort were in a few minutes rendered homeless and destitute. Tte 
 
SECONDARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 187 
 
 way in which the ladies bear the misfortune is truly wonderful. Gratitude 
 that the family are all spared to each other seems to be the prev^iliiig 
 feeling. We were informed that the Kaffirs on the place could not be 
 induced to help to extinguish the fire. 
 
 " Sad as is the above case, we are assured it is not the worst. Every 
 hour fresh reports of disasters come in. Last evening young Mr Niekerk, 
 from Long Kloof, reached town, having passed through Humansdorp on his 
 way. Other messengers have arrived, also a letter from a correspondent at 
 Port Elizabeth, where telegrams have been received. All the reports agree 
 in the following, and are corroborated by the last arrival, Mr Niekerk. 
 
 " At Zuurbron, the extensive buildings of Mr Metelerkamp have been 
 swept away. Meyer's farm, Kromme Eiver, Klipfontein ; Zitzman's ; 
 Hendrik Meyer's, Zekoe Eiver ; Eondebosch ; Johnson's farm, Witteklip ; 
 Du Plessis' farm, Misgund, — all destroyed. 
 
 " But the worst tragedies have yet to be told. At Suiker Kraal or Vlakte 
 Plaats, inhabited by Messrs Gertenbach and Van Onselon, a life was lost. 
 There Mrs Gertenbach ran out of the burning house with three children 
 and was burnt to death; the children escaped. We have not fuller 
 particulars. 
 
 " At Mauritz Kraal and Strandfontein, farms occupied by three brothers, 
 Minnie, there has been further loss of life. Marthinus Minnie, of Strand- 
 fontein, saw the fire in the direction of Mauritz Kraal, and left his house to 
 look. Before he got very far he discovered that his own house was in 
 greater danger, and returned, but, in the meantime, a dreadful occurrence 
 took place. He had left in the house Mrs Minnie, very near confinement, 
 two of his own children, and a native servant with her two children. The 
 house caught fire and the occupants escaped, — Mrs Minnie with one child, 
 all that she could manage, to the mealie field, and the Kaffir woman with 
 the other three children down to the river. Mrs Minnie and the one child 
 with her escaped ; but the Kaffir woman and the three children perished. 
 The other Minnies at Mauritz Kraal packed up their goods in the waggons 
 ready for trekking, but while they were gone for the oxen the fire came and 
 consumed everything. At Galgebosch they had a very narrow escape, but 
 managed to keep the fire away from the homestead. 
 
 " When we left Captain Boys' last evening the fire was still raging in the 
 direction of Galgebosch, and we heard that considerable alarm existed all 
 over the country yet unvisited. 
 
 " At Prentice Kraal, eight miles the other side of Uitenhage, there was 
 also a large fire, so large as to alarm Mr Hartman, the hotel-keeper, and 
 make him contemplate flight." 
 
 A Humansdorp correspondent to the Eastern Province Herald furnishes 
 the following saddening particulars respecting the destructive fires in that 
 division : — " It is with painful feelings that I have to record the lamentable 
 events which took place on Tuesday the 9th instant, — a day never to be 
 forgotten in the district. The morning of that day was ushered in with a 
 hot northerly breeze, which gradually increased, until (at about eleven 
 o'clock A.M.) the atmosphere felt more like a blast from a furnace than any- 
 thing else. Fears were now being entertained for the safety of the village 
 and surrounding farms, as fires were springing up in various directions, and 
 about four p.m. the wind — which had veered round from N.W. to S.W. — 
 increased to a perfect hurricane, which words can but faintly describe, while 
 the heat, dust, and smoke were terrific in the extreme. About six p.m. 
 
188 HYDBOLOGY OP SOUTH APRIOA. 
 
 information was received that Mr H. Meyer's farm-house was burnt to the 
 ground, and he himself greatly injured in trying to save his valuables. 
 Immediately afterwards an express arrived from Zuurbron, the residence of 
 W. S. G. Metelerkamp, Esq., with the doleful tidings that the homestead 
 was in ashes — only a few books and papers saved — and about eight Fingo 
 children burnt to death. On his way in, the messenger passed Wagoner's 
 and Voslo's places, all in flames, and the whole country beyond, towards 
 the Gamtoo's Eiver, one mass of fire. 
 
 " Later in the evening, the flames were seen belching forth on each side 
 of the village, to the great consternation of the inhabitants, as we every 
 moment expected to see fire breaking out in the Dorp — the strong wind 
 carrying the sparks and stubble hundreds of yards ahead, and hurling 
 masses of burning palmiet and grass all over the country. At one point 
 the fiery element had advanced to within a mile of the nearest house ; but, 
 providentially, its course was changed, and it passed on, leaving us 
 unscathed. 
 
 " Next morning, 10th inst., we began to realize the havoc and desolation in 
 the neighbourhood, as one messenger after another arrived with sad news, this 
 farm was burned, and that, and so on — a list of which I send you herewith. 
 The same day a poor young fellow of the name of Kamp was brought into the 
 village, fearfully scorched. It appears he was on his way home from a 
 ' tocht,' with his ' little all '■ — a waggon and fourteen oxen and a flock of 
 sheep — and, when opposite the ' Vlak Plaats ' (Gertenbach's) was obliged to 
 halt on account of the fearful heat, and a dense volume of smoke and dust. 
 A few minutes afterwards, he says, the country on each side was enveloped 
 in flames, and he just had time to shelter himself behind an old wall when 
 his waggon took fire, and in less time than it takes to tell it, the waggon, oxen, 
 and sheep were one smouldering mass. He then went over to Mr Gerten- 
 bach's house, which was also blazing away, but could not find a soul. Mrs 
 Gertenbach and a servant girl were subsequently found lying about 300 
 yards from the house burned to a cinder. It appears the poor creatures fled 
 from the house towards Van Onelin's, about a mile further on, but were 
 overtaken and destroyed, the husband being away from home at the time. 
 From Swarts's place, after destroying everything there, the fire raged on 
 towards Jefirey's Bay, where it caught T. Kemp's house, which (together 
 with a buck-waggon load of goods for Mr Steinman, of this place,) were soon 
 in ashes. In the Zitzikamma Ward three large homesteads were burnt, 
 together with about from 30 to 40 Fingo huts, which were standing in 
 different parts of the Government grant. At the latter place some eight or 
 ten women and children also miserably perished. 
 
 " Words cannot describe the fearful ruin and desolation on every side. 
 Hundreds of people who were in comfortable oircumstaucfis have been 
 reduced to the verge of starvation and nakedness, and are now wandering 
 over the blackened ruins of their homes ; and what makes it still worse is, 
 that some thousands of muids of grain, besides stock innumerable, have 
 been totally destroyed. The country in some parts, for miles and miles 
 around, presents a most melancholy and desolate appearance, not a bush 
 nor a blade of grass, not a drop of water to be seen anywhere, and the loss 
 of stock which will consequently ensue will be sometliing terrible. 
 
 " Inclosed is a pretty correct list of property destroyed : — Zuurbron, W. 
 & E. Metlerkamp, nothing saved, — eight Fingo children burned to death ; 
 Zeeko River, P. Smart, nothing saved, — 700 sheep and goats burnt; 
 
SBOOITDAET CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 189 
 
 Eondebosoh, F. Wagner, nothiug saved; Eondebosch, D. Vesloo and 
 several others ; Zeekoe River, H. Meyer, nothing saved ; Misgund, C. du 
 Plessis, nothing saved ; Valk Plaats, Gertenbach, Mrs Gertenbach and 
 servant burnt to death ; Klein Vlatke, Van Onslin, nothing saved ; Klip- 
 fontein, Coetzee, nothing saved ; Lange Hoogte, Ferreira's, nothing saved ; 
 Krants Plaats, Terblan's, two children burnt to death, and one man fear- 
 fully scorched ; Langefontein, du Plessis, everything destroyed ; Oude Werf, 
 Moolman's, ditto, — one woman and five children burnt to death ; Fingo 
 Locations, Zitzikamma, s§veral lives lost; Geelhoutboom, several Fingo 
 locations ; Kromme Eiver, L. Meyer, totally destroyed, together with 400 
 sheep. 
 
 " Another correspondent, writing to ua from Humansdorp, under date 1 1th 
 inst., says, — ' Twenty-three farms in this division are known to be -totally 
 destroyed, with crops. No advice yet from Kromme River or Long Kloof, 
 except that there was a fire at Avontuur. The damage is roughly estimated 
 at £30,000 ; twenty-seven lives are lost. Hankey and Kruisfontein narrowly 
 escaped. No news yet from Clarkston, and Moravian Station. Tiie dorp 
 was encircled with fire. The Civil Comftiissioner had all the Government 
 money, stamps, books, etc., ready for a start : horses and cart in readiness. 
 Had not a shower of rain fallen on Wednesday the fire would have reached 
 us ; it was then creeping up the kloof, and men were engaged trying to put 
 it out.' 
 
 "From Humansdorp accounts have reached us that the district has also 
 been visited by the devastating enemy. Mr Chiappini, telegraphing to Mr 
 Metelerkamp on Wednesday last, states that on that day the whole of the 
 surrounding country was in a blaze, and that the fire was working its way 
 down to the Zitzikamma, in the direction of Combrink's place. The pro- 
 perties of Messrs Metelerkamp, Lucas, Meyer, Swart, Johnston, and Coetzee 
 had been destroyed, as also the homesteads and produce on the farms 
 Rondebosoh, Klipfontein, Langhoogte, and Zitzikamma. 
 
 " The place of Mr Franz Gertenbach, situated near Humansdorp, has been 
 destroyed. Mr John Gertenbach of this town received the following tele- 
 gram yesterday morning ; — ' A fearful fire is raging through the district of 
 Humansdorp. Your brother's place has been burnt down, and his wife and 
 one servant have been consumed. The child is alive and well. Frans is 
 away on togt. The report was sent in by his neighbour, Mr P. Hyfier. 
 Fifteen other farms have been burnt.' 
 
 " Mrs Frans Gertenbach, whose untimely end we deplore, was interred on 
 Wednesday. 
 
 " The following telegram has been received : — 
 
 "Telegeam. — Humansdorp, Friday, Feb. 12, 1869. Destructive fire on 
 Tuesday over district. Twenty homesteads burnt down ; also, twenty-six 
 Fingoe huts. Twenty-one lives lost. Full report by post. Damage 
 estimated at £25,000. 
 
 " From the'P. JE. Telegraph : — On Tuesday evening last considerable sen- 
 sation was produced in this town by what at the time was considered to be 
 a very unusual natural phenomenon. Soon after five o'clock the sun, as it 
 gradually drew towards the hills to the west, was observed to change its 
 usual bright golden tinge for a deep dark red, surrounding which was a 
 wide circle of likewise very florid appearance. A Jarge cloud was shortly 
 seen gradually approaching the town so dense that at times it almost 
 entirely obscured the sun. It reached here about half-past five o'clock, and 
 
190 HYDEOLOGT OP SOUTH APEIOA. 
 
 then there burst forth such a gale of wind as had not been experienced for 
 months previously. This raised clouds of dust as usual ; but mixed with 
 the dust and wind was a close, almost suffocating vapour, evidently the 
 steam and smoke of a very large fire. Had this occurred in more super- 
 stitious times, it is impossible to say to what cause such an unusual 
 phenomenon would have been ascribed ; as it was, it occasioned much 
 apprehension, if not alarm, in the minds of some weak-minded people, and 
 considerable speculation among the community generally. The wind con- 
 tinued through the greater part of the night to blow with unabated vigour 
 from the northeast. The deep mist soon cleared away ; but the unusual 
 occurrence we have endeavoured to describe remained unexplained until 
 near mid-day, when intelligence reached here that a very destructive iire 
 had been raging at the Maitland Mines. News was reached the same day 
 that another fire had devastated a large extent of country near Humansdorp, 
 and that one had also been raging at Mimosadale, near Uitenhage. 
 
 " We have carefully collected all the particulars we have been able to get 
 in reference to these most disastrous calamities ; but the accounts vary 
 considerably, and render anything like a connected naiTative a very difficult 
 undertaking. It appears that the fire in the locality of the Maitland Mines 
 first broke out on the farm of Mr Mailers. That gentlemen wishing to clear 
 out a watersloot, had set fire to some rubbish with which it was blocked up, 
 not for a moment anticipating that by so doing he would bring upon him- 
 self and others the disastrous consequences which have resulted. The dry 
 stubble burnt quickly, and the wind suddenly springing up blew the sparks 
 on to the adjoining plots of dry grass, and in a very short space of time the 
 whole was one mass of flame. Every effort made to prevent its advance 
 was futile. It spread in every direction, and soon reached the homestead, 
 the thatch of which becoming ignited, the whole structure in a very short 
 space of time was burnt to the ground, with all it contained. The out- 
 houses and a waggon were also consumed, the live-stock of the farm alone 
 escaping. On spread the devouring element at a most surprising rate, the 
 wind facilitating its movements by scattering the burning embers far and wide. 
 In no direction did it advance so rapidly as towards the farm of Mr C. 
 Heugh in a south-easterly course ; but fortunately, owing to the strenuous 
 exertions of those on the place, the homestead was saved ; but a waggon 
 and some other less valuable property were destroyed. The fire now sped 
 in a north-easterly direction, and soon reached the hills above Capt. Boys' 
 homestead. This fine old mansion, one of the best farm-houses in the 
 neighbourhood, situated in a snug valley, was looked upon as quite safe. 
 The grass around it was short, so that there was no fear of the fire being 
 communicated in that way. Attention was therefore devote^ to saving the 
 live-stock grazing on the more exposed parts of the farm. Suddenly the 
 wind swept from off the hills a lot of burning embers, which, falling upon the 
 thatched roof, set the whole in a blaze. It was the work of a moment. All 
 the hands rushed to save the house, but their efforts were fruitless, and now 
 nothing remains of the fine old house but the four blackened walls. Even 
 the furniture and clothing could not be saved. The only article rescued 
 was a piano. A few oil paintings, prized as being heirlooms as well as from 
 their intrinsic value, were got out and placed in safety it was thought ; but 
 the grass becoming ignited, they too perished. A flock of sheep was 
 surrounded by flames, and about 300 of them were burnt to death, or so 
 mutilated as to necessitate their being killed. Another branch of the fire 
 
eEOONDARY CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 191 
 
 ran quickly up the Maitland Mines valley in a westerly course. Speedily 
 reaching Hyland's place, it consumed a stack of from 20,000 to 30,000 
 bundles of oat-hay, leaving nothing in its place but a mass of ashes. The 
 homestead on the farm escaped. The fire then crossing the valley 
 made its way up to Mr Eice Smith's property. Here its advance 
 was resisted inch by inch by a sturdy set df fellows determined to keep 
 back the invader. Their efibrts were almost superhuman. One young 
 fellow, Henry Smith, we are told, particularly distinguished himself. 
 Another had his shoes burnt off his feet ; still he battled with the flames. 
 But they succeeded : the house was saved, though it very narrowly escaped, 
 the trees surrounding it being burnt, as also all running along it. As our 
 informant very forcibly described it, the fire completely ' licked the walls of 
 the building.' The veldt is burnt for very many miles, and there is now 
 no pasturage whatever for the cattle in these parts. Large patches of bush 
 and even large trees in the kloofs are entirely destroyed, being now mere 
 blackened ashes. The fire spread so rapidly that an eye witness describes 
 it as flying along at the pace of a race-horse. As an instance of the force 
 of the wind and the volume of flame, we are informed by Captain Stanbury, 
 of the Zephyr, which arrived here on Wednesday, that on Tuesday evening 
 when eight or ten miles oflf the land, particles of blackened embers were 
 blown on to his ship from the shore, and the coast to an extent of fully 
 forty miles was grandly illuminated by the burning bush and grass. 
 
 " By this sad calamity Captain Boys and his sons have lost all they 
 possessed, as their property was only insured to the extent of .£500 to cover 
 a bond. They are now living in two small cottages near their homestead, 
 which were spared by the fire. Mr Mailer's, we believe, is wholly uninsured, 
 as is also Mr Hyland. 
 
 " The most disastrous series of fires, accompanied as they are with 
 melancholy loss of life, have yet to be recorded. These occurred in 
 Humansdorp district the same day, and also on Wednesday, but whether it 
 was a branch of the same conflagration is not known at present. It is 
 believed not to be. The only particulars that have as yet reached town 
 are through the electric telegraph, and are consequently very meagre. The 
 whole of the buildings on the Zuurbron property, belonging to Mr Meteler- 
 kamp, an old and highly esteemed resident in the division, have been burnt 
 to the ground. The properties of Messrs Meyer, Swart, Johnston, Lucas 
 Meyer, Von Onselin, and Coetzee have been consumed, as also the buildings 
 on the farms Klipfontein, Rondebosch, Zitzikamma, and Longhoogte, besides 
 very many others. The farm house of a Mr Marthinus Minnie was destroyed, 
 and a child and servant burnt to death. Mrs Minnie, it is said, saved 
 herself and one of her children by rushing into the river and remaining 
 there until the fire which was blazing aU around had burned itself out. 
 The fire had reached the Zitzikamma forest, and was, it is said, playing sad 
 havoc amongst the noble trees there. 
 
 " A telegram was received yesterday by Mr John Gertenbach from 
 Humansdorp, stating that ■ his brother Franz's place has been completely 
 destroyed, and that his wife, child, and servant had been burnt to death. 
 A later- telegram informs us that«the child is not dead, having been placed 
 somewhere in safety while the mother went to try and save some things in 
 the house. Slie lost her life in the attempt ; but the child was afterwards 
 discovered unhurt. 
 
 " A fire has also been raging in Mimosadale in the Uitenhage district, but 
 
192 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 does not appear to have done much damage. The smoke and soot from 
 this were driven into Uitenhage, and falling on the washed wool laid out to 
 dry has so discoloured much of it that it will be necessary to have it 
 rewashed. 
 
 " Later Particulars. — The above was written last night, after collecting 
 such particulars as were then current. This morning we havfr seen one or 
 two farmers from the locality of Van Staden's River, who have informed us 
 of further incidents connected with this fearful conflagration, which are of 
 the most harrowing description. We mentioned above that a white child 
 and a coloured servant had been burnt on Minnie's farm, but it appears that 
 five lives have been lost on the place, viz., the two already mentioned and 
 a coloured woman with her two children. The woman was found after the 
 fire lying on her back on the ground, with one child strapped behind as the 
 natives usually carry their children, the other lying upon and between her 
 legs. She had most likely fallen with her children, and all three had 
 become suffocated together. The farm Strandfontein, situated near the 
 Gamtoos Eiver, is occupied by the three brothers Minnie, viz., Daniel, 
 Stephanus, and Marthinus. They are all married. The two first occupy 
 the old and larger building, the latter a smaller one. On Tuesday, seeing 
 the fire approaching the farm, every effort was made to divert it from the 
 homestead, but in vain. Attention was then directed to the waggons and 
 other property in the hope of saving at least something. Marthinus, whose 
 house was furthest from . the flames, ran to the assistance of his brothers, 
 believing that his place was safe. His wife, children, and servants remained 
 behind. He had scarcely got to his brothers' place, when, on looking round, 
 he saw that the fire had advanced upon his residence from another direction, 
 and that it was completely enveloped in flames. The veld, too, had caught 
 fire between the two houses, so that it was impossible to proceed from one 
 to the other. All had to look to their own dear lives. Both houses were 
 burnt with all they contained, the only thing saved being one waggon. As 
 soon as the fire would permit search was made for Marthinus' family. His 
 wife with one child was found to' be alive ; but tied to her back was another 
 ^bumt to death ! She had run out of the house, taking one child — the 
 servant followed with the other. She rushed on to a place of safety ; but 
 her feelings may be imagined — they cannot be described — when on looking 
 round for the girl and child neither were to be seen. As the fire would 
 permit she retraced her steps, and came across the servant and child both 
 dead. The latter she tied on her back, in the faint ho,pe that the vital 
 spark had not quite fled. The poor woman is very near her confinement, 
 and this must have added very much to her suff'erings. 
 
 " Mr George Smith, at Gamtoos River, only saved his property with great 
 difficulty, the grass and bush all around being completely burnt off. 
 
 "Mr Wm. Parkin had all the crops, &,o., on his property consumed; but 
 the homestead is uninjured. 
 
 " A miller named Faver, who has a flour-mill worked by water-power 
 near the Van Staden's River, is missing, and it is feared has been burnt to 
 death. He was last seen proceeding in the direction of his mill, which was 
 in danger of being burnt, and had not since been heard of. 
 
 " A waggon, laden with merchandize, proceeding into the country from 
 this place was, we are told, burnt with its contents. 
 
 " Mr James Parkin, from whom we have obtained most of the additonal 
 particulars, believes that the fire is still burning fiercely along the Gamtoos 
 
SEOONDABY CAUSE OP DESICOATION. 193 
 
 Eiver and up Baviaan's Kloof, and that much damage must hare resulted 
 in those parts. 
 
 " The resident magistrate proceeded out to the locality of the disaster this 
 morning, to render what assistance he could to those in need. He took 
 with him a quantity of clothing and comforts, contributed by the charitable 
 of this town, for distribution amongst those who have lost their all by this 
 disastrous conflagration." 
 
 This is by far the most extensive coincidence of bush fires in South 
 Africa which has come under my notice. But view each of them apart, and 
 it is only in keeping with what is of frequent occurrence on a lesser scale. 
 I have had narrated to me not less exciting accounts of hair-breadth escapes 
 with Ufe, but with the loss of everything, occurring on the flank of Table 
 Mountain. I have been in peril, both by night and by day, from such fires 
 within ten miles of Capetown. I have roused a sleeping family, to whose 
 house the flames were hurrying on, while there was barely time for them to 
 escape before it was consumed. The following I find amongst my 
 memoranda : — 
 
 " Grass Fiees. — There have been serious grass fires on the frontier. By 
 telegrams received on Monday it appears that in the Bedford division Mr 
 R. Ainslie's homestead, etc., was destroyed; and that Mrs Ainslie, sen., had 
 died from injuries received, Seven natives were burnt in their huts. 
 
 " The following is a telegram from the Fort Beaufort division : — ■' Grass 
 fires at the Tyumie. Several farms and locations have been entirely 
 denuded of pasturage. The forests took fire and burned for several days. 
 Two sawyers and two little children were burned to death. Farmers com- 
 pelled to trek. Great numbers of sheep burned, and the destruction of 
 game immense.' " 
 
 " FiEE IN THE District of Gboege. — A Port Elizabeth correspondent 
 says, — ' A pic-nic party in the district of George had a narrow escape. On 
 Tuesday last, the 9th of February, the same day as that on which the great 
 fire in Uitenhage and Humansdorp occurred, there was a festive gathering 
 in the George district, when the grass caught fire, and fi cart and harness 
 had to be abandoned to the flames, and the company had to run for their 
 lives. One man, a driver, was badly Jpurnt.' " 
 
 The Somerset Courant says, — " The weather for the last ten days has been 
 oppressively hot. We have not experienced such a continuance of warm, 
 sultry days for a long time. Each day appeared to be warmer than another, 
 until on Tuesday evening last the town was completely enveloped in a dense 
 cloud resembling smoke, which some people believed came from the 
 neighbouring mountain which was on fire. No fires having been heard of, 
 others supposed it to be the peculiar state of the atmosphere. If so, it was 
 a peculiar state indeed, for the smell of fire, like to burning grass, was very 
 strong. From that evening, however, the weather became cooler, and at 
 present there is every indication of rain, which we stand in need of 
 
 "Smoke. — We have heard an account of the extraordinary quantity of 
 smoke with which the atmosphere was charged on the evening of Tuesday 
 last. It appears that Mr Dixie, a farmer in the vicinity of Bedford, fired 
 some portion of his veld, probably to reduce the long grass, in the mean- 
 time a high wind arose and carried the flames a much greater distance than 
 was originally contemplated or intended ; in fact, the fire communicated to 
 the veld of Mr Henry Hutton and reached an out-station for sheep. The 
 wind must have been very strong, as a kraal was entirely consumed and 
 
 2a 
 
194 HYDBOIOGT OP SOUTH AITBIOA. 
 
 sixteen sheep were destroyed by the flames. The smoke from the fire 
 extended ahnost to the Zuurburg, which gave rise to all sorts of rumours as 
 to its origin." 
 
 These details justify my statement that the destruction of forests in 
 South Africa has been extensive. They supply, in the case of those first 
 given, indications that thereby the desiccation of the country by evaporation 
 has been promoted ; and by deduction from what has been ascertained by 
 an extensive induction of facts observed elsewhere, it may be inferred that 
 a similar consequence must, or may, have followed the destruction of forests, 
 of which details have now been given. This subject next demands attention. 
 
 Sbotion III. — Effects of Denudation of the Country on Evaporation. 
 
 In accordance with the prevalent opinion that trees have some influence 
 in increasing or retaining moisture in the locality in which they grow, such 
 destruction of trees as has been going on for such a length of time, and to 
 such an extent, as these details embrace, it may be admitted, could scarcely 
 fail to have tended to promote the dessication of the country by removing 
 one hindrance to evaporation, and, in so far as this would efiect it, allowing 
 it to go on freely and unchecked. 
 
 It may have been remarked that simultaneously with this destruction of 
 trees there has been going on a destruction of bush, and herbage, and 
 grass, by the burning of the veldt, both by native tribes and by European 
 colonists, and that the destruction of the forests has been to a great extent 
 a consequence — and that an undesigned consequence of this practice — 
 undesigned, and in some cases unheeded, in others deplored. This destruc- 
 tion of grass, and herbage, and bush has acted in the same way as the 
 destruction of forests — in removing an important check upon evaporation, 
 and so promoting the desiccation of the country. 
 
 To test some statements I made on this subject when I was at the Cape 
 of Good Hope, Mr WiUiam Blore, M.L.A., Fellow of the Meteorological 
 Society of London, and Secretary of the South African Meteorological 
 Society, made some experiments at Wynberg Hill, about eight miles from 
 Capetown, which I shall here detail, with the results obtained, premising that 
 we have the means of comparing these results with others which have been 
 obtained from similar experiments made in a forest and in open country. 
 
 From a report of such experiments made by Mathieu, one of the Directors 
 of the Forest School at Nancy, prepared by orders of the General Super- 
 intendent of Forests, and published by the Government in the Atlas 
 Meteoroligique d VOhservatoire Imperial, pour 1867, — which experiments 
 were continued from April to October inclusive — it appears that during 
 those months the evaporation from a vessel placed in the ground in a 
 plantation of deciduous trees sixty-two years old was less than one-fifth of 
 that from a vessel of like form and dimensions placed in the open country. 
 
 The quantity of water evaporated in the forest was 3-2.3 inches; the 
 quantity evaporated from land clear of forests was 16'29 inches — about five 
 times as much. 
 
 In April, before the development of leaves, if 1000 represented the 
 evaporation from the open country, 623 represented tlie evaporation from 
 woodland ; but after the trees became clothed with foliage the amount of 
 evaporation from the woodland was only 130, as against 1000 of open 
 
SEOONDABT OAUSE OP DESICCATION. 195 
 
 country evaporation. In October the woodland evaporation was to the open 
 country as 90 to 100. 
 
 Mr Blore sunktwo cylindrical jars of the same size in the ground to the depth 
 of 4 inches, leaving them projecting an inch above the surface as a precau- 
 tion against sand and other matters being blown into them, and covering 
 each with wire gauze to keep out flies, &c. The one was placed where it 
 was partially protected, but not covered by bush, the other was sunk in a 
 newly cleared plot of ground, measuring about 60 feet in diameter, sur- 
 rounded by sugar bushes, Protea mdlifera Thhf, of a considerable height, 
 and otherwise protected from the prevailing wind by a belt of pine trees, 
 about 120 feet distant. 
 
 Into each of these jars was put 20 oz. of water on January 31st, at 10 
 A.M. On February 5th, at 5 p.m., the water remaining in each was care- 
 fully measured, and the evaporation was calculated. When it was found 
 that the evaporation from the jar sunk in the cleared ground had been more 
 than double the evaporation from that which was partially protected, though 
 not covered by the bush; the former being 1'854 in. ; the latter, 'BBS in. ; 
 giving an excess of '991 in. The experiment was repeated with similar 
 results. 
 
 In reporting these results, Mr Blore remarked that had the experiment 
 been made in a more arid district, the evaporation would have been greater ; 
 and that had it been made in the open country, the difference would have 
 marked. But taking the results obtained as the basis of calculation, he 
 arrived by the following process at a conclusion for which probably few yho 
 have not given attention to the subject are prepared. 
 
 The excess of evaporation from the more exposed jar above that from 
 the jar partially shaded, but not covered, being one inch, more strictly 
 speaking upwards of 99-100 of an inch of water, and more than double that 
 of the latter, " An inch in six days," says he, " wiU give for 102 days, the 
 ordinary duration of the hot windy and dry season in the district, 17 inches. 
 This is equal to about three hundred and eighty-four thousand (384,000) 
 gallons per acre, and supposing 1,000 acres to be burned, blackened, and 
 dried — ^what with sunlight, fire, heat, and wind the evaporation would be an 
 excess of three hundred and eighty-four millions of gallons of water above what 
 wo'ild have been evaporated if the bush or grass had been left unbumed." 
 
 In the prosecution of his researches, Mr Blore ascertained by experi- 
 ment that on Wynberg hiU, while the deposit of dew on a green surface 
 amounted to 4'75, that on a white surface amounted only to 2, showing 
 that the deposit of dew upon a green surface is more than double that upon 
 a white ; and he further ascertained that, while the difference of temperature 
 in the water in the two jars employed in the former experiment was only a 
 few degrees, the difference of temperature, between black ground and ground 
 shaded by bush was about 25°, which would occasion a vastly greater 
 difference in the amount of evaporation than that which occurred in his 
 experiment. 
 
 Besides the promotion of desiccation, by removing an important check 
 upon evaporation from the soil, consequent on the burning of the veldt, 
 there has been reported a secondary effect produced in some cases which is 
 at least worthy of notice. 
 
 Mr Horace Waller, F.E.G.S., who accompanied Bishop M'Kenzie and 
 his party to the Zambesi, in 1861, in writing of their voyage up the Shire, 
 
196 HTDEOLOGT OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 says, — "The part of the river I am abotit to describe is singular for a species 
 of canalization, which nature has arranged for it, as she tatoos fresh lines and 
 ■wrinkles on Africa's face. Shortly after entering the Shire, one gets to a 
 tract which, not many years since, was no doubt a lake. Time has altered 
 this, and in the place of the lake there is a nearly grown-up marsh, for the 
 river, a broad and shallow one before it, comes thus far to writhe and turn 
 about it. When it gets to this part its whole character alters ; it winds in 
 countless turns, is narrow, and has a deep channel. One sees that in the 
 gradual desiccating process (visible to so many African travellers) the 
 current of this river has, in some unusually severe drought, lasting perhaps 
 two or three years (and droughts often last that time), been reduced -to a 
 form which it still maintains with little alteration. It is true, that in 
 ordinary seasons it would quickly have regained its original space, and the 
 first heavy rains of the 'wet season ' wovdd have spread the waters as wide 
 as ever ; but, in the lengthened period of a drought a very important alter- 
 ation takes place. The growth of rush and water-plants would now be most 
 luxuriant along the edge of the river. Here the roots of the rank tropical 
 vegetation are better watered than further away, where all is one hard, 
 baked, black mass of earth sweltering in the sun. Here, too, a current of 
 air is ever passing up or down the river ; in short, vegetation can want 
 nothing more, and is luxuriant beyond measure. It happens then, that when 
 the fires, which every hot season pass over the whole country, craclde and roar 
 across the space that was so lately a lake, they find more to consume along 
 the banks than further away. Thus it is that the amount of debris left 
 from the conflagtation is larger on each side of the water, and also more 
 solid in character; for, duriag the period of the fires, there is every 
 afternoon a gale of wind for the most part blowing up the river's course, 
 and this sweeps the flames so rapidly through the reeds that they do not 
 get so thoroughly consumed as those that grow further away from its 
 influence. The waters, in fact, cause and encourage an extra growth, and, 
 when the fires come, they act as the ' navvies,' taking the excess of vegeta- 
 tion there is along the edge to make the dam. As my canoe drags its 
 length beneath the bank, I can trace each year's quota in the strata of red 
 ashes and charred reed-stalks. In places a hippopotamus' path causes an 
 outlet for the water, and the river rushes through to try and regain its lost 
 territory. It only wastes itself in the vast spongy marsh and the small 
 lagoon, which give off' more in evaporation than can be supplied by such 
 means to counterbalance the effects of the sun. Throughout some thirty 
 miles of the river iu the Morambala marsh, this very interesting piece of 
 natural engineering is to be seen." 
 
 In looking for the probable effect of this on the desiccation of the 
 country, it may be well to bear in mind that to maintain the humidity of 
 earth and air it is desirable that the rain which falls upon, or the water 
 which passes through, it should be retained there and allowed to evaporate 
 and to percolate through the soil, and should be kept from flowing away 
 back again speedily or quickly to the sea, whence it had come. 
 
 By the confined channel the waters are carried off' with increased velocity. 
 A little escapes by breaches made by hippopotami, and this in circum- 
 stances favourable to evaporation, in consequence of which it is speedily 
 and entirely taken up by the atmosphere ; and so far so good ; but it is 
 indicated that the quantity thus retained is but a trifle compared with what, 
 but for these embankments, would have spread out around, to be more. 
 
SEOONDAET OATJSE OF DESICOATION. 197 
 
 slowly, but perhaps not less completely, absorbed by the atmosphere, to 
 minister to the promotion of vegetation, and to arrest to some extent the 
 rapidity of the process of desiccation which is going on. 
 
 It may appear paradoxical to speak of evaporation both as a means of 
 desiccation and as a means of arresting desiccation ; but it enters into the 
 very nature of a paradox that the apparently conflicting facts are both facts 
 though apparently conflicting ; and in this case the solution of the paradox 
 is not difficult. More water is carried ofi' by gravitation than by evapora- 
 tion, and evaporation is impeded by the humidity of the air ; by the flow of 
 the river more is carried off in a given time than would have been carried 
 off in the same time by evaporation ; and if this had not been so carried off 
 it would have supplied humidity to the atmosphere, and so have impeded 
 the evaporation whereby the land was desiccated while supplying moisture 
 which, absorbed by that land, would have promoted vegetation, by which 
 evaporation and desiccation would have been still further impeded. It is 
 to some extent, though not invariably and constantly the case, that whatever 
 tends to desiccate the country in any one way does so through so doing in 
 many other ways beside ; and conversely, whatever tends to increase the 
 humidity of a climate in any one way, through so doing does so in many 
 other ways beside. The fact observed by Mr Waller is a secondary result 
 of the burning of the veldt. And while Dr Livingstone speaks as he does 
 in regard to the drainage of the land by gravitation, so as to seem to teach 
 that this alone may suffice to account for the desiccation and aridity of 
 South Africa, there are others who have so spoken in regard to the promo- 
 tion of desiccation by evaporation by the destruction of vegetation — 
 arborescent and herbaceous, but chiefly the former — whereby the aridity 
 under their consideration was brought about, that they have seemed to 
 teach that this alone might suffice to account for the desiccation and aridity 
 of the country. I hold with both, believing both to be correct in what 
 they affirm in regard to the results which they severally report, and 
 discriminating as I have done between the primary and the secondary cause 
 of that desiccation. 
 
 I not only know of no one who has given so much attention to the study 
 of the effect on the desiccation of South Africa of the destruction of trees, 
 and bush, and herbage, and grass, as has Mr James Fox Wilson, of 
 St Leonards, but I know of no subject connected with the desiccation of 
 South Africa which has received such attention as has been given to this by 
 him. The results he has embodied in a paper on the Water Supply in the 
 Basin of the Orange River, and I have his permission to make free use of it 
 in this compilation. I have already done so in describing the desiccation 
 of the land, and I proceed to give his reply to the question — " Is there any 
 cause besides the interior position of the country and the natural aridity of 
 the soil which occasions the advance of drought ? " 
 
 " We abseet that there is. . . Tfie human inhabitants themselves 
 are a prime cause of the disaster, to account for which we find only partial 
 reasons in the central position and physical characteristics of these regions. 
 The natives have for ages been accustomed to burn the plains and to 
 destroy the timber and ancient forests. The Bechuana, especially the 
 Batlapi and neigbouring tribes, are a nation of forest levellers, cutting down 
 every species of timber without regard to scenery or economy. The large 
 traps or hopos, into which wild animals are driven for slaughter, must con- 
 
198 HTDEOIiOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 sume large quantities of trees in their construction, if we consider their 
 immense size and the width of the avenues leading to them. Fuel, imple- 
 ments of war, husbandry, etc., make away with a large quantity of wood. 
 Dwelling-houses, too, are chiefly composed ot small timber instead of stone, 
 and their fences of branches and shrubs. Thus, when a site for a town is 
 fixed upon, the first consideration is to be as near a thicket as possible, the 
 whole of which is presently levelled, leaving only a few trees, one in each 
 great man's fold, to afford shelter from the heat. The ground to be occupied 
 for cultivation is the next object of attention, and the large trees being too 
 hard for their native iron axes, they burn them down by keeping up a fire 
 at the root. These supply them with branches for fences, while the 
 sparrows, so destructive to their grain, are deprived of an asylum. The 
 fences, as well as those in the towns, require constant repairs ; indeed the 
 former must be renewed every year, and, rather than gather or quarry- 
 stones to rais? a substantial fence, a man will take a forked stick, a thong, 
 and his axe, and occupy nearly a whole day in bringing from a distance a 
 bundle of the hook-thorn to fill up a gap in his cattle or sheep fold. 
 
 " By this means, the country for many miles around becomes entirely 
 deared of timber, while in the more sequestered spots, where they have 
 their outposts, the same work of destruction goes on. Thus of the whole 
 forests, where the giraffe and elephant were formerly wont to seek their 
 daily food, nothing is now left but a few stumps of camel-thorn which bear 
 a silent testimony to the wastefulness of the Bechuana. In some parts of 
 the country, the remains of ancient forests of wild olive trees (Olea similis), 
 and of the camel-thorn (Acacia giraflfaea), are still to be met with ; but when 
 these are levelled in the proximity of a Bechuana village, no young trees 
 spring up to take their place. When the natives migrate from a district, 
 which may be after only a few years, the minor sorts of acacia soon grow, 
 but the Acacia giraffaea requires an age to become a tree, and many ages must 
 elapse before it can attain the dimensions of its predecessors. 
 
 " The natives of many tribes, even the Bakalakari of the desert have also 
 the custom of annually getting rid of the tall dry grass by fire, which on 
 some occasions destroys shrubs and trees to the very summit of the moun- 
 tains, and must tend very much to produce an altered meteorological 
 condition of the atmosphere, as well as to occasion that desolate and 
 solitary aspect of the country which European travellers speak of so depre- 
 catingly. In Namaqualand the field (veld) is seldom burnt, the fierce and 
 powerful sun seeming to perform that office for the natives, and destroying, 
 in a dry summer, an ifpmense proportion of the young shrubs and trees 
 which spring up in a wet one; the efi'ect of drought in this instance 
 becoming in its turn an auxiliary cause of drought ; but there are vast 
 regions in the basin of the Orange, and in the Cape Colony itself, bare of 
 timber and bush, not only from the aridity of the soil, but from the perti- 
 nacity with which the natives, and even colonists of European descent, 
 adhere to the practice of producing an annual conflagration in winter, in 
 order that the flocks may find an abundance of pasturage as soon as 'the 
 spring sets in. In these bare regions, trees are hardly ever to be found, 
 except on the banks of rivers or in high mountain-passes, as the fire pene- 
 trates into all the kloofs or ravines where the most luxuriant vegetation is 
 found, and destroys it. 
 
 " It appears certain that the farther we proceed westward from the moun- 
 tains of Natal and Kaffirland, the less becomes the amount of rain bestowed 
 
SEOONDAET CAUSE OP DESIOOATION. 199 
 
 by the clouds. The more denuded of trees and brushwood, and the more 
 arid the land becomes, the smaller the supply of water from the atmosphere. 
 The greater the extent of heated surface over which the partially exhausted 
 clouds have to pass, the more rarefied the vapour contained in them neces- 
 sarily becomes, and the higher the position which the clouds themselves 
 assume in the atmosphere under the influence of the radiating caloric ; con- 
 sequently the smaller the chance of the descent of any rain on the thirsty 
 soil beneath. And the more the short-sighted colonists and ignorant natives 
 burn the grass and timber, the wider the area of heated surface is made ; 
 the further the droughty region extends, the smaller becomes the fountain 
 supplies, and the more attenuated the streams, till they finally evaporate 
 and disappear altogether. Thus the evil advances in an increasing ratio, 
 and, unless checked, Trvust advance, and will finally end in the depopulation 
 and entire abandonment of many spots once thickly peopled, fertile, and 
 productive. 
 
 " In the case of the fountains at Griqua Town, referred to at the com- 
 mencement, as having formerly poured forth an abundant supply of water, 
 the accidental destruction of whole plains of the wild olive-tree by fire near 
 the town, and the removal of the shrubs on" the neighbouring heights, are 
 known to have preceded the diminution of rain, and subsequent diminution 
 of the springs, the subterraneous caverns which acted as reservoirs in the 
 bowels of the earth ceasing to be supplied from the clouds. There can be 
 no question that, hitherto, vegetation, like animal life, has, in South Africa, 
 been waatefully and ignorantly destroyed, in direct violation of physical 
 laws, which can never be broken with impunity ; and if we compare what 
 is now taking place there with what has transpired in other arid countries, 
 our 'conviction must deepen that it is not so much to the waywardness of 
 nature as to the wilfulness of man that we must assign the recent extension 
 of the Kalahari Desert. 
 
 " If we cautiously and carefully examine the subject, we shall find that 
 in many temperate countries, and even in some cold ones, the felling of 
 forests has been attended by a greater or less diminution of moisture, and 
 an alteration of the climatic conditions. This has been the case in the 
 Canadian settlements and the Eastern States of the North American Union, 
 which, since being won from the primeval forest, have markedly improved 
 in general salubrity and meteorological condition. Moreover, the general 
 climate of Europe has undoubtedly undergone a great change since the 
 destruction of the great belt of forest that, in the days of the old Eomans, 
 occupied its central portions. Not only has the climate of the old world 
 become increasingly dry, but it has become warmer, the severe winters and 
 heavy frosts described by ancient classical writers being now almost un- 
 known in the South of Europe. In these oases the felling of timber, because 
 productive of the removal of dank vegetation and unwholesome moisture, 
 has operated to the improvement of the soil, increasing its producing 
 capabilities, and occasioning it to be better fitted for the residence of man. 
 The general character of ancient Europe, both insular and continental, 
 whilst yet unreclaimed and overspread with forests, would naturally be 
 more humid, and consequently colder. When cultivation and a vast in- 
 crease of population occasioned the removal of the timber, the freezing of 
 the Danube and Tiber would gradually become matter of history, and heavy 
 frosts in Greece and Italy a cause of wonder. 
 
 " While the climate of our quarter of the globe has thus, we repeat, been 
 
200 HTDROIOGY OF SOUTH APBIOA. 
 
 ameliorated by the removal of the superabundance of wood, on the other 
 hand, in the steppe^ of Southern Russia, in Northern Africa, in some parts 
 of Italy, Greece, European Turkey, and Persia, many a bare tract exists 
 which owes its origin to the folly or neglect of rulers, or subjects, who have 
 removed, to the extent of absolute extermination, those natural protectors 
 of humidity — the trees — and have thus turned fruitful gardens into a waste. 
 
 " In Greece and Asia Minor the traveller finds the reality fall far short 
 of the description of the scenery given by the celebrated writers of olden 
 time. The mighty streams so magniloquently described in the poems of 
 antiquity are found to be mere rivulets compared with the grandiose 
 accounts of the old epics. The sparkling cascades and fountains which, in 
 enchanting the eye, also prompted the verse of the classic writers, have dis- 
 appeared under the powerful influences exerted by ages of war, misrule, and 
 oppression. Districts once covered with rich crops of corn, with olive and 
 vineyards, orchards and groves, are at the present time mere expanses of 
 sand or barren rocks, or arid flats. The same remarks are also true of Syria 
 and Palestine, where the land ' flowing with milk and honey ' has, under 
 the iron heel of the obstructive and oppressive Turk, become in many parts 
 a wilderness covered with stones and ruins. 
 
 " Proceeding still further to the East, perhaps there is no part of the 
 world where evidence accumulates upon us of the evil effects resulting 
 from the unwise destruction of timber, than in the more arid provinces of 
 Persia. Here, under the ignorant government of the Shahs, whole tracts 
 of country, once thickly peopled, well-watered, fertile, and extensively 
 wooded, are little better than barren wastes, over which the traveller may 
 pass and find no sweet bubbling fountain at which to quench his thirst, no 
 solitary tree spreading its wide branches to produce a welcome shelter for 
 his wearied limbs, no village or hostelry to which he can repair for hospi- 
 tality. Instead of these, he will pass the remains of canals, bridges, and 
 ornamental fountams, from which the water has been evaporated for 
 centuries ; he will encounter ruined houses, fallen walls of gardens, deserted 
 villas, ancient charches and mosques, all baking in the fiery Persian sun, 
 and testifying to the misrule which has so long prevailed here, as in other 
 wretched countries of Asia. A late writer in ' Chambers' Journal,' on the 
 subject of the failm-e of springs in the East, asserts that, as far back as the 
 seventeenth century, a Persian nobleman, conversing with a European 
 traveller (Tavernier), assured him that within a comparatively few years no 
 less than four hundred springs had failed in the small province over which 
 he himself ruled ; a proof of the fatal consequences of permitting the 
 destruction of timber for fuel without making provision for a fresh growth : 
 for in the ancient days of Persia's greatness, before a Mahometan fatalism 
 had begun to exert its baneful influence upon the Persians, a very different 
 state of things existed. Then groves were planted on eminences ; the 
 streams were fringed with wood ; orchards and pleasure gardens, famous for 
 t"heir exquisitely scented roses, adorned the slopes of the hills ; and by care- 
 ful irrigation through a thousand small canals, industry and energy were 
 enabled to gather in an abundant harvest of the fruits of the earth. With 
 the decadence of the political power of Islamism, however, the prosperity 
 of Persia, such as it was under the caliphs, began to pass away : and 
 ruined cities, aqueducts, palaces, and temples, standing in the midst of 
 useless deserts, now offer their united testimony to the ignorance and 
 incapacity of Mahometan priiices. 
 
SECONDAET CAUSE OP DESICCATION. 201 
 
 " In our own British colonies of Barbadoes, Jamaica, Penang, and the 
 Mauritius, the felling of forests has also been attended by a diminution of 
 rain. In the island of Penang, the removal of jungle from the summits of 
 hills by Chinese settlers speedily occasioned the springs to dry up, and, except 
 during the monsoons, no moisture was left in the disforested districts. In 
 the Mauritius it has been found necessary to retain all the lands on the 
 crests of hills and mountains in the hands of Government to be devoted to 
 forest, the fertility of the lower lands having been found by experience to 
 depend upon clothing the hills with wood. 
 
 " In the steppes of Tartary we have abundant proof that physical changes 
 of great magnitude, and similar in character to those which have been , 
 noticed on the Orange, have taken place within tKe historic period. Not- 
 withstanding the present entire absence of trees, and the occurrence of a 
 drought which regularly prevails for half the year, the beds of numerous 
 rivers that once fertilized the country may be traced with the utmost 
 facility to the sources from whence the waters originally flowed. In the 
 time of Mithridates the Crimean steppe was famous for its fertility, and 
 teemed with inhabitants, of which we have sufficient evidence, without 
 referring to history, in the ruins of numerous towns and cities, and in 
 the abundance of tumuli which strew the plains. Prince Woronzow, 
 an enlightened Russian nobleman, assured the traveller Spencer 
 that nearly the whole of western Tartary might be rendered a fertile and 
 productive country by the adoption of judicious means. In his opinion, all 
 that is wanted to cl^ange the entire character of the climate is to drain the 
 marshes, dig artesian wells in the plains for the purposes of irrigation, and 
 encourage the growth of timber. As the soil is generally of a dark loamy 
 colour, and as, moreover, wherever the ground has been excavated, the 
 roots of gigantic trees have been discovered, testifying to the former well- 
 wooded condition of these now absolutely treeless plains, there can be little 
 doubt that a paternal government might soon verify the truth of this 
 enlightened nobleman's suppositions by a proper system of colonization. 
 
 " In Northern Africa, Egypt and Lybia have witnessed the advance of the 
 desert since the decline of the Eoman empire ; and Algeria, although it has 
 made rapid strides under its French conquerors, is still, in great part, the 
 home of frogs, from the prevalence of marshes, and a nest of locusts from 
 the barrenness of its plains. Algeria can only be rendered as fertile as it 
 ought to be on condition that the French cover a third part of its surface 
 with wood, and convert its rapid unnavigable rivers exclusively to the pur- 
 poses of irrigation. The blindness of civilized states (who in this particular are 
 httle better than the uncivilized barbarians whose destructive practices we 
 have been decrying), in foolishly laying the axe to the root of all trees, has 
 been manifested in North as in South Africa ; and until the carob, the olive, 
 the cork-tree, the mastich, the oak, and the myrtle, are cultivated by the 
 side of all waters, the rich harvests which rendered ancient Roman Africa 
 the granary of the Imperial City need not be expected. Timber-trees, with 
 roots which strike deep into the earth, it is worthy of remark, alone thrive 
 here in summer, as they strike down into the humid soil under the parched 
 crust ; they should therefore be extensively encouraged for the shelter of 
 water and of crops, since sheltered fields, according to an established fact, 
 yield most com. 
 
 " In this French colony, it must be noted further that the Wady-Kniss, 
 called by Nicholas de Nicolai (1587) the Savo, used to be a large stream, 
 
 Sb 
 
202 HYDEOLOGT OF SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 and is now only a thread. It contains, however, many dry springs, the 
 drying up having in all probability resulted from the stripjping of the woods. 
 
 " Nor is the new world without evidence that the burning of prairies and 
 pampas, and the wanton destruction of timber by Indian tribes and maraud- 
 ing Spaniards, has resulted in a deterioration of climate. Father Domeneoh, 
 in his account of the Great Americai;i Desert, speaking of the celebrated 
 Llano Estaoado, or Staked Plain, says the prolonged drought, the nature of 
 the soil, and the habit that the Indians have of annually setting fire to the 
 prairies, account for its aridity. The country of New Mexico, since the 
 invasion of the Spaniards, has become dry, arid, and deserted. Many of the 
 Indian populations were suddenly deprived of both wood and water. Per- 
 petual droughts followed the clearing of the forests. Both rivers and their 
 sources dried up. A multitude of streams in Texas and New Mexico have 
 ceased to flow — some for centuries, others only within a few years ; and their 
 banks, formerly gay with verdure, plants, flowers, and trees, now disappear 
 under heaps of sand, and present everywhere a scene of desolation. 
 
 " On the banks of the Eio Verde, in the new territoiy of Arizona, abound 
 ruins of stone dwellings and fortifications, -situated in valleys where traces 
 of former cultivation and of small canals for irrigation are yet visible. The 
 traditions of the Indians, as under similar circumstances in Bechuanaland, 
 point to a time when the elevated table-lands arouM were covered with 
 magnificent and fruitful vegetation. But the timber was destroyed, the 
 prairie-grasses were burnt off, and the Great, Desert thereupon asserted its 
 right to consider the newly-devastated lands as portions of its own territory, 
 and evaporated the springs and rivers under the influenc^ of its desiccating 
 atmosphere. 
 
 "Turning to South America, Humboldt informs us that the Lake of 
 Valencia in the state of Venezuela, is calculated, being destitute of an outlet, 
 to gauge with the greatest nicety the increase or diminution of the rivers 
 that pour their waters into it. From a careful examination, that accurate 
 observer was convinced, both from the form of the surrounding hills, and 
 from the occurrence of fresh-water shells in the heart of the country, that a 
 great retrogression of the waters had taken place. No evidence, however, 
 exists that any considerable diminution of them has taken place in very 
 recent limes, although within thirty years preceding Humboldt's visit the 
 gradual desiccation of this great basin had excited general attention. This 
 diminution is not to be accounted foi^ our traveller declares, by imagining 
 the existence of subterraneous channels, as some suppose, but by the 
 effects tjf evaporation, increased by the changes -operated upon the 
 surface of the country. Forests, he says, by sheltering the soil from the 
 direct action of the sun, diminish the waste of moisture; consequently, 
 when they are imprudently destroyed, the springs become less abundant, 
 or are entirely dried up. Till the middle of the last century, the 
 mountains that surround the valleys of Aragua, where the laJie is 
 situated, were covered with woods, and the plains with thickets 
 interspersed with large trees. As cultivation increased the sylvan vegetar 
 tion suffered; and, as the evaporation in this district is excessively 
 powerful, the little rivers were dried up in the lower portion of their course 
 during a great part of the year. The laud that surrounds the lake being 
 quite flat and even, the decrease of a few inches in the level of the water 
 exposes a vast extent of ground ; and as it has retired, the planters have 
 taken possession of the new land. , 
 
SBCONDAET CAUSE OF DESIOOATION. 203 
 
 " Five-and-twenty years after the visit of Baron Humboldt to Venezuela, 
 M. Boussingault relates that, the country being desolated by the War of 
 Independence, the lake was fuller than formerly, owing to the partial return 
 of the land to a state of nature on the abandonment of many plantations. 
 Hence, as timber was no longer felled to the game extent, rain fell in greater 
 abundance, and the lake advanced in consequence. Another lake without 
 an outlet, situated in New Granada, supplied Boussingault with a second 
 and similar instance of.the connection between the quantity of timber and 
 the amount of rain. Here the recession of the waters was a matter of 
 general notoriety, and coincident with the diminution had been the clearing 
 of the surrounding forests, to afibrd fuel for the salt-works that exist in the 
 neighbourhood. Nor could this have arisen from any change of climate ; 
 for in other places in the same neighbourhood, where no clearings have 
 taken place, and where everything has continued to be left to nature, the 
 level of the lakes has undergone no change from time immemorial. 
 
 " It being matter of notoriety in these instances that the removal piece- 
 meal of forests, and the burning off of jungle from the summits of hills, has 
 occasioned the uplands to become dry, and the lowlands to lose their springs, 
 it becomes of extreme importance to our South African fellow-subjects, that 
 the destruction of the arboreal protectors of water should be regarded as a 
 thing to be deplored, deprecated, and prevented ; and that public oj^inion on 
 the matter should be educated. 
 
 " Up to the present the efforts made to employ irrigation in raising crops 
 have been on the smallest scale, and little or no attention has been paid to 
 the planting of trees for the purpose of protecting water, save at the 
 Kuruman mission-village, where a considerable number have been planted 
 by the veteran Moffat. Impelled by the best of motives, that of amelio- 
 rating the social as well as moral condition of the natives, whose tongue he 
 himself reduced to grammatical rules, this gentleman has by precept and 
 example been endeavouring to prevent that wholesale and wasteful destruc- 
 tion of timber which has prevailed from time inmiemorial. He declares his 
 conviction that in process of time the natives wiU come to understand that 
 trees are the true rain-makers, and to believe in the philosophy of encourag- 
 ing their growth. He does not despair, he says, of eventually seeing the 
 whole of the population — some of whom are now commencing the use of 
 stone fences and brick houses^ — so fuUy satisfied on this point, that they will 
 find it for their own interest, as well as contributing to the beauty of the 
 country, to plant trees ; more particularly as very few others, besides those 
 indigenous to the soil, will grow to any extent. 
 
 " But we must not stop here. The evil is one of such magnitude, and 
 •likely to bear so abundant a harvest of miseiy in the future, that the 
 authority of law, wherever practicable, should be invoked in order to insti- 
 tute preventive measures. Not only should fuel be economized, but the 
 real interests of the British colonies and Dutch republics, for many long 
 years to come, would most certainly be consulted by the passage of stringent 
 enactments which should in the first place forbid, at any season or under 
 any circumstances whatever, the firing of grass on field or mountain. The 
 absolute necessity which exists for keeping as large a surface of the ground 
 as possible covered with vegetation, in order to screen it from the solar rdys, 
 and thus to generate cold and humidity, that the radiation from the surface 
 may not drive off the moisture of the rain-bearing clouds in their season, 
 ought to compel the rigid enforcement of such a legal provision. Those 
 
204 HTDEOLOGT OF SOUTH APEICA. 
 
 colonial acts on this subject whicli are already in existence — for the Colonial 
 Parliament at the Cape has found it necessary to pass restrictive measures 
 — are not sufficiently stringent to be of much service, inasmuch as they are 
 not entirely prohibitory, permitting the burning of the field at certain 
 seasons of the year." 
 
 This paper was submitted to the British Association for the advancement 
 of Science. Dr Livingstone, who had given his attention more immediately 
 to the desiccation resulting from the upheaval of the continent, wrote to 
 him in regard to the paper : — " Beith, 20th September 1864. — My dear sir, 
 — I did not hear your paper, but heard Sir Eoderick Murchison speak very 
 favourably of its merits, and I quite agree in the view you take of the 
 desirableness of planting trees and preventing grass-burning, as well as 
 making Artesian weUs. And I am, (fee, David Livingstone." 
 
 The paper was subsequently submitted to the Eoyal Geographical Society. 
 It was published in their Transactions (Vol. xxxv. 1865) ; and the following 
 account of the discussion which took place on its being read was published 
 under the authority of the Council of the Society in the journal of 
 proceedings : — 
 
 " The President, Sir Eoderick I. Murchison, said that to a great extent 
 he thought Mr Wilson's conclusions were correct. He regretted the absence 
 from the meeting of Mr Cyril Graham, who could have thrown much light 
 upon the present subject. In his description of the region of Hauran, to 
 the east of Damascus, this distinguished traveller and scholar had showed 
 how this country, which in Scriptural times was filled with towns and 
 contained an immense population, had, without any geological change 
 whatever intervening, become an uninhabitable desert from the same causes 
 as those pointed out by Mr Wilson. He knew, from his own observations 
 in Eussia, that the Volga had diminished in volume in consequence of the 
 cutting down of the great forests on the Ural mountains. Even in our own 
 country the same process was in operation from the removal of timber and 
 the drainage of lands. The remedies which Mr Wilson pointed out in refer- 
 ence to Southern Africa seemed reasonable. He would, however, call upon 
 some of the African travellers present to state what they knew onthe subject. 
 
 " Dr Livingstone could agree with the author of the paper on several 
 points, and on others he must suspend his judgment. There could be no 
 doubt as to the main fact of the drying up of the country to which reference 
 had been made. The small stream on which he settled at Kolobeng was 
 flowing very abundantly when he first laid out its waters in order to irrigate 
 a garden ; but in the course of two or three years it had entirely dried up. 
 He ought to mention, however, that he had been informed since then that 
 the stream had begun to flow again. In other cases, in that same district, 
 fountains had dried up at such a remote period that no tradition existed of 
 their ever having flowed, except in their names. No doubt these little 
 streams did dry up and burst forth afresh ; but the more general desiccation 
 to which he referred left no doubt on his mind that the whole country had 
 once enjoyed a much more humid climate than now. He had traced 
 himself, in his earlier travels, for long distances, the dry beds of very large 
 rivers which had a general course from north to south instead of east and 
 west, the prevailing direction of existing rivers. In one instance he came 
 upon the dry channel of a river two or three miles broad. It was remark- 
 able that the natives stiU called these dried up water-courses by the name 
 
SECONDARY OAUaE OF DBSIOCATION. 205 
 
 of rivers. In the dry bed of a large lake which he had discovered, as well 
 as in the bed of the river just mentioned, he found large numbers of fresh- 
 water shells, which were of the same species as those now living in the 
 waters of the interior. The change in the state of the country, implied in 
 the desiccation of these great streams and lakes, could not have been caused 
 merely by the natives burning down trees and grass, though he admitted 
 they did bum the grass extensively, so much, so in certain months of the 
 year that there was quite a haze over the whole country, which in Western 
 Africa is called ' the smokes.' One thing that struck him as very remark- 
 able was this, that there must have been very large fresh-water lakes in the 
 interior of the country, and that a very considerable difference of level had 
 taken place since these lakes contained standing water. The only way in 
 which he could account for their being drained off so completely is by the 
 sudden opening of fissures by subterranean convulsion ; and he believed 
 these fissures were of a similar nature and origm to those which now form 
 the Victoria Falls. The fissure into which this great cataract plunges was 
 evidently not the result of wearing away by the action of water, as in the 
 case of Niagara. The edge over which the water falls shows no signs of 
 wearing away, and the rock is quite perpendicular for 310 feet on all sides. 
 The rock consists of hard basalt, and a little to the east it has all the 
 appearance of volcanic tufa. The author of the paper did not seem to 
 know that many of his suggestions had already been adopted at the Cape, 
 where immense quantities of Eucalypti were grown in the Botanic Garden 
 for distribution among those who wished to plant trees. In four years the 
 tree grew to a height of twenty feet. The general desiccation of the country 
 he attributed not so much to the cutting down of trees as to the elevation 
 of the country, more especially on the west side of the continent. The 
 ancient streams on the western side had ceased flowing to a greater extent 
 than those on the east, and he found the west coast had been elevated 
 about 200 feet. He believed it was in the process of elevation that the 
 fissures had let off the inland lakes. 
 
 " Dr Kirk said the writer of the paper pre-supposed a state of population 
 different from that which is found in any part of Africa at the present day. 
 In the tropical region that he visited, on the Zambesi, there was abundance 
 of wood on the hill-sides, and the average amount of population ; but he 
 was sure the people alone could not complete the entire destruction of the 
 forests. They used the wood for domestic purposes, but that did not in 
 any way affect the average amount of vegetation in the country. Some 
 other cause must be looked for to explain the progressing aridity of South 
 Africa, but what that cause might be it was very difficult to point out. He 
 was inclined to believe that the original aridity both of the Sahara in the 
 north and the Kalahari in the south was due to atmospheric currents. 
 Enormous volumes of air rushed towards the interior of Africa from both 
 sides. This air must come down somewhere, after depositing its moisture 
 in its ascent ; and wherever it strikes the earth it will come down very dry. 
 It was probable that in the north it came down on the Sahara desert, and 
 in the south on the Kalahari. 
 
 " Mr Galton said the author of the paper had omitted to explain why the 
 destruction of timber had progressed more rapidly in recent times. It was 
 probably" to be accounted for by two separate causes. A few centuries ago 
 the population of that part of South Africa of which he spoke consisted 
 mainly of Hottentots, now it consisted chiefly of the Caffre race. There is 
 
206 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 a considerable difference between the habits of the two races. The Hotten- 
 tots are eminently natty and saving, the Caffres eminently wasteful ; and 
 from that cause we might conclude that more timber would have been cut 
 down in recent times than formerly. Another cause of greater importance 
 was the free introduction of iron. Axes are now to be had everywhere 
 throughout South Africa, where formerly iron waj a rarity ; and the conse- 
 quence is, that the wood is cut down much more readily than heretofore, 
 for making camp-fires and protection for the cattle. 
 
 "Colonel G. Balfour stated that during the course of the investigation 
 into the public works of India, on which he served twelve years ago, evidence 
 was brought before the commission that the eiFect of cutting down trees was to 
 diminish the moisture of the country. At the same time his brother, Dr 
 Balfour (Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, Madras Presidency), under- 
 took an investigation into the effect of cutting down trees on the sources of 
 springs, and the notes, which he drew up, on the influence exercised by trees 
 in inducing rain and preserving moisture, satisfactorily proved that in many 
 instances springs which had dried up had been found to open again on the 
 trees growing up. The Report was printed by the Government of Madras, 
 and considered of such value that it was extensively circulated, with a view 
 to further inquiries being made; but the results of these investigations have 
 not yet been made public. He (Col. Balfour) had also observed the efi'ect, 
 on the rainfall, of the want of trees in different parts of southern India. 
 He might mention a tract of country, the Ceded Districts of the Madras 
 Presidency, as large as Ireland, where there is scarcely a tree to be seen, 
 and that area has a smaller proportion of rain that any other part of India. 
 When he passed through Aden in 1862 he was informed by the officer in 
 charge of political affairs there, that in consequence of the opening of tanks 
 the trees had increased considerably, and the supply of water for the use of 
 the troops and people had also much increased. He had been informed 
 that morning,' that in the West Indies the Government of Trinidad had 
 passed a law prohibiting the cutting down of trees near the capital, in order 
 to ensure a supply of rain. 
 
 " Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe, on being invited by the President to relate 
 a circumstance which had come under his knowledge, said, most people who 
 were acquainted with Constantinople and its neighbourhood were aware that 
 the capital was supplied by water contained in reservoirs attached to streams 
 that pass through a district called the Forest of Belgrade. Some years ago 
 permission was given to out down the timber in this forest : speculators took 
 advantage of the Sultan's permission, to cut it down largely. The conse- 
 quence was soon felt : the reservoirs began to fail, and the Government was 
 obliged to interfere and to restrict its permission, in order to prevent the 
 diying up of the springs, wliich seemed so inevitable a consequence of 
 depriving them of the shade of trees. — The meeting then adjourned." 
 
 I accept most of the views thus expressed, and more than one of them 
 are views which I have otherwise been led to embrace, I hold with Dr 
 Livingstone, as preceding statements show, that the primary cause of the 
 desiccation of South Africa has been the upheaval of the land. I am not 
 prepared to question the statements of Dr Kirk in regard to the effect of 
 atmospheric currents on the Sahara and the Kalahari • and I receive the 
 testimony of Sir Eoderick Murchison, Mr Galton, Colonel Balfour and Lord 
 Stratford de Redcliffe, to the observations cited by them^ as in accordance 
 
SEOONDAET CAUSE OF DESICCATION. 207 
 
 with the views to which I have been led — ^ftrst by vague statements brought 
 under my attention, and then by deduction, or a priori reasoning — and in 
 which I have been confirmed by explicit testimony. By Marsh, in his valu- 
 able treatise, an abundance of facts have been given in illustration of the 
 influence of forests on the flow of springs being in accordance with these 
 observations. 
 
 I have spoken of the drying up of lakes, and a diminished flow of streamlets 
 and streams, as consequences which have followed the destruction of forests, 
 and of herbage and bush by fire ; but I attributed the same consequences, 
 to some extent, to the destruction latterly of bush and herbage by sheep. 
 The following statement on this subject occurs in an article by Dr Kubidge, 
 of Port Ehzabeth, on some of the evils of over-pasturing the country, which 
 appeared in the Eastern Proviiice Monthly Magazine : — " Sir Thomas Lyell 
 says that Spain is fast being ruined by its large flocks of Merinos — he 
 describes changes which the country has undergone, similar to those noted 
 by the occupiers of recently settled districts in this country. Sheep, it is 
 well known, crop the grass close ; and in dry and sandy soils pull it up by 
 the roots — thus laying the soil bare, and exposing it to be washed away by 
 the heavy rains. Moreover, sheep tread much in the same tracks, and thus 
 form little paths which serve as drains to convey the water away rapidly 
 from the surface into the brooks, which, swollen into temporary rivers, wash 
 away the sedges that impeded their course. I'he consequences of this too 
 rapid drainage of the bared soil are, that little water sinks in to nourish the 
 roots of the grasses and usefid plants, and less soaks through the soil to 
 replenish the springs, — so that in many overworked farms some of the 
 springs no longer yield so much water as they formerly did, while others 
 have entirely failed. The destruction of the grass and small bushes, and 
 the quick drainage prevent the retention of the water on the surface, and 
 its slow but continuous evaporation, thus probably diminishing the quantity 
 of rain which falls. The rivers, as well as the smaller streams, undergo a 
 change. In former times, the sedges and long grass which grew on the 
 sides of the small tributaries of the Zeekoe and Sunday's Kivers afibrded 
 cover to the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the buffalo, — whereas now 
 a spring-buck could scarce hide himself. A farmer is, or lately was, living, 
 who had seen palmiets in the Sunday's Eiver, above Graaff-Keinet, where 
 numerous large holes of water occurred in its bed. Those who have not 
 visited districts either more recently occupied or less pastured by sheep, 
 can scarce believe that Sunday's and Fish Eivers, which now flow in such 
 deep channels, formerly ran almost level with their banks, which were 
 fringed by a luxuriant growth of sedge and palmiet." 
 
 The same thing is referred to in a letter addressed to me while at the 
 Cape by J. H. Davis, Esq., Colesberg, on grasses and herbage found in the 
 Sour, the Sweet, and the Mixed veldts, and the Karroo, cited in a letter 
 appended to Keport of the Colonial Botanist for 1864, in which, speaking of 
 the gentle undulating country extending from the Sneewberg mountains to 
 the Orange Biver, reckoned by many amongst the prime sheep-walks of the 
 Colony, he says, — " The most luxuriant grassy parts of the sweet veldt are 
 generally plains nearly horizontal, which, not having a quick watershed, 
 retain much moisture ; and the light sandy soil, lying frequently but a few 
 inches thick upon the hard Karroo soil below, is preserved from being 
 washed away — for it may be observed almost everywhere, that where 
 
208 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH ATKIOA. 
 
 these plains are inclined, even at a low angle, the light top soil does 
 get washed away, leaving the hard earth below exposed at the surface, and 
 wherever this takes placfe the grass disappears, and the heaths, with other 
 short scrubby plants, spring up. This change appears to me to be rapidly 
 taking place in this part of the Colony ; and it is promoted, perhaps often 
 induced, by the feet of the sheep ; they make little paths in every direction, 
 and the water flows in these paths as so many little channels, washing away 
 all the light earth, and then the grass roots get exposed and gradually 
 disappear. Many farms which I remember fifteen or sixteen years ago to 
 have been rich in grass are now almost bare of it, even in the most favour- 
 able seasons ; and this process is, I believe, gradually but surely passing 
 over the whole country, wherever sheep are introduced." 
 
 On the Continent of Europe an effect similar to what is here spoken of is 
 found to be produced upon a larger scale by forest slid pads. These are 
 occasionally converted into runnels and streams, and to the extent of their 
 measure they tend to create torrents, against the production of which no 
 better protection can be found, if better -could be desired, than are forests 
 and plantations of herbage and bush and trees. 
 
 Section IV. — Effect of Denudation of the Country on the Rainfall. 
 
 Thus far attention has been given to the effect of the destruction of 
 forests, and herbage, and bush in promoting desiccation, by removing an 
 important check upon evaporation. But this is not the only consequence 
 affecting the hydrology of the country which must have followed the long- 
 continued and extensive destruction of these which has been carried on. 
 Amongst other consequences which must have followed may be reckoned 
 the effect of this destruction on the rainfall, and the effect of it upon the soil. 
 
 Observations have been made which seem to show that over a great 
 extent of country, and over an extended period of time, little effect has been 
 produced on the total rainfall by very extensive destruction of forests. 
 But this is not incompatible with these forests and -the destruction of them 
 having exerted an important influence on the distribution of the rainfall, 
 both in time and space. And thus may be harmonized the observations 
 referred to with observations which have given rise to prevalent popular 
 opinions on the subject. 
 
 It is a prevalent opinion that trees attract rain, or attract clouds, and so 
 increase the rainfall. I do not consider it probable that they do so ; but 
 this is a matter which must be determined by the testimony of the rain- 
 guage, and not by a priori reasoning on the subject. Such testimony we 
 have not ; and I do not see when or how we are likely to obtain the testi- 
 mony required. The rainfall would require to be noted for years in the 
 same locality covered with forests, and afterwards denuded of forests, or 
 one bare of trees and afterwards covered with plantations, — and even then 
 it might be questioned whether this would supply testimony sufficient of 
 itself to establish the point. 
 
 The rainfall depends on the coincidence of a great many circumstances 
 and combination of influences, — the absence or undue preponderance of any 
 one or more of which may affect the result. And the observations vhich 
 have been made up to the present are apparently, from want of attention 
 to this, somewhat conflicting. 
 
SEOONDAET CAUSE OF DESIOOATION, 209 
 
 I think it not improbable tbat there will be a greater rainfall where ther j 
 is abundance of forest, in consequence of the 'same moisture being precipi- 
 tated and evaporated and precipitated again and again, as morning after 
 morning the glass of a Wardian case is bedewed on the inside with moisture 
 which is evaporated as the warmth of the day is increased, but only to bo 
 again deposited as the cold of the night comes on. This is something 
 different from what can be called the attraction of clouds ; but the rain thua 
 occasioned would not be less efficient in promoting vegetation than would 
 rain falHng from clouds attracted from afar, and I attach much more 
 importance to the abundant moisture indicated by repeated depositions of 
 the same water than I do to any power which forests may have, or may be 
 supposed to have, to attract clouds from any distance — great or small. 
 
 I find an opinion in exact accordance with that which I have formed on 
 the subject expressed in the following statement by Marsh : — " The effect 
 of the forest on precipitation then is by no means free from doubt, and we 
 cannot positively affirm that the total annual quantity of rain is even locally 
 diminished or increased by the destruction of the woods, though both 
 theoretical considerations and the balance of testimony strongly favour the 
 opinion that more rain falls in wooded than in open countries. One import- 
 ant conclusion, at least, upon the meteorological influence of forests is 
 certain and undisputed, — the proposition, namely, that within their own 
 limits, and near their own borders, they maintain a more uniform degree of 
 humidity in the atmosphere than is observed in cleared grounds. Scarcely 
 less can it be questioned that they tend to promote the frequency of 
 showers, and if they do not augment the amount of precipitation they 
 probably equalize its distribution through the different seasons." 
 
 In accordance with what is thus stated the following statements are 
 subjoined in foot-notes : — " Among recent writers, Clav6, Schacht, Sir John 
 F. W. Hershel, Hohenstein, Barth, Asbjoerensen, Boussingault, and others, 
 maintain that forests tend to produce rain and clearings to diminish it, and 
 they refer to numerous facts of observation in support of this doctrine ; but 
 in none of these does it appear that these observations are supported by 
 actual pluviometrical measure. So far as I know, the earliest expression 
 of the opinion that forests promote precipitation is that attributed to 
 Christopher Columbus, in the Historie del S. D.' Fernando Golomho, Venecia, 
 1571, Cap. LVIII, where it is said that the Admiral ascribed the daily 
 showers which fell in the West Indies about vespers to ' the great forests 
 and trees of those coimtries,' and remarked that the same effect was 
 formerly produced by the same cause in the Canaiy and Madeira Islands 
 and in the Azores, but that 'now that the many woods and trees that 
 covered them have been felled, there are not produced so many clouds and 
 rains as before.' 
 
 " M. H. Harrisse, in his very learned and critical essay, Fernand Goloml, 
 sa me et ses (Etivres, Paris, 1872, has made it at least extremely probable 
 that the Historie is a spurious work. The compiler may have found this 
 observation in some of the writings of Columbus now lost, but, however 
 that may be, the fact, which Humboldt mentions in Cosmos with much 
 interest, still remains, that the doctrine in question was held, if not by the 
 great discoverer himself, at least by one of his pretended biographers as early 
 as the year 1571." 
 
 And again, — " The strongest direct evidence which I am able to refer to 
 
2:10 .fiYDROLOGT Of SOUTH APfelOA. 
 
 in support of the proposition that the woods produce even a local augmeintar 
 tibn of precipitation is furnished by the observations of Mathieu, sub-director 
 of the Forest School at Nancy. His pluvioinetrical measurements, continued 
 for three years, 1866-1868, showed that during that period the annual mean 
 of raihfall in the centre of the wooded district of Cinq-Tranch6es, at Belle 
 !l^ontaine on the borders of the forest, and at Amauce, in an open cultivated 
 territory in the same vicinity, was respectively as the numbers 1000, 957, 
 and 853. 
 
 " The alleged augmentation of rainfall in Lower E^rpt, in consequence 
 of large plantations by Meheraet AH, is very frequently appealed to as a 
 proof of this influence of the forest, and this case has become a regular 
 commonplace in all discussions of the question. It is, however, open to 
 the same objection as the alleged instances of the diminution of preeipitar 
 tion in consequence of the felling of the forest. 
 
 " This supposed increase in the frequency and quantity of rain in Lower 
 Egypt is, I think, an error, or at least not an established fact. I have 
 heard it disputed 6n the spot by intelligent Franks, whose residence in 
 that country began before the plantations of Mehemet Ali and Ibrahim 
 Pacha, and I have been assured by them that meteorological observations, 
 made at Alexandria about the begimiing of this century, show an annual 
 feU of rain as great as is usual at this day. The mere fact that it did not 
 rain during the French occupation is not conclusive. Having experienced 
 a gentle shower of nearly twenty-four hours duration in Upper Egypt, I 
 inquired of the local governor in relation to the frequency of this pheno- 
 mena, and was told by him that not a drop of rain had fallen at that point 
 for more than two years previous. 
 
 " This belief in the increase of rain in Egypt rests almost entirely on the 
 observations of Marshal Marmont, and the evidence collected by him in 
 1836. His conclusions have been disputed, if hot confuted, by Jomard and 
 others, and. are probably erroneous." And he refers to Poissao Meteorologie, 
 ©erman Transition (pp. 634-639) in support of what is said. 
 
 Foissac, in his Meteorologie mit Riuilmght auf die Lehere vom KosmoSj 
 translated into German by A. H. Emsman, and published in Leipzig in 
 1859 — ^the work cited by Mr Marsh, Kldden, in his Handbuchder Physischen 
 QeograpMe, and Belgrand, in a paper De l' Influence des F&rets mr I'eccnde- 
 mmts des Eaux plwoialeSj in Annals des Fonts et Chaussies, 1854, 1st 
 Semiestre, — have aU expressed opinions somewhat opposed to the opinions 
 more generally received. But there is nothing advanced even by them at 
 variance with what I have alleged. All that can be said at present is that 
 the evidence is conflicting as to the fact whether forests do or do not increase 
 the rainfall. If it be sufficient to established as a fact that they have dbne 
 Bo, and that they do so in certain circumstances, there is a lack of evidence 
 that they do so invariably and in all circumstances, or even generally^ 
 which is the matter in question. 
 
 But while that question remains imdecided, awaiting the testimony of 
 the rain-gauge through a series of years in the same locaUty, with and with- 
 out a forest around, there are matters of more importance which can mean- 
 while, and that even now, be determined. 
 
 In connection with illustrations previously given of the aridity which has 
 been attained in South Africa, I have cited deluges of rain as of occasional 
 occurrence, I might have spoken of the extreme aridity and: deluges of 
 
SEOOHDABY OATISE OF DESICCATION. 211 
 
 rain as being both of them characteristic of the meteorology of ejctensi-re 
 districts of South A&ioa. These deluges of rain often are accompanied by- 
 thunder, the cause or occasion of both may be considered as the same, and 
 the precipitation of the rain in torrents may be attributed to the disturbance 
 of the electric equlibrimn, thoiigh it owed not to this its deposition in the 
 clouds. 
 
 From the occurrence of these it appears that there is even in the dryest 
 atmosphere in South Africa sufficient moistm-e to produce such phenomena. 
 Dr Moffat, writing of the effects in Namaqualand of winds from the north, 
 says, — " These winds, I have learned from inquiry, come from within the 
 tropics, where rain has fallen, and the cool air thereby produced rushes 
 southward over the plains, filling up the space caused by the refraction of 
 the air, owing to the approach of the sun to the tropic of Capricorn. The 
 more boisterous these winds are, the more reason we have to expect rain. 
 They cannot extend to any great height, as the thunder storms which foUow, 
 and which often commence with a small cloud in the opposite direction, 
 increasing into mountains of snow, with a tinge of yellow, pursue an opposite 
 course. These are preceded by a dead stillness, which continues till the 
 tornado bursts upon us with awful violence, and the clouds have discharged 
 their watery treasures. In such a case there are almost always two strata 
 of clouds, frequently moving in opposite directions. The higher mountain- 
 like masses, with their edges exactly defined, going one way, while the 
 feelers, or loose misty vapour beneath, convulsed, and rolling in fearful 
 velocity, are going another ; while the peals of thunder are such as to make 
 the very earth tremble." 
 
 At this point I might close my quotation, but what follows has an import- 
 ant bearing on the subject : — " The lightning is of three descriptions, one kind 
 passing from cloud to cloud ; this is seldom accompanied with any rain. 
 Another kind is the forked, which may be seen passing through a cloud, 
 and striking the earth ; this is considered the most dangerous. The most 
 common, not always accompanied by rain, is what we are in the habit of 
 calling stream or chain-lightning. This appears to rise from the earth in 
 figures of various shapes, crooked, zigzag, and oblique ; and sometimes like 
 a waterspout at sea : it continues several seconds, while the observer can 
 distinctly see it dissolve in pieces like a broken chain. The perpetual roar 
 of awful thunder on these occasions may be conceived, when twenty or more 
 of these flashes may be counted in one minute. The lightning may also be 
 seen passing upwards through the dense mass of vapour, and branching out 
 like the limbs of a naked tree in the blue sky above. In such storms the 
 rain frequently falls in torrents, and runs off very rapidly, not moistening 
 the earth, except in sandy plains, more than six inches deep." 
 
 The whole phenomena, from the formation of the cloud at so great a 
 distance from the sea, isolated and unconnected with clouds extending 
 from the ocean thither, to the precipitation of the deluge of rain, appear to 
 have been occasioned by a temporary disturbance and intermixture of the 
 two aerial currents passing overhead between the equator and the poles. 
 
 The narrative recalls to me much that I heard of the breaking up of the 
 drought in 1862. In particular am I reminded of an account which appeared 
 in the colonial newspapers of the day, of the clouds and of the deluges of 
 rain which in a time almost incredibly brief darkened and flooded the lands 
 of the Lang Kloof And what occurred there appears to have been but a 
 type of storms which everywhere flooded the colony, carrying away bridges, 
 
212 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH APEIOA. 
 
 destroying roads, undermining houses, and in other ways threatening to 
 double the damage done to the colony by the preceding drought. 
 
 AU the moisture was there, and there had been, it may be, as much 
 throughout the whole continuance of the drought — but the aerial currents 
 referred to pursued each its course undisturbed, and rain there was none. Now 
 they dashed into each other, and the rain was deposited in a d,eluge. And the 
 disturbance did not stop all at once, it was a year and more before the 
 currents regained their stable force and direction. 
 
 These rains tell of the quantity of moisture which was in the atmosphere 
 covering the regions of regular rain ; and the torrents tell of the same in 
 the same, or in the intermediate zone, of diminished rain. After such 
 deluges of rain there comes rolling down the river-bed, or water-course, a 
 wave which carries all before it, like the wave of an Alpine torrent ; the 
 waters which follow seem to swell as they flow — ^but this phenomenon is less 
 impressive than the wave, and hence comes the form of expression in 
 general use. The state of some of the rivers crossed by me in the tour I 
 have referred to — ^for example, that of Tarka — ^flowing on for days from 20 
 to 25 feet in depth, where in general the depth is only, as it was immediately 
 before, 16 inches, may give some idea of what is occasionally seen in South 
 Africa, and prepare the reader for what might otherwise prove more 
 astounding facts. 
 
 Captain Hall, in his Manual of South African Geography, states that he 
 " has seen the bed of the Great Fish Kiver perfectly dry, and. within twenty- 
 four hours a torrent, thirty feet deep and several hundred feet wide, was 
 roaring through it. In February 1848 the Eat River suddenly rose upwards 
 of fifty feet in a few hours, sweeping seventeen feet above the roadway of a 
 stone bridge, at Fort Beaufort, supposed to have been built high enough to 
 leave a clear way to the highest flood ever before remembered." 
 
 A gentleman engaged in civil engineering in Kafiraria, with whom I had 
 an opportunity of talking over the subject of river-pumps, and who had 
 given special attention to the flow of rivers in the Colony, informed me that 
 the mean greatest rise in a number of rivers in that district was twenty- 
 eight feet ; but he told me of a maximum rise of sixty feet ; and I have 
 gone over the scene of devastation occasioned at Hankey, by the sudden rise 
 of the Gamtoos River a short time before to a height of seventy feet above 
 its usual level. 
 
 Whence come these waters ? From clouds formed in a cloudless sky by 
 a deposition of moisture, from transparent air occasioned by a slight distur- 
 bance and intermixture of the aerial currents passing overhead between the 
 equator and the poles ! All that moisture must have been there, as other- 
 wise it could not have been deposited — there though invisible, — and 
 destruction instead of fertility has been the consequence of its precipitation 
 in a deluge, falling, it may have been, in the course of an hour and on a 
 spot of limited extent, — whereas, had it been difiused over a district an 
 htmdred times more extensive, and fallen in genial showers at intervals 
 extending over months, it had brought blessing both to man and beast. 
 Now it is alleged, and that not without reason, that this is the normal state 
 of the rainfall over a country covered with trees or other vegetation, and 
 that that which makes the rainfall productive often of evil in South Africa is 
 the characteristic rainfall of a country divested or devoid of vegetation. If 
 such be the case, then has the extensive destruction of tree, and bush, and 
 herbage, and grass, not only tended to promote that evaporation by whigh 
 
BBOONDAEY OATJSB OP DBSICOATION. 213 
 
 the desiccation of the soil has produced the aridity which exists, but it has 
 tended to confine the rainfall, by which that desiccation might have been 
 counteracted, to such limited times and limited spots, that almost the whole 
 is carried off by gravitation to the sea, working destruction and ruin by the 
 way, instead of causing it to be so diffused in time and space that the earth 
 over an extensive district, "drinking in the rain coming oft upon it, should 
 bring forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed." 
 
 To know the evil in its magnitude and its extent, and to know the pro- 
 ducing cause and occasion of it, may lead to recovery. The Lord " tumeth 
 rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground ; a fruitful 
 land into barrenness, for the wickedness [or want of attention to his laws] 
 of them that dwell therein." Again — " He tumeth the wilderness into a 
 standing water and dry ground into water-springs. And there He maketh 
 the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation ; and sow 
 fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits and increase. . . . 
 Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand 
 the loving-kindness of the Lord." 
 
 Section V. — Tlffect of Denudation of the Country on the Eydrosec^ddty 
 
 of the Soil. 
 
 The soU, exposed to the chemical rays of light, undergoes a change 
 whereby its power of retaining moisture is greatly reduced ; and thus also, 
 as well as by its effect on the rainfall, may the destruction of forests, and 
 bush, and herbage by fire, have promoted the desiccation of the country. 
 Reference has been made to the absorbing power of the air being, in 
 the specified circumstances, greater than the retentive power of the soil to 
 prevent the desiccation of moist soil by a dry atmosphere. But it is also 
 the case that several salts, such as carbonate of potash, muriate of lime, 
 and even table salt, absorb moisture from what may seem to be a dry air — 
 such as is the dry air in a house — -and deliquesce or dissolve in the moisture 
 they thus absorb. The same affinity for moisture in different degrees is 
 exercised by different substances, and it can be shown that moisture 
 is absorbed from the atmosphere, irrespective of rain or dew, by humus, a 
 product of vegetable decomposition, and is retained by it in a state in which 
 it is fitted to promote vegetation. But humus, it is alleged, is decomposed 
 and eliminated from the soil, when this is exposed to the solar ray, one 
 constituent of which induces chemical action. 
 
 In a paper on the Philosophy of Arboriculture, by the Eev Dr Macvicar, 
 of Moffat, who was the original editor of the Qvxirterlg Journal of Agricul- 
 ture, issued by the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, and 
 subsequently resided in Ceylon, where he had opportunities for prosecuting 
 researches upon which he had previously entered, the writer remarks, in 
 regard to effects following the destruction of forests,—" The soil when 
 stript of the clothing which the forest afforded, and exposed naked to the 
 heat of the sunbeam, changes very rapidly from the rich mould which the 
 long-continued fall of the leaf in the forest had made it, and becomes very 
 unproductive. Had occasional trees in the forest been left to give shade 
 during part of the day, the destination of the carbon in the mould would 
 have been to have been slowly converted into carbonic acid, and so to supply 
 food to the successive crops growing on the soil, as they required it. But 
 
214 HYDBOLOflY OP SOUTH AFEMA, 
 
 when the sunbeam is left to break in its full force on the soil all day long, 
 it bums the carbon in the soil with great rapidity into carbonic acid ; and 
 this gas, unless there be in the soil some oxide having an affinity to it to 
 retain it, goes off in gas, injuring the salubrity of the air perhaps, and at 
 all events wholly impoverishing the soil, — ^for carbonic acid is the principal 
 food of all plants. The same course of things, it might be shown, happens 
 with regard to ammonia ; and thus, both as itself the immediate food of 
 plants and as that which by oxidation yields nitre, ammonia is lost. Thus 
 the indiscriminate destruction of forest over any great breadth of country, 
 if that country have plenty of sunshine, is a great evil." 
 
 If it be so, then would it appear the thinness of the superficial layer of 
 soil covering the pot clay throughout extensive districts of the Colony of the 
 Cape of Good Hope and of regions beyond, subjected to the solar rays falling 
 through a dry atmosphere, cloudless and singularly transparent, and the 
 small store of humus in that soil, cannot be held as evidence that no forests 
 ever covered these districts if there be counter indications that the contrary 
 must have been at one time the case. 
 
 In correspondence with Dr Macvicar on the subject, he wrote to me, — 
 " As to the point to which you refer — the rapid generation in the soil, and 
 the vaporization from it of ammonia and carbonic acid, under the impact of 
 the tropical sunbeams and breezes, — I do not remember to have seen it 
 dwelt upon by any writer, though both in the writings of Boussingault and of 
 Liebig it is implied ; and it is an inevitable consequence of the eremacausis 
 or the slow combustion of organic matter. It is familiarly verified by the 
 process of bleaching. Even with such sunshine as we have in this country 
 the organic matter which imparts colour to tissues is carried off much more 
 rapidly in the sunbeam than out of it ; and it can only be carried off as 
 carbonic acid and ammonia : that is, it is not merely changed from 
 coloured to colourless, as is proved by the loss of weight which the web has 
 sustained when it is bleached. In this country we have generally less sunshine 
 than we require, and, except in fallows, the surface of the soil is never left 
 bare. Hence the effect of the impact of the sunbeam has been but little 
 considered. But from what I have observed in the tropics, I am persuaded 
 that its power of affecting plant food in the neighbourhood, by the destruc- 
 tion of the fertility of every surface that is left bare, is very great. It 
 intensifies to a wonderful extent that action of the incumbent atmosphere 
 by which the carbon and hydrogen in the soil unite with the oxygen and 
 nitrogen of the air, and give moisture, carbonic acid, and ammonia almost 
 immediately after, if they be not utilized on the spot where they are gene- 
 rated, dispersing all but that quantum which the soil can retain at a 
 temperature of perhaps 140 or 150 F., which is not much." 
 
 Thus can we account for the fact that the destruction of trees not 
 only deprives the land of the shade which they afford, but, if the 
 ground be not speedily covered again with vegetation, the soil is im- 
 poverished. Under favourable circumstances a forest destroyed by fire 
 renews itself rapidly and permanently. This was the case after an 
 extensive destructive fire which occurred at Miramichi in 1825 ; but it is 
 not always the case. Marsh says, " Between sixty and seventy years ago, a 
 steep mountain with which I am familiar, composed of metamorphic rock, 
 and at that time covered with a thick coating of soil and a dense primeval 
 forest, was accidentally burned over. The fire took place in a very dry 
 season; the slc^pe of the mountain was too raj)id to retain muoh water,. and 
 
SEOONDART OAUte Ot DBS1C0A*10N. 2l& 
 
 the conflagration was of an extraordinarily fierce character, consuming the 
 wood ahnost entirely, burning the leaves and combustible portion of the 
 mould and in many places cracking and disintegrating the rock beneath. 
 The rains of the following autumn carried ofif much of the remaining soil, 
 and the mountain side was nearly bare of wood for two or three years after- 
 wards. At length a new crop of trees sprung up and grew vigourously, and 
 the mountain is now thickly covered again. But the depth of mould and 
 earth is too small to allow the trees to reach maturity. When they attain 
 to the diameter of about six inches they uniformly die, and thus they wiU 
 no doubt continue to do until the decay of leaves and wood on the surface, 
 and the decomposition of the subjacent rock, shall have formed, perhaps 
 hundreds of years hence, a stratum of soil thick enough to support a fuU 
 grown forest. Uiider favourable conditions, however, as in the case of the 
 fire of Miramichi, a burned forest renews itself rapidly and permanently." 
 
 In this way does the destruction of forests, and more especially the des- 
 Btruetion of forests by fire, tend to promote the desiccation of a country, so 
 for by combustion and further by exposure of the humus to decomposition 
 by the sun's rays, destroying one of the constituents of the soil which 
 exercises great retentive power on its moisture. 
 
 The effects of forests on evaporation, absorption; and infiltration of water 
 is a subject which has engaged much of the attention of students of forest 
 economy in France engaged in the employment of reboisement and gazonne- 
 mervt, or the replenishing denuded districts with forest, and herbage, and 
 bush, as means of preventing the occurrence of the devastating efifects of 
 mountain torrents and irlundations, and their conclusions are in iooordanoe 
 with those now advanced ; but enough has been adduced for my present 
 purpose. 
 
216 HTDEOIiOGT OF SOUTH APEIOA. 
 
 PART III.-ARIDITY OF SOUTH AFRICA AND WATER SUPPLY. 
 
 The primary and principal cause of the desiccation and consequent aridity 
 of South Africa appears to have been, and to be, the elevation of the land, 
 and the consequent flow of the water which falls upon it as rain, by gravita- 
 tion to the sea. The secondary cause of that desiccation and consequent 
 aridity appears to have been, and to be, the evaporation of remaining water, 
 by which the aridity has been brought to the degree it has attained, — the 
 desiccation thus completed having been promoted by the long-continued 
 destruction of forests, and bush, and herbage, and grass, chiefly but not 
 exclusively by fire. And I would now renew an attempt to communicate 
 information in regard to the degree of aridity which has been the result. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AEIDITT AND WATER SUPPLY BEYOND THE COLONIZED POETION OF 
 SOUTH AFEIOA, 
 
 Section I. — Aridity beyond the Colonized pm-tion of South Africa. 
 
 We have a description given by Dr Livingstone of the terrible drought 
 that interrupted his initiatory labours as a Christian missionary when he 
 established himself on the Kolobeng River, in the Bakwain territory, before - 
 he set out on his extensive journeys in the land to the north. This descrip- 
 tion may give some idea of the aridity which has followed the desiccation 
 of the country, and of the consequences of long-continued drought. After 
 describing his dam-making and other operations during the first year of his 
 residence there, he proceeds, — " But in our second year again no rain came. 
 In the third the same extraordinary drought followed. Indeed, not ten 
 inches of rain fell during these two years, and the Kolobeng rah dry ; so 
 many fish were killed that the hyaenas from the whole country round 
 collected to the feast, and were unable to finish the putrid masses. A large 
 old alligator, which had never been known to commit any depredations, was 
 found left high and dry in the mud among the victims. The fourth year 
 was equally unpropitious, the fall of rain being insufficient to bring the 
 grain to maturity. Nothing could be more trying. We dug down in the 
 bed of the river deeper and deeper as the water receded, striving to get a 
 little to keep the fruit-trees alive for better times, but in vain. Needles 
 lying out of doors for months did not rust ; and a mixture of sulphuric acid 
 and water, used in a galvanic battery, parted with all its water to the air, 
 instead of imbibing more from it, a» it would have done in England. The 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY, 217 
 
 leaves of indigenous trees were all drooping, soft, and shrivelled, though not 
 dead ; and those of the Mimosee were closed at mid-day the same as they 
 are at night. In the midst of this dreary drought, it was wonderful to see 
 those tiny creatures, the ants, running about with their accustomed vivacity. 
 I put the bulb of a thermometer three inches under the soil in the sun at 
 mid-day, and found the mercury to stand at 132° to 134°; and if certain 
 kinds of beetles were placed on the surface, they ran about a few seconds 
 and expired ; but this broiling heat only augmented the activity of the long- 
 legged black ants." 
 
 Mr Helmore, who afterwards was stationed at Likatlong, made a journey 
 with his wife and family into a region much further to the north — a 
 journey undertaken in the prosecution of their Christian enterprise, but 
 a journey from which they never returned. Some idea of the aridity of 
 the land may be formed from the following accounts of their sufferings 
 from thirst, given in letters from his noble-hearted wife — -the first a letter 
 addressed to the sister of her husband, the second one addressed to her 
 daughter in England, in school — the last she wrote. To her sister-in-law 
 she wrote from Latlakane : — " I write this in a pretty little hut, 14 feet by 
 12, built by your brother. The walls are of palmyra wood, and it is 
 thatched with palmyra leaves, so it answers literally to the name we have 
 given it — -Palmyra Lodge, and though rough-looking on the outside it forms 
 a delightful shelter from the scorching rays of the sun. I should teU you 
 that it is ' hartebeest ' shape, and has a window at each end, with thin 
 calico instead of glass. I only wish I were in a hut of similar description, 
 but of larger dimensions, north of the Zambesi, instead of being still 200 
 miles south of it, with the prospect of another six weeks' journey ; but I must 
 be patient, and leave fearing for the future to record the mercies of the past. 
 
 " The last stage of our journey has been without exception the most 
 trying time of travelling I have experienced in A.frioa. We are now within 
 the tropics, and on a journey we are more exposed than in a house ; the 
 heat during the day is intense, 102° in the shade, and it often affects me with 
 faintness and giddiness ; but the early mornings are still pleasantly cool. 
 We may expect rain this month, and are longing for it, as those only can 
 long who have travelled through a dry and parched wilderness where no 
 water is. Our poor oxen were at one time four, at another five, days 
 without drink. It was quite painful to see how tame they were rendered 
 by thirst ; they crowded round the waggons, licking the water-casks, and 
 putting their noses down to the dishes and basins, and then looked up to 
 our faces, as if asking for water. We suffered very much ourselves from 
 thirst, being obliged to economize the little we had in our vessels, not 
 knowing when we should get more. We had guides, but they either could 
 not or would not give us any information. 
 
 " Tuesday the 6th inst. was one of the most trying days I ever passed. 
 About sunrise, the poor oxen, which had been painfoUy dragging the heavy 
 waggons through the deep sand during the night, stopping now and then to 
 draw breath, gave signs of giving up altogether. We had not gone as many 
 miles as we had travelled hours. My husband now resolved to remain 
 behind with one waggon and a single man, while I and the children and the 
 rest of the people went forward with all the oxen, thinking that we should 
 certainly reach water by night. We had had a very scant supply the day 
 before; the men had not tasted drink since breakfast until late in the 
 evening We divided a bottleful among four of them. There now remained 
 
 2d 
 
S18 HtBItOLOGT OF SOUTH AJPBIOA. 
 
 te^e' bottles otWaier; I '|aV6 'my tusbaind ttree, and r^se'rved tWfe'f't'fi^ 
 'cliil'dren, expectmg that Ve sho'iild get wat'6r fiifst. It was a, 'sortowful 
 parting, fo* we were all faiiit from thirst, and of course eatinig was out of 
 the questioii; ,we weire afraid even to do anything lest exercise should 
 aggravate oUr thirst. After diragging Slowly oii for four hours the heat 
 'obliged us to stop. , 
 
 "The poor children continually asked for wai;et; I pilt them off aS loiifg 
 as I could, and When they could be denied no longet doled the precious 
 fluid out a spoonful at a time to each of them. Poor Selina and Henry crie'd 
 bitterly. Willie bore up manfully, but his sunken eyes showed tow riuch 
 he suffered. Occasionally I obsferved a convulsive twitching of his features, 
 showing what an effort he was making to restrain his feelings. As for dear 
 Lizzie, she did not utter a word of complaint, nor even asked for water, but 
 lay all the day on the ground perfectly quiet, her lips quite parched and 
 blackened. About sunset we made another attempt, and got oU about five 
 miles. The people then proposed going on with the oxen in seai-ch of water, 
 promising to return with a supply to tbe waggon, but I urged their resting 
 a little and then making another attempt, that we might possibly get neat 
 enough to walk on to it. They yielded, tied up the poor oxen to pirevent 
 their wandering, and lay down to sleep, having tasted neither food nOr 
 drink all day. None of us could eat. I gave the children a little di'ied 
 fruit, slightly acid, in the middle of the day, but thirst took away all desire 
 to eat. Once in the course of the afternoon dear Willie, after a desperate 
 effort not to. c±y, suddenly asked me if he migbt go and drain the bottles. 
 Of course I consented, and presently he called out to me witb muob eagerness 
 that he had 'found some.' Poor little fellow! it must have been little 
 indeed, for his sister Selina had drained them already. Soon after he called 
 out that he had found another bottle of water. You can imagine the 
 disappointment when I told him it was cocoa-nUt oil melted by the heat. — 
 But this is a digi-ession : I must go back to our outspanning about nine p.M, 
 The water was long since gone, and, as a last resource, just befote dark, I 
 divided among the children half a teacupful of wine and water, which I had 
 been ifeserving in case I should feel faint. They were revived by it, and 
 said, ' how nice it was,' though it scarcely allayed their thirst. Henry at 
 length cried himself to sleep, and the rest were dozing feverishly. It was 
 'a beautiful moonlight night, but the air hot and sultry. I sat in front of 
 the waggon unable to sleep, hoping that water might arrive before the 
 children awoke on atrother day. About half-past ten I saw some persons 
 approaching ; they proved to be two' Bakalahari bringiUg a tin canteen half- 
 full of water, and a note from Mrs Price, saying, that having heard of the 
 trouble we were in from the man whom we had seiit forward, and being 
 themselves not very far from the water, they had sent us all they had. 
 The sound of water soon roused the children, who had tried in vain to sleep, 
 ^nd I shall not soon forget the rush they made to get a drink. There was 
 toot much, but enough for the present. I gave each of the children 
 fad men a cupfiil, and then drank myself. It was the first liquid that had 
 entered my lips for twenty-four hours, and I had eaten nothing. The 
 Bakalahari passed on, after depositing the precious treasure, saying that 
 though they had brought me water they had tione for themselves. They 
 were merely passing travellers. I alihost thought they were angels sent 
 from Heaven. AU now slept comfortably except myself; my inind had 
 b^en too much excited for sleep. And now a'fre^h disturbance arose : the 
 
ABIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY. 219 
 
 poor oxen h^id ^elt the water, and became very tK)i;il:!lesoma; the Joos? 
 cattle crowding about the waggon^ licking and sniiSSngj'and pushing their 
 i^ioaes toT^ards me, as if begging for water. <• ^ -.. 
 
 " At two o'clock I roused the men, telling them that if we were to make 
 g^nother attempt to reach water no time was to be lost. They were tij-ed 
 and faint, and very unwilling to move, but at last they got up, and began 
 to unloose tt^e oxen and drive them off without the waggon. '" 
 
 " I remonstrated, but in vain ; they had lost all spirit, ' lipelu li shule,' 
 as the Bechuanas say. I was obliged to let them go, but they assured me 
 I should have water sent as quickly as possible, and the cattle should t/e 
 l^rought back again after they had drunk. They knew no more than I did 
 tl^e distance to the water. ' , ;... 
 
 " When they left us, I felt anxious at the thought of perhaps spending 
 another day like the past ; but they had not been gone more than half-an- 
 houTj when I saw in the bright moonlight a figure at a distance coming 
 along tjie road. At first I could not make it out, it looked so tall ; but on 
 coming nearer, who should it prove to be but my servant-girl IKionecoe, 
 eigh1;een years of age, carrying on her head an immense calabash of water ! 
 On hearing of our distress she volunteered to assist us. She had walke'd 
 four hours. Another servant had set out with her, but as he had driven 
 the ^heep the day before a great distance, without either food or water, he 
 tfecame so exhausted that he lay down under a bush to rest, and oil' the 
 girl came alone, in the dead of night, in a strange country infested with 
 lions, bearingjher precious burden. Oh, how grateful I felt to her ! Surely 
 woman is the same all the world over ! She had only lived with rne since 
 June, was bvit an indifferent servant, and had never shown any particular 
 attachment to the children ; but this kind act revealedher heart, and seemqd 
 to draw us more closely together, for her conduct since thenhas been excellent. 
 I made a bed for her beside me in the forepart of the waggon; and the 
 I children having slacked their thirst with the deliciously cool water, wie 'all 
 slept till six o'clock. I made coffee, and offered some to Kionecoe and her 
 pompanion, who had now come up. At first they declined it, saying the 
 water was for me and tl;ie children. I had now the happiness of seeing the 
 children enjoy a meal of tea and biscuits ; and then once more filling up ray 
 two bottles, I sent the calabash with the remainder of its contents tO my 
 husband, who by this time stoofi greatly in need of it. The distance Was 
 about twelve miles. Another hot day had now commenced, and I had only 
 the two bottles of water. About noon a horseman rode up, leading a second 
 horse with two waijer-casks, and a tin canteen on his back. This was a supply 
 .j^r your Iprother, sent by our kind fellow-travellers Captain and Mrs 
 Thompson, who had heard of our distresses from the Prices. . . . 
 ;T(Vhile we were preparing the coffee, up came a pack-ox sent by lyir Price, 
 with two wa<jer-oasks for me, and soon after some Bakalahari arrived with a 
 csdabash ; so we had now an abund.ajit supply, and my heart overflowed 
 ^ith gratitude to our Father in heaven, who had watched over me and 
 mine, as over Hagar of old, and sent us relief. I related that and other 
 ips^ances of God's care to the children the day before,' and exhorted, them 
 to pray tp their heavenly Father, and rest assured that He would send ' us 
 jxel^; they now referred to the subject, saying, 'it was just as I had said.' 
 . . . Captain and Mrs Thompson rode up to the waggon in the aftejr- 
 Mon, to see i^ they cpuJ,d be of , any furtl^ier assistance, and brought a little 
 miJJi, for the children. '. .' . A span of oxen passed me in the' sjiiddle of 
 
220 HTDEOLO&t OF SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 the day, going to fetch my husband, and about half-past nine on Wednesday 
 night a span arrived for us. Next morning we reached the water, where 
 Mrs Price had kindly prepared a substantial breakfast. My husband did 
 not come up till the evening." 
 
 To her child, she wrote : — " North of Kamakama, Nov. 24th 1859. — Mt 
 Darling, — It is now your turn to get a letter from me ; but I fear that it 
 ;will be a long, long time before you receive it, for their are few opportunities 
 of sending or receiving letters. We have had none from you since the May ones 
 which overtook us at the Matlwaring, just beyond Kuruman. . . How- 
 ever, we must be patient, and the letters will perhaps be doubly sweet when 
 they do come. Although I long to hear of you, I do not feel anxious about 
 you, my dear girls. We daily commit you to the care of your Heavenly 
 Father, and He never disappointed those who trust in Him. I hope that 
 
 you, dear , are setting the Lord always before you. As the eldest of 
 
 the family, you will have a strong influence over the rest. seek especially 
 to guide your sisters, dear and , in the way of life. I look for- 
 ward with delight to the time when we shall be all united again ; but still I 
 think it is your duty to remain in England as long as you can. You may 
 never go there again. 
 
 " You see we have not yet got to our journey's end. It is a long journey 
 indeed ; but we have had so many hindrances from waggons breaking, cattle 
 wandering, fatigue, drought, and other causes. We have been already 
 twenty weeks on the road, and shall be three or four weeks yet. Six weeks 
 ago, on the river Zouga, dear little Willie was taken ill with fever, and for 
 several days we scarcely thought he would recover ; fever was very high, 
 with delirium. He is now getting well again, and to-day is playing on the 
 bed with Selina and Henry for the first time. He is, however, still so weak 
 in his legs that he has to be carried about like an infant. A fortnight after 
 Willie had been taken ill, dear Lizzie was seized with fever and erysipelas 
 
 in the back, but she too is getting well now ; so you see, dearest , you 
 
 have much to be thankful for, as well as to pray for. Selina and Henry 
 are well, and all send their love to you all. I need not teU you much about 
 our journey as you have papa's journal. . . We meet with some beautiful 
 , -flowers. I often wish it were possible to transport them to you. Few of them 
 have much scent alone ; but about sunset their united fragrance is delicious. 
 
 " Monday, Nov. 28. — Yesterday dear httle was baptized by 
 
 your papa. We had a pleasant English service. It was quite a treat in 
 the wilderness. The Bechuanas were present as spectators, and seemed 
 interested. Papa has service in Sechuana regularly every Sunday. . . 
 Our cattle, at least some of them, have been lost ever since last Monday. 
 ■ Four men were seeking them three days and nights, and returned with 
 some of them — without having tasted food all that time. They lost their 
 - way, which it is very easy to do, as the country is covered with forests and 
 thick bush. Now another party is out after the rest of them. This is 
 their third day. We have had no road for many weeks. Some of the 
 party have to go before, sawing down trees, and chopping bushes to make 
 room for the waggons to pass, and after all we frequently become entangled ; 
 so it is very slow work. There are no wild beasts here except elephants, and 
 occasionally troops of zebras. The latter we sometimes manage to shoot. 
 They are excellent eating ; so is the gnu. 
 
 "Dec. 26. — ^A happy Christmas to you, my children ! It is now nearly 
 a month since I laid down my letter to you, dear ; yet, strange to say, 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY. 221 
 
 we are only^w miles nearer our journey's end than we were then. I told 
 you that a party of our men had gone out in search of some of our oxen, which 
 had been stolen by the Masarwa, or Bushmen. They returned on the fourth 
 day with all but three ; one had been left sick on the road ; the other fine 
 large hind oxen the Masarwa had killed and eaten. It was a great loss, 
 but there was no redress for it, and as our pool of water was almost dried 
 up, we were glad to go forward. As we proceeded we found the country 
 more and more dry, and at last we were brought to a complete stand-still 
 for want of water. Our waggon was unpacked and sent back with all the 
 casks. Mackintosh bags, and vessels we could find, to bring water. All the 
 oxen and sheep, and all the men, excepting two, were sent back likewise, 
 and what little water still remained was divided amongst us who stayed. 
 This was only enough for drinking, there was none to cook with, and before 
 the waggon arrived, which was two days and nights, we were so weak from 
 want of food that the children and I could scarcely walk. The weather was 
 at the same time extremely hot, the thermometer at eight o'clock in the 
 morning stood at 96°, and in the middle of the day at more than 105°. 
 Papa and the two men who remained went out in the evenings in search of 
 water, and walked about all night, but they could find none. I forgot to 
 say that Tabe stayed with one of his men, and they too searched for 
 water ; for we were unwilling to go back if there was a possibility of getting 
 on. However, all the pools were empty, so we were most reluctantly obliged 
 to retrace our steps. But by this time the ponds we had left were dried 
 up too ; so, after travelling a day and a night, and until nine the next morn- 
 ing, the poor cattle were so exhausted with thirst that they could go no 
 farther, and we were compelled to unyoke them and send them on with the 
 sheep, and most of the men, to the nearest water. We hoped that they would 
 return that night and take us on ; but day after day and night after night 
 passed and neither men nor oxen came, and our sufferings were again very 
 great. I was most anxious about Lizzie, who was still weak from her 
 recent illness. I thought she would have fainted when I had not a drop of 
 water to give her. 
 
 " One afternoon about four o'clock papa set out with two men, taking 
 our Mackintosh bags, and returned about half-past nine next morning with a 
 supply of water. When they arrived they were so exhausted that they 
 dropped on the ground unable to speak. Papa looked so ill that I was 
 quite alarmed. They had walked thirty-eight miles, and carried the water 
 fifteen miles. Having found water, parties were sent in succession each night 
 to return the following one. Fancy every drop of water we had for drinking, 
 cooking, or washing ourselves brought a distance of thirty miles going and 
 coming ! At length, on Sunday, December the 11th, we were roused very 
 early by a heavy rain. We spread out a sail and caught enough to 
 replenish our water-vessels. This was indeed a shower from Heaven ; it 
 revived our languid spirits, and filled us with thankfulness to Him who had 
 remembered His promise to His servants (Isaiah xli. 17). We now hoped 
 to go on, but the clouds passed away, and the pools remained empty. 
 
 " When the oxen returned we rode back fifteen miles to the pool from 
 which we had been obtaining water. It appeared that on leaving us with the 
 oxen and sheep the men had set off for Kamakama, but losing their way 
 did not get their till the following night ; and our two little calves, unable 
 to walk so far in such hot weather, were left behind to perish ; and also our 
 entire flock of twenty-four sheep and lambs were lost through the csureless- 
 
2SS HTDJE^OLOt^y.OF SOUTH AFR^OA. 
 
 megs ajnd indoletioe of tjie.map who was driying thepi, aijd I^^ve.iipt he.er^ 
 liieard of since. This is ?i very heavy loss indeed. 
 
 ",1 niiist now say a few words about your coming out, for there are so 
 Sevf opportunities of sending letter^ to you now that I do no% like tp del^jr 
 writing on that subject. . . Lizzie says 1 am to tell you to bring sonie comfits, 
 ]i-^t,le ba^ets, etc., that -v^e may have a Christmas-tree tl^e first Ch^ristmas 
 you are all at home. Your sisters and brotters se;id warmest Ipve; so doe^ 
 papa. The God of Loye be your Eriend and Portion, my dear ohildJ^-Ypttr 
 affectionate mamma, " ' Anne HELMf)R|i/' ' 
 
 I could not find,in my heart to do otherwise than give this letter entire. It 
 was the last she wrote. S^iprfly af);,er it was written tfie whole farr>,Ui/ perished J 
 
 Of draught and, aridity ,s,uch as tfeip betptgn^ I have little expieotatipns 
 of conveying an adec[uatfi conception. It has been remarked tliat no one 
 know^ what liunger is vhp knows where food, is to be found. I avail myself 
 pf the forpaula tp say, No p^^e l^nows what thirst is who knows where water 
 is to be had. And drpuglit stich as this must be experienced to be known. 
 Of cold, of heat, of damp, some e:^perience may be had in Europe, but pf 
 drov^ght like this none ; pf ^uph drpught — lop(g continued, widely extended 
 drought — and tjie conspgyient aridity of earth and, atmospl^ere, and, as a 
 consequence of thi^, the suffering of man and beast, none. 
 
 Another of my friends, L|!r M'Kenzie, a missionary to the heath^i:^, 
 ieubesequently travelled in the same track. Of the earlier part of it he 
 writes, — " The cpuntry through which we were now travelling yras 
 exceedmgly monptpiious s^nti' -uni^^teresting. The hollows which ,ppnt4iji 
 pools pf Tjirater in summer were npw; dripd up, ai:}(i along the ';i]aokpkp ', pr 
 ancient, .river-bed, on our left, we were told there was not a drop of water. 
 Without a single hill in sight, we found ourselves traversing an undul|i14ng 
 prairie, -v^hose gentle sloping, ridges of sand followed pne after anotl^pr like 
 the waves of the ^ea. Thplpng ripe gTt^ss, of a lightish yellow, colour, gave 
 tp tjie Ifirujscape something of tjie appearance of one immense harvest fiel4. 
 A solitary camel thorn, with fantastically turned branches, was hpre and 
 there spen in tlie distance, while a variety of small shrulas ^nd bushes was 
 disting-uishable only in our neighbpvirhood f|i;pm tjie taU .white grass, gently 
 bei^dijig to tlie afternoon breeze, or stSijiding drpopingly in the brea^ljless 
 .at^Upess aiffj dazzling glare pf noonday. 
 
 'A region of eipptinegp, howling .and, drear, 
 
 Whicn man hatn ibaidpned from fanaine and fe^r ; 
 
 Which the')Snake and tie lizard inhabit aloiie, ' ' 
 
 With the' twilight 'bat from the yawnihg stone. 
 
 A region of drought where no river glides, 
 
 No rippling brook with osier'd sides, 
 
 t?Tiere sedgy pool, nor bubbling toan% 
 
 Nor tree, nor'cloufl, nor misty mount, 
 
 Appears to rfefresh'the aching eye'; 
 
 But the barren earth and the burning sky, 
 
 And the blank horizon round and round, 
 
 Spread— void of living sight or sound.'— rAomos Pringle. 
 Npt a living creature was to be seen for miles ; but, once outspanned, we 
 fouijd, that even here life was not entirely extinct. More frequently than 
 snalfe pr hzard, we found, near to our waggon a little cricket industriqusjy 
 making what noise it cpuld ; and, in the dreariest places we ohspryed ^ lijtljle 
 )i4r<^iabou1i tbe BifSe.of.a, %^, wjiich, l^^ IjU^t bird, rosp ^p^, fte.e^^'lo 
 
|fVfe!8ttfeife"«tkg. feut its Sbariiigand its^ybng were of sli!6rt' d'lii^tlo'ti. 
 It tose only some fifteen or twetlty feet from, tte gromid,'\lttering meah- 
 wMe its olie' plaintive note, -wliioh again subsided as it descended to the 
 gl-oiihd. Alter 'a brief Interval this Ibnesome btt'd would i-ejeat its defefeit 
 dirge. In the' dl8ta,nce We somfetiiiies descried the shy Ikham^ (hartebfeest), 
 6r the ktik^ma (gemsbuck or oryx), fleetest of the antelojpes ; an occasional 
 herd of springbucks cropping the short thick grass of the hard river-bed ; 
 and once or twice v/e saw in the distance troops of elands and girafes, 
 roaming at' ^iU and without thought of water. After leaving a foiintain, 
 o'llr cattle when Unyoked usually grazed well for the first twenty-four hours ; 
 but thirst afterwards took away inclination to eat, so that, although 
 'surrounded by the rich sweet gTa^s of the prairie, as soOn as they were ottt 
 'of the yoke they sought the shade of a neighbouring tree, and ' there 
 remained till brought again to their place before the waggon. 
 
 " I was told by the Bakalahari at Nkowane that they kept one of the 
 ■WhUa shut because it was easy of access, and if it had water the lioflswOHild 
 come and drink there, and infest their dwellings and their feheep and goat 
 pens at night. The second well was in the hollow of a limestone rook— i-itS 
 sides abrupt, and the water accessible only by means of a sort of laddfer. 
 'There was a cpnviently shaped' rock hear the mouth of the well,' into which 
 the water for the oxen was poured. For a small piece of tobacco each, the 
 Bakalahari assisted us to clear away the mud from the second Well ; but 
 after all our trouble I found that the supply of water from both was not 
 Sufficient to allow all my oxen to drink at once. So I separated the party 
 m Monday, sending on in advance the two waggons which were driven by 
 the Hottentots. The rest of the party left Nkowane on Tuesday. On 
 Wednesday night, while toiling diligently through the deep sand, we came 
 miexpectedly upon one of the Waggons which had started a day before us, 
 its solitary giiardikn in the desert was its Hottentot driver. He explained 
 that he had sent on his oxen with the other waggon, as they would pull no 
 longer." 
 
 And iagaSn : — "It was liere also I heard Of the extreme sufferings which 
 my friends, upon whose track I was proceeding, had endured in the Country 
 north of Maila and Kamakama. When I asked for guides to go with me 
 in that direction, not a single Bushmen would consent to accompany me. 
 To go without guides I felt to be quite out of the question. Pointing 
 northwards, they shook their heads, and exclaimed, 'Yonder there is ho 
 water ; nothing but sun ; nothing but sun ! That land causes the cattle to 
 stray from' the waggons ; the men, too, who venture thither wander about 
 in vain search for what is not, and hasten southward to the fountains which 
 they had left. All these things,' they said, 'did we see last year in the 
 case of the white men who went to the Makololo. Both they and their oSen, 
 tad we who accompanied them part of the way, had weU-nigh perished With 
 thirst. If you are determined to travel on that path you go alone.' " 
 
 'Suction II. Water Supply heyond the Colonized portion of SoutTi Africa. 
 
 ■While the desiccation and aridity in the districts specified are such as 
 has been represented, further into the interior it is a land abounding with 
 water. The journeyings of Stanley in search of Livingstone tell more -of 
 difficulty in travelling over districts covered with water, than of Bufferihga 
 
224 HTDEOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 ftom drought.; One of the first confinnations received by Livingstone and 
 Oswell and Murray, of statements they had received from Bakwains who 
 had been into the interior with Sebituane, in regard to what they had seen, 
 waS an answer which they received to a inquiry relative to whence came 
 the Tamunak'le, a large stream flowing into the beautifully wooded Zouga. 
 On their inquiring whence it came, the answer was, " Oh, from a country 
 full of rivers, so many no one can tell their number, and full of great trees." 
 And of that country they themselves give the following account : — " A 
 hundred miles from the point where the waggons stood to the river Sesehek^, 
 we saw no' hill higher than an ant-hill. The country is intersected by 
 numerous deep rivers, and adjacent to each of these, immense reedy bogs 
 or swamps stretch away in almost every direction. Oxen cannot pass 
 through these swamps,^they sink in up to the belly, and on looking dowij 
 the holes made by the legs, the parts immediately under the surface are seen 
 to be saturated with water. The rivers are not like many in South Africa, 
 mere " nidlahs," containing nothing but sand and stones. All of those we 
 saw contained large volumes of water. The period of our visit happened 
 to be the end of an extraordinary dry season, yet on sounding the Chobe we 
 found it to have a regular depth of fifteen feet on the side to which the 
 water swung, and of twelve feet on the calm side. The banks below the 
 lowest water mark were more inclined to the perpendicular than those of a 
 canal. It was generally as deep at a foot from the baak as in the middle 
 of the stream. The roots of the reeds and grass seem to prevent it wearing 
 away the land ; and in many parts the bank is undermined and hangs over 
 the deep water, Were its course not so very winding a steam vessel could 
 sail on it. The higher lands in this region are raised only by a few feet 
 above the surrounding level. On these the people pasture their cattle, make 
 their gardens, and build their towns. The rivers overflow their banks 
 annually. The great drought prevented the usual rise of the water while 
 we were in the country in July, and the people ascribed the non-appearance 
 of the water to the death of their chief. But when the rivers do fill, the 
 whole country is inundated, and must present the appearance of a vast 
 lake, with numerous islands scattered over its surface. The numerous 
 branches given off by each of the rivers, and the annual overflow of the 
 country, explain the reports we had previously heard of ' Linokanoka' (rivers 
 upon rivers), and ' large waters' with numerous islands in them. The Chobe 
 must rise at least ten feet in perpendicular height before it can reach the 
 dykes, built for catching fish, situated about a mile from its banks, and the 
 Seshek6 must rise fifteen or twenty feet before it overflows its banks ; yet 
 Mr 0. and I saw unmistakable evidence of that overflow reaching about 
 fifteen miles out." 
 
 Of the quantity of moisture deposited in central Africa some vague con- 
 ception may be formed from the magnitude of rivers flowing thence. The 
 Zambesi, the Nile, and the Congo, in regard to which it was stated, in a 
 lecture on the discoveries of Dr Livingstone, delivered by Sir Henry 
 Eawlinson, President of the Eoyal Geographical Society, that " no soundings 
 were obtainable in it at 200 fathoms ; its current could be seen 300 miles 
 out at sea, into which it discharged 1,800,000 cubic feet of water per second." 
 
 In accordance with these intimations of abundance of water, we find in 
 Arrowsmith's detailed map of Dr Livingstone's route across Africa an 
 entiy of, — " The plains of Lobale are impassable during the rainy season." 
 And writing of a district still nearer to the equator, he writes : " We 
 
AEIDITY AND WATBE SUPPLY. 225 
 
 entered on an extenslTe plain beyond the Leeba; at least twenty fliiles 
 broad, and covered with water, ankle deep in the shallowest parta. We 
 deviated somewhat from our N.W. course by the direction of Intemese, and 
 kept the hills Piri nearly on our right during a great part of the first day, 
 in order to avoid the still more deeply flooded plains of Lobale (Luval 1) on 
 the west. These, according to Intemese, are at present impassable on 
 account of being thigh-deep. The plains are so perfectly level that rain- 
 water, which this was, stands upon them for months together. They were 
 not flooded by the Leeba, for that was still far within its banks. Here a,nd 
 there, dotted over the surface, are httle islands, on which gTow stunted date- 
 bushes and scraggy trees. The plains themselves are covered with a thick 
 sward of grass, which conceals the waters, and makes the flats appear like 
 great pale yellow-coloured prairie lands, with a clear horizon, except where 
 interrupted here and there with trees. The clear rain-water must have 
 stood some time among the grass, for great numbers of lotus-flowers were 
 seen in full blow ; and the runs of water tortoises and crabs were observed ; 
 other animals also, which prey on the fish and find their way to the plains. 
 
 " The continual splashing of the oxen keeps the feet of the rider con- 
 stantly wet, and my men complain of the perpetual moisture of the paths 
 by which we have travelled in Londa, as softening their horny soles. . . 
 We made our beds on one of the islands, and were wretchedly supplied 
 with firewood. The booths constructed by the men were but sorry shelter, 
 for the rain poured down without intermission till mid-day. There is no 
 drainage for the prodigious masses of water on these plains, except slow 
 percolation into the different feeders of the Leeba, and into that river itself. 
 The quantity of vegetation has prevented the country from becoming 
 furrowed by many rivulets or ' nullahs.' Were it not so remarkably flat, 
 the drainage must have been effected by torrents, even in spite of the 
 matted vegetation. 
 
 " That these extensive plains are covered with grasses only, and the littile 
 islands with but scraggy trees, may be accounted for by the fact, observable 
 everywhere in this country, that, where water stands for any length of 
 time, trees cannot live. The want of speedy drainage destroys them, and 
 injures the growth of those that are planted on the islands, for they have 
 no depth of earth not subjected to the souring influence of the stagnant 
 water. The plains of Lobale, to the west of these, are said to be much more 
 extensive than any we saw, and their vegetation possesses similar 
 peculiarities. When the stagnant rain-water has all soaked in, as must 
 happen during the months in which there is no rain, travellers are even put 
 to straits for want of water. This is stated on native testimony ; but I can 
 very well beheve that level plains, in which neither wells nor gullies are 
 met with, may, after the dry season, present the opposite extreme to what 
 we witnessed. Water, however, coiild always be got by digging, a proof of 
 which we had on our return when brought to a stand on this very plain by 
 severe fever : about twelve miles from the Kasai my men dug down a few 
 feet, and found an abundant supply ; and we saw on one of the islands the 
 garden of a nian who, in the dry season, had drunk water from a well in 
 like manner. . . . The plains of Lobale, to the west of this, give rise to 
 a great many streams, which unite, and form the deep, never-failing Chobe. 
 Similar extensive flats give birth to the Loeti and Kasai, and, as we shall 
 see further on, all the rivers of an extensive region owe then; origin taftozing 
 bogs, and not to fountains." 
 
 2e 
 
226 HYDEOIiOGT OF SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 Further on he mites, — "In the afternoon of this day we came to a 
 valley about a mile wide, filled with clear fast-flowing water. The men on 
 foot were chin deep in crossing, and we three on oxback got wet to the 
 middle, the weight on the animals preventing them from swimming. A 
 thunder-shower descending completed the partial drenching of the plain, and 
 gave a cold uncomfortable ' pacliing in a wet blanket' that night. Next day 
 we found another flooded valley about half a mile wide, with a small and 
 now deep rivulet in its middle, flowing rapidly to the S.S.E. or towards the 
 Kasai. The middle part of this flood, being the bed of what at other times 
 is the rivulet, was so rapid that we crossed by holding on to the oxen, 
 and the current soon dashed them to the opposite bank ; we then jumped 
 ofi', and, the oxen being relieved of their burdens, we could pull them on to 
 the shallower part. The rest of the valley was thigh deep and boggy, but 
 holding on by the belt which fastened the blanket to the ox, we each floun- 
 dered through the nasty slough as well as we could. These boggy parts, 
 lying parallel to the stream, were the most extensive we had come to — those 
 mentioned already were mere circumscribed patches, these stretched for 
 miles along each bank ; but even here, though the rapidity of the current 
 was very considerable, the thick sward of grass was ' laid' flat along the sides 
 of the stream, and the soil was not abraded so much as to discolour the 
 flood. When we came to the opposite side of this valley, some pieces of the 
 ferruginous conglomerate, which forms the capping to all other rocks in a 
 large district around and north of this, cropped out, and the oxen bit at 
 them as if surprised by the appearance of stone as much as we were ; or it 
 may have contained some mineral of which they stood in need. We had 
 not met with a stone since leaving Shinte's. The country is covered with 
 deep alluvial soil of a dark colour and very fertile. 
 
 " In the afternoon we came to another stream, Nuana Loke (or child of 
 Loke) with a bridge over it. The men had to swim ofi' to each end of the 
 bridge, and when on it were breast deep ; some preferred holding on by the 
 tails of the oxen the whole way across. I intended to do this too, but, 
 riding to the deep part, before I could dismount and seize the helm the ox 
 dashed ofi" with his companions, and his body sank so deep, that I failed 
 in my attempt even to catch the blanket belt, and if I pulled the bridle, the 
 ox seemed as if he would come backwards upon me, so I struck out for the 
 opposite bank alone. My poor fellows were dreadfully alarmed when they 
 saw me parted from the cattle, and about twenty of them made a simulta- 
 neous rush into the water for my rescue, and just as I reached the opposite 
 bank one seized my arm, and another threw his around my body. When I 
 stood up, it was most gratifying to see them all struggling towards me. 
 Some had leaped off the bridge, and allowed their cloaks to float down the 
 stream. Part of my goods, abandoned in the huny, were brought up from 
 the bottom after I was safe. Great was the pleasure expressed when they 
 found that I could swim like themselves, without the aid of a tail, and I 
 did, and do feel grateful to these poor heathens for the promptitude with 
 which they dashed in to save, as they thought, my life, I found my clothes 
 cumbersome in the water ; they could swim quicker from being naked. They 
 swim like dogs, not frog-fashion, as we do." 
 
 Such is South Africa, in regard to water supply, in the trans-colonial 
 regions referred to. 
 
AEIDITT AND WATER SUPPLY. 227 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 ABIDITT AND WATER SUPPLY WITHIN THE COLONY OP THE CAPE OP GOOD HOPE. 
 
 It may be alleged that tlie statements made have been made in regard to 
 different parts of the country, and both of them parts of the country far 
 distant from the colonized portion, which is what is generally known as 
 South Africa, in contradistinction to Southern Africa, which is more com- 
 prehensive, and may be legitimately applied to all the continent lying to 
 the south of the equator. But if so, this may be said in reply, The 
 physical geography and arborescent productions of the intermediate land 
 south of the scenes described, and north of the European colonies extending 
 from the Cape, make it to some degree probable that such as these watery 
 plains are those arid plains must have been not long before those aged trees 
 began to grow. And what is more to the point in hand, in the Introduction 
 I have, stated facts illustrative of the colony, at the Cape of Good Hope, 
 being throughout much of its extent subject from time to time to have the 
 same locality suffer for a lengthened time by drought similar in character, 
 though not equal in degree, with that from which Mr Helmore and his 
 family suffered so much, and then be deluged in a similar way, though not 
 to the same extent, as the district traversed by Dr Livingstone, described in 
 the extracts from his journal which I have cited. And I have correspond- 
 ing testimony to adduce in regard to the abundance of the water supply at 
 command to counteract the evils induced by the drought within the colony. 
 
 I have never experienced, nor have I ever heard of anything experienced 
 by others equal to that within the colony of the Cape of Good Hope. But 
 some of the details I have given of what was experienced in 1862 are in 
 keeping therewith, and the colonists are not unacquainted with long- 
 continued as well as excessive droughts. Neither have I ever experienced, 
 or heard of others having experienced, a long-continued drought so excessive 
 as is indicated by some of the observations made by Dr Livingstone at 
 Kolobeng ; but I have read of an observation made within the colony which 
 may be placed side by side with these. 
 
 Amongst other paradoxes connected with evaporation and heat, it is 
 stated in scientific treatises, that the finger slightly moistened may with 
 impunity be plunged into molten lead, the evaporation keeping the finger 
 cool, and the produced atmosphere of vapour preventing contact ; and that 
 a little water projected into a plantinum crucible at a white heat has by the 
 evaporation of one portion converted the other portion into a lump of ice. 
 It is more generally known that by the rapid evaporation of a portion of 
 water under the exhausted receiver of an air-pump another portion may be 
 frozen, and that, by appropriate arrangements, ice is produced in India by 
 the rapid evaporatiou produced by the heat. The same thing has occurred 
 in South Africa through rapid evaporation, induced by the aridity of the 
 atmosphere. 
 
228 HTDEOIiOGT 01' SOUTH ATBIOA. 
 
 MrAnd-w.Wylie, in his notes of a journey in two directions across the colony, 
 made, as geological surveyor to the colony, in the years 1857-58, with a 
 view to determine the character and order of the various geological formar 
 tions — writing of the Narrows on the Orange Eiver about twenty miles from 
 Colesberg — says, — " The night spent here on the banks of the Orange 
 Eiver was one of the coldest I have ever experienced in the colony. Inside 
 of a tent, in which three persons slept, bowls of hot coffee and a compound 
 liquid of still more potent character were converted into a solid mass of ice. 
 
 " While in the neighbourhood of Hopetown, a gallon of water in a tin 
 bucket was sometimes frozen quite solid during the night, and yet the ice 
 on the dams was never more than a quarter of an inch thick. This dis- 
 crepancy evidently arises from the water of the latter [and the earth] 
 receiving so much heat during the day as to prevent its freezing at night 
 except to a very limited extent ; whereas the water in a small vessel, 
 exposed on all sides to the cold wind, is soon reduced to atmospheric 
 temperature, or even below it. The freezing power of the air is greatly 
 iassisted by its dryness, which causes rapid evaporation to take place, even 
 in solid ice itself." 
 
 Notwithstanding the aridity of the atmosphere which is thus indicated^ 
 the quantity of moisture in the atmosphere, though it be relatively small, must 
 be very great. Frequently have I witnessed the phenomena described in 
 the Scripture narrative of a cloud the size of a man's hand appearing in the 
 sky, and ere long the whole heavens being black with clouds, and the earth 
 darkened : the clouds not being blown thither, but formed there of 
 moisture then existant, and the deposit being occasioned by a current of 
 cold air lowering the temperature of an upper stratum to a temperature 
 below the dew-point; and sometimes, while expecting such a rainfall as Elijah 
 -foretold, the whole has dissolved away, like the vapour of a locomotive steam 
 engine, leaving the heavens as transparent and clear as before. But 
 sometimes it is otherwise, and from that dry arid air the rainfall has been 
 tremendous. 
 
 I have in the Introduction given some accounts of the drought and the 
 rainfall ; the former of which preceded and the latter followed my return to 
 the Cape in 1863. Notwithstanding the abundance of the rain which fell 
 4n that year, the drought was again severe in 1864 ; the same was the case 
 in the year following, 1865, and yet again in 1866. Towards the close of 
 1867 there were torrents of rain ; and so has it been ever since, alternate 
 torrents and drought ; and at one and the same time drought in one part of 
 the country, torrents in another, the waters of which not only rushed away 
 to be lost in the sea, but wrought mischief and devastation by the way. 
 
 At Port Elizabeth, in November 1867, I find there fell in the course 
 of six hours, between Wednesday 20th at 9 p.m., and Thursday 21st at 
 3 A.M., 6'5 inches of rain. In the month of July preceding there was a fall 
 of rain in London, in a report of which, presented by Mr Bazalgette, chief 
 engineer to the Metropohtan Board of Works, he says, — " A fall of rain 
 such as has not been recorded in London for the last twenty years, and 
 stated in the Registrar-General's return of July 27 to have been unprece- 
 dented at the Greenwich Observatory, fell between midnight of the 25th 
 July and nine on the following morning. During these nine hours 3-25 
 in. of rain fell." From this it appears that the fall of rain at Port Elizabeth 
 during these six hours was double what fell in these nine hours in London 
 — that is, three times as much in the same space of time as the heaviest 
 
ABIDrrY AND WATEB SUPPLT. 229 
 
 recorded Rainfall at London or Greenwich. Btittliis can convey no Suohidfea 
 of the torrents of rain as do the details given of its disastrous effects. 
 
 Of these the following details were given in the journals of the time : — 
 
 " Port Elizabeth, November 21, 1867.^This part of the Colony has lately 
 Veen rejoicing in an amount of rain exceeding even the most extravagant 
 desires of the most ' thirsty souls,' and last night from nine o'clock for 
 several hours a deltige of rain fell, creating such a flood, and bringing such 
 disasters in its train, as will not be soon forgotten by any of the inhabitants 
 of Port Elizabeth. 
 
 " For the benefit of such of your readers as may not know this town I 
 will briefly describe the locality, the better to enable them to understand 
 the efiects produced by the floods. 
 
 " The town of Port Elizabeth consists of a long line of streets running 
 parallel with the beach, from north to south, at a distance varying from 
 two to three hundred yards, the intervening space being occupied by inter- 
 secting streets, chiefly composed of poor dwellings and shops. Imme^ 
 diately behind the ' Main Street ' on the west side, rises ' The Hill,' 
 very steep for some hundred yards or so, and then more gradual in 
 its ascent for a similar distance, and stretching out eastward'^a 
 nearly level plain, and now occupied by quite a second town, where a large 
 portion of those engaged in commercial pursuits, from the merchants down- 
 wards, reside. On each side of this hill were formerly two kloofs, which 
 were filled in, and two splendid roads constructed, on the south side White's 
 Road, and on the north side Russell Road, each having stone drains which 
 have hitherto been sufficient to carry ofi' the water of all ordinary rains. 
 On the south side of White's Road is another hill, very precipitous, and 
 beyond that, the Baaken's River runs into the sea, flowing generally 
 sluggishly enough through ' the valley.' 
 
 " On the south side of the Baaken's River is another town, composed 
 almost entirely of dwellings of the poorer class, a large number being the 
 very poor. These are built to a great extent upon sand, by which small 
 kloofs had been filled up. 
 
 " On the north side of the Russell Road is the ' Hospital Hill,' so called 
 from the hospital which is built, on the summit. 
 
 "The kloofs which formerly took the place of the two roads referred to were 
 the natural outlets for the water collected on the hills on either side. 
 These roads were therefore now the receptacles for much more than could 
 be carried ofi'. 
 
 " Down the Russell Road the water came with irresistible force, quickly 
 destroying the drains and excavating the road in some places to the depth 
 of ten or twelve feet, and in its course undermining the foundations of a 
 few good houses so seriously that the inhabitants have been compelled 
 hastily to remove from them, lest they should be buried in their fall, which 
 seems imminent. 
 
 " ' White's Road ' presents a very similar spectacle. The gas pipes- 
 twisted into strange shapes — lying only, supported here and there, across 
 huge chasms, laying bare the rooks of the old kloof. This road leads direct 
 into the market-square. At the bottom, the deepest chasm of all is made. 
 
 " Between the two roads just described, and parellel with them, is Donkin 
 Street, the bottom part of which is similarly destroyed; an immense 
 quantity of the dislodged earth being carried into the Main Street, forming 
 
230 HTDBOLOGT OP SOTITH AFRICA. 
 
 a heap of six or seven feet in height, through which a way had to be dug to 
 the doors of one or two of the shops. All the houses, shops, and stores on 
 the west side of the Main Street were more or less flooded from behind, in 
 some instances the astonished proprietors finding the mud level with their 
 counter tops. On the opposite side, seme houses most exposed to the fiiry 
 of the descending waters are totally demohshed, while all the stores are 
 more or less damaged by the water and mud carried into their cellars, — 
 sugar, rice, flour, <fec., (fee, lying in a state giving bright prospects for the 
 auctioneers. 
 
 " Great as is the destruction of property, public and private, so far des- 
 cribed, the worst remains to be tuld. On the south side of the Baaken's 
 Eiver the scene of devastation beggars all description, and must be seen to 
 be believed. About twenty-four houses are completely demolished. In 
 some instances the fronts of the houses are carried away, leaving the other 
 half tottering on the brink of a deep hollow, which reminds one of a railway 
 cutting, and is almost as regular, in many parts eighteen or twenty feet 
 deep. It seerns incredible that a good ' metalled ' street in a few hours 
 could be transformed into this ravine ; but it is explained to some extent 
 by the fact that aU beneath the crust is sand, to the depth I have stated, 
 and which appears to have been sometime or another drifted into various 
 small kloofs, which probably formerly existed. As might be expected, the 
 course of the torrent did not always lie in the middle of the streets, and con- 
 sequently many houses have entirely disappeared, not even so much as a 
 bit of timber marking the spot ; all being hurried down to the sea. One 
 poor Irishman describes his being awaked by a noise and finding the front 
 of the house demolished, the rooms being open to the street, and it was 
 with dif&culty he and his family escaped before the rest of the house 
 followed. 
 
 " It will easily be imagined that a fearful amount of distress is the result 
 here. A large number of families have lost everything except the clothes 
 they had on. 
 
 The Baaken's Eiver, which has of late joined the sea in a little stream 
 that a lady could easily step over, soon cut itself a channel of fifty feet wide 
 through the sand, which it carried before it, seriously filling up (it is feared) 
 the space inside the breakwater. Twelve or thirteen boats, of various sizes, 
 were swamped, the masts of some of which are just visible above the water. 
 It is marvellous that all these catastrophes have resulted in the loss of only 
 two lives. One child was carried down to the sea and was found with only 
 its legs visible above the sand on the shore. The second was a man, a 
 servant of the Harbour Board, who was foolishly endeavouring this morning 
 to save a piece of timber, and was drawn in by the current of the Baaken's 
 Eiver and disappeared in a moment. Although numbers of people hurried 
 along the side in the hope that he might be rescued, he was never seen 
 again, nor has the body yet been recovered. 
 
 " Some few instances there are of very narrow escapes. Our Colonial 
 Chaplain, Mr Pickering, was dining on the Hill, and about twelve o'clock 
 the rain having somewhat abated, set out for his residence, near the bottom 
 of White's Eoad. Having, of course, no idea of the liberties the water had 
 taken with the road, and the darkness being extreme, he was precipitated 
 unsuspectingly into six feet of water, not by any means stagnant. He 
 escaped drowning ; and fortunately was, I believe, not much hurt. One 
 gentleman was saved by his companion catching him by the tail of his 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY. 231 
 
 coat just as he was making a plunge into a kloof by the side of the 
 Military Eoad. 
 
 " The amount of rain which fell during the night (by the rain-gauge) was 
 6'36 inches. The damage done is estimated at £25,000." 
 
 From recorded observations it appears that on the Tuesday at 9 a.m. 
 and at 5 o'clock the wind was S.E. ; on Wednesday at 9 a.m. and at 1 o'clock 
 it was the same, at 5 o'clock it was S.S.E. ; on Thursday at 9, and at 
 1, and at 5 o'clock it was S.W. At all these times, and it may inferred 
 throughout all that time, generally blowing from the sea, and it may be 
 surmised charged with moisture, though transparent and clear. And we 
 have the data necessary to enable us to determine the maximum quantity 
 of moisture with which it could be so charged, as Mr Hammond, the 
 Meteorological Observer at the light-house, whose observations I have quoted 
 above, has recorded also his observations on the state of the barometer and 
 the thermometer throughout the period of the storm. His full record is as 
 
 follows : — 
 
 Bar. 
 
 Ther. 
 
 Wind. 
 
 Nov. 19— 9 a.m. 
 
 30-086 
 
 68-0 
 
 S.E. 
 
 1 p.m. 
 
 30-055 
 
 62-2 
 
 S.E. 
 
 5 p.m. 
 
 30-076 
 
 64-9 
 
 S.E. 
 
 20—9 a.m. ... 
 
 30-064 
 
 62-1 
 
 S.E. 
 
 1 p.m. 
 
 29-980 
 
 62-6 
 
 S.E. 
 
 5 p.m. 
 
 29-981 
 
 63-1 
 
 S.S.E 
 
 21—9 a.m. ... 
 
 30-119 
 
 61-7 
 
 S.W. 
 
 1 p.m. 
 
 30-109 
 
 63-5 
 
 S.W. 
 
 5 p.m. 
 
 30-157 
 
 63-7 
 
 S.W. 
 
 With these data it is possible to calculate what was the greatest quantity 
 of moisture which the air could possibly have held in solution. That the 
 air was so saturated does not appear, but assuming that it was, the rainfall 
 supplies an indication of how great the quantity of moisture thus suspended 
 in solution must have been, more impressive than any array of figures 
 would do ; and, if the atmosphere was, as it is reasonable to suppose was 
 the case, not fully, but only partially saturated with moisture throughout 
 its forty-five miles of depth, it may be admitted that the deposit from a full 
 saturation would have been proportionally more. 
 
 What fell was only the surplus moisture in excess of what could be sus- 
 tained, suspended in solution, or otherwise, in a portion of the atmosphere 
 limited in extent and in depth. 
 
 Moisture in the air is invisible, as cloud, or fog, or rain, until the lowering 
 of the temperature of that air renders it incapable of sustaining it in solu- 
 tion. It is then deposited from the solution in the form of cloud, or fog, 
 and precipitated to the earth by electricity, or gravitation, or the combined 
 action of both. And the meteorological observations of Mr Hammond 
 enable us to teU of how the clouds and the rain were formed of this surplus 
 moisture in the atmosphere. 
 
 According to the statement of Mr Hammond, the meteorological observer, 
 the wind ranged from S.E. to S.S.E. and S.W. during the storm. " But," 
 says the H. P. Herald, " it will be observed in the above statement that the 
 direction of the wind during the night is not given, but we are assured by 
 those who were up and watched the storm, that about nine o'clock the -wind 
 veered to S.W., thou to W., and for an hour or two blew strong from N.W. 
 
232 HYDROIiOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 It afterwards went round to N., subsequently to E., and in a few hours — 
 that is before daylight — to S.W. again, from which quarter it was steady 
 yesterday. It will thus be seen that the storm went round the compass. 
 The points from which it blew most violently were S.W. and N.W." 
 
 In this may be found information needed to enable us satisfactorily to 
 account for the remarkable rainfall that occurred at that time at Port 
 Elizabeth, a whirlwind either originating there or passing over the town in 
 its progress from another, and that it may be a distant point — a whirlwind 
 similar in character to those of tiny dimensions seen sometimes twenty at 
 a time, raising the sand or dust in tiny pillars, in the interior of the colony; 
 and similar at the same time to those vast cyclones, the study of which has 
 enabled meteorologists to determine the law of storms, but intermediate 
 between these in magnitude. By this, air near the surface of the ground, 
 charged with what quantity of moisture it might be, was raised to an eleva- 
 tion at which the reduced temperature there induced unfitted it for holding 
 so much or nearly so much in solution. This surplus was thrown off and 
 deposited in form of clouds. These were unceasingly increased by the con- 
 tinuous fresh supply, and what was set free fell in torrents of rain, being 
 the surplus only of what the air could contain in solution at its lowered 
 temperature. 
 
 Vivid flashes of hghtning and the roar of thunder are spoken of as accom- 
 paniments of the storm. These I attribute to the same cause, and reckon 
 them consequents of the disturbance of electric equilibrium, occasioned by 
 changes of temperature ; and this electric disturbance, though it added 
 nothing to the quantity of moisture set free, may have occasioned the more 
 rapid precipitation of what had been set free, in accordance with what is 
 reported, — " The rain, which came gently at first, increased by degrees until 
 it fell down in sheets." 
 
 At the time it was intimated that it would be interesting if meteoro- 
 logists would track the storm in its course through the country. I do not 
 know whether this has been done by any in the colony. From statements 
 in the journals of the day it appears the storm had not by any means been 
 ,eoafined to one locality. From Humansdorp it was reported that the bridge 
 over the Van Sladens River had been swept away, and that the mails had 
 to be got across by means of ropes. Some portions of the road in the 
 neighbourhood had been so much cut up that the mail bags had to be 
 carried on men's backs. The lighthouse of St Blaize had been so considerably 
 damaged that an of&cer of the Public Works Department had to proceed to 
 the spot for the purpose of reporting upon the extent and nature of the 
 repairs required. 
 
 Mr Molteno, the present premier of the colony, happened to be journey- 
 ing at the time from Beaufort to Capetown, and the following narrative of 
 what he witnessed between George and Swellendam was transcribed from a 
 hastily given verbal account of his adventure : — " He first encountered 
 stormy weather with heavy rains in Montag-u Pass, and on arriving at 
 George found the river very much swollen, and remarked that the bridge 
 looked very queer. It seemed as if it had been twisted by the stream. 
 Half an hour after he had passed over it was broken to pieces and swept 
 • away like a toy ! 
 
 *' We may mention, before going further, that Mr Molteno was travelling 
 . with a gen^eman and a man servant in an ordinary oolonied cart, with two 
 
ARIDITT AMD WATER SUPPLY. 233 
 
 horses, and being an old traveller was pretty well prepared for the vicissi- 
 tudes incident to colonial travellers. After passing George it continued 
 raining almost continuously, indeed, from the Tuesday morning to Wednes- 
 day-and Thursday it scarcely stopped. One hour from George was a small 
 bridge, which had been partially carried away. The river was quite 
 impassable. The deck planks were torn up in niany places and the 
 causeway removed. The water had previously risen some ten feet above 
 the bridge. The party, after resting awhile, went to work with a will, taking 
 up some of the planks and contriving to make a rough road over the stream 
 just wide enough to receive the cart, which was unspanned and wheeled by 
 hand carefully over the tumble-down structure, The horses were then led 
 over, and with great difficulty got across, one narrowly escaping a 
 broken leg. 
 
 " The Witte Elsjes Eiver Bridge was next reached, and it was in a still 
 worse plight than the last. Gaps were cut right through it in all direo|ion8, 
 and it was covered with drift wood and splintered fragments. No oie, it 
 must be known, had, before Mr Molteno, essayed to cross the rivers, all 
 along the route since the flood was at its height. The river, too, was 
 literally choked with palmiet, torn up and borne down with the rush of the 
 river. Finding the task a serious one, Mr Molteno assembled a considerable 
 force of farmers and labourers, who began clearing the bridge and making 
 a temporary thoroughfare with spars in the same manner as before. After 
 great labour the cart was wheeled across in safety. But the horses could 
 not be moved in the same way, the bridge was too rickety and the decking 
 too open. What was to be done 1 A drift was tried higher up, where it 
 was thought the horses might be swum across. But after one or two 
 hazardous trials the attempt was abandoned for the night, and the horses 
 sent to a neighbouring farm-house. During the night the flood sensibly 
 abated, and it was looking brighter over head. The next morning the 
 whole party got over safely, but not without great difficulty. 
 
 " On again the party went, wondering what was coming next, until the 
 Brak Eiver heights were reached. Here they came upon a number of 
 weather-bound travellers. Waggons were stuck in the mud, and oxen and 
 mules straying whither they listed. The pass was in a most dangerous 
 state, the land having slipped both above and below the road, rendering 
 it almost impassable. As- the party descended into the valley the Brak 
 River bridge looked a scene of desolation. The river was fairly blocked up 
 with the debris of the bridge and drift wood, and the water was rushing 
 through a narrow channel on the further side. Here waggons and their 
 hving frieght had cast anchor to await the subsiding of the flood. On Mr 
 Molteno's arrival, all united as before in making a temporary way across the 
 ruins of the bridge, and succeeded in getting over. The toll-house by the 
 river-side narrowly escaped destruction, the water rising to the ceiling of 
 the first floor. If it had not been built of Stone it would probably have 
 been carried away. The tollman and his family only escaped drowning by 
 getting -into the loft. When Mr Molteno arrived, he was drying his furni- 
 ture, beans, and other provisions. The out-houses to the building were 
 completely swept away. Those who know the road will form some idea. of 
 the height of the water when they are told that the house known as 
 Ferreira's Hotel was completely submerged. '_ 
 
 " From Brak River to Mossel Bay the country was flooded in all directions. 
 The nost had to diverge from the main road to get along at a,U. Here and 
 ^ 2f 
 
234 HTBEOLOGT OP SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 there were waggons stuck in the mud, with the water up to the axles,;and 
 the attendants in the most bewildered condition. The oxon had strayed, 
 enjoying the fun rather than otherwise, and had left no spoor to guide their 
 masters in the pursuit. 
 
 " The Hartebeest Kiver was passed with nothing worse than a wetting forthe 
 cart and its contents; and at the Gouritz River there was fortunately a boat big 
 enough to take the cart over bodily, while the horses were able to swim across, 
 
 " Passing the Vette River and Kafirkuils River which were just fordable, 
 the party hastened to cross the Heidelberg River, that they might reach 
 without delay the Duivenhok's River, which they had heard was just 
 passable. But it proved quite otherwise. The post cart was on the bank, 
 and every effort was being made to get it across. The mail bags were put 
 into a boat and conveyed safely over, and the cart was floated across, with 
 the aid of casks and a tow line hauled by a number of people on the other 
 side. The stream was still very strong, and Mr Molteno not being on Her 
 Majesty's service deemed it prudent to wait until the next day. He then 
 got over in precisely the same way as the post-cart had done, compelling 
 the horses to swim through the flood. From that point the journey was 
 without great adventure. The roads were everywhere cut up, as far as 
 Swellendam, beyond which the severe effects of the flood were not felt." 
 
 This may or it may not have been in the course of the cyclon. I think it 
 not impossible that it was. Be this as it may the whole of what has been 
 stated is suggestive of much that might be stated in regard to the loss of 
 property ; the risk of life occasioned by such torrents of rains ; the com- 
 pensation which is found in the fertility which is thus produced on farms 
 which are at other times sterile ; and the importance of measures for 
 retaining such waters when they fall. Such a rainfall had not occurred for 
 twenty years before, and all was allowed to run off to the sea, carrying 
 destruction and desolation with it in its course, while it might have been 
 to a great extent retained to clothe the fields with verdure and flowers and 
 fruit. But the point to which I direct attention at present is, that all that 
 water was in the atmosphere while that atmosphere was cloudless, trans- 
 parent, and clear ; and thus it supplies an indication of the vastness of the 
 water treasures which are stored up there. 
 
 It may be surmised that the proximity of Port Elizabeth to the sea may 
 have tended to increase the rainfall ; but so far as Georgetown at least the 
 rainfall was of a corresponding character, produced, it is maintained, not by 
 clouds carried thither by the wind, but formed there by the whirlwind. The 
 rain may have come previously from the sea, the great reservoir whither all 
 surplus water returns, but which is never the fuller because of the evapora- 
 tion from its surface. But though it may have come previously from the 
 sea, it was not spray but rain — it was not salt water but fresh, and it fell 
 from the sky,— that sky, a few days before, was, I doubt not, clear and 
 cloudless as is generally the sky in that sunny clime ; j^et from that sky 
 it came. _ And there it was, notwithstanding the clear transparent blue of 
 its hue, — if that blue were no itself the consequence of its presence and its 
 abundance there. 
 
 Within a year a similarly destructive rainfall occurred at Natal. Of this 
 the following details are given in the newspapers of the day : — " Durban 9th 
 Sept. 1868.— Since 'The Flood' of 1856, no disaster has befaUen'the 
 
AEIDITY AUD WATER SUPPLY. 236 
 
 Colony to compare with that which has has just befallen us from the same 
 cause. On Friday afternoon, the 28th ultimo, the rain began to fall, with 
 squalls from southwest, and continued throughout, almost without inter- 
 mission, until the forenoon of Monday, a space of about sixty-five hours. 
 During a great portion of this time, in fact from two p.m. on the Saturday, 
 the wind came from the south and southeast, from which quarter our 
 heaviest, although by no means most frequent, rains come. On the Monday 
 the clearing up was heralded by the wind going gradually round to the 
 northward of east, and by the breaking up of the clouds, showing blue sky. 
 On the morning of the first day the barometer stood at 29 90'7 ; on the 
 following day at 30'20, at which it continued on the third day ; the two 
 days following, when the storm was passing and past, indicating 30 10'5. 
 The rain which fell during the continuance at Merebank, Mr Lamport's 
 sugar plantation, amounted, as stated by that gentleman in an interesting 
 letter to the Mercury, to 17"11 inches. On Sunday the rising of the rivers, 
 and especially of the Umgeni, indicated that heavy rains had fallen in the 
 upper country as well as on the coast, and fears began to be entertained for 
 the safety of the bridges. At the Queen's Bridge on the Umgeni, about a 
 mile and a half from the sea, reeds, sugar-canes, trees, and at length two 
 little timber bridges from feeders of the main stream, were constantly being 
 carried down, and as the level of the water approached the girders of the 
 bridge, this debris began to be arrested and to accumulate. About mid- 
 night a large portion of the Queen's Bridge itself gave way, — how much 
 could not, of course, be known in the darkness and the storm ; and about 
 four A.M. the remainder was swept off. Daylight showed the approach on 
 the Durban side crumbling into the torrent, and a thousand feet distant, on 
 the further side of the roaring gulf, the extremities of the white handrails 
 were all that could be seen of the Queen's Bridge. Injuries to the railway 
 prevented trains running ; but as soon as the weather moderated many 
 persons from town went to witness the scene. I reached the spot about 
 midday. The water was then said to have fallen five feet, a statement I 
 saw some reason to doubt ; but the tops of three of the circular piers, and 
 a fragment of the roadway hanging down into the stream were all that was 
 then to be seen of the bridge. Far down the stream, towards the sea, in 
 more than one place, curled huge foaming waves, as if caused by portions 
 of the structure obstructing the channel it had so lately spanned. Alto- 
 gether, it was a grand and terrible sight. Through a gorge some thousand 
 or twelve hundred feet wide, with high precipitous banks clothed with wierd- 
 looking euphorbias aud other trees, hurried on the angry waters, discoloured 
 with the soil of many a hill and field over which they had been spreading 
 devastation. But a month before I had ridden along the low sandbank 
 which barred up the mouth of the river and made it discharge itself three 
 quarters of a mile to the northward. Now this had disappeared, flowed 
 over, it seemed, and thrust out by the headlong force of the torrent which 
 rapidly wore it down. But for an embankment placed across a narrow part 
 of a low-lying marsh on the landside of the sandhills known as the Bark- 
 beach Bush, the river would undoubtedly have poured down into the bay, 
 carrying, as in 1856, devastation into the very town of Durban. As it was, 
 the rainfall had been far too great to be carried ofi' by such drains as exist, 
 and much injury was done in some of the lower-lying parts of the town. A 
 large body of water, which could not be taken by one of the principal drains, 
 was dammed back by the embankment of the Pine Terrace extension of 
 
236 fiTDROLOGT OF SOUTH AFBIOA. 
 
 ftie railway; and had the rain continued but a few hours ionger, there is 
 much reason to believe the embankment must have yielded, carrying 
 devastation through the very heart of the town. 
 
 ■ " As it was, the damage done in the town, although serious, is far less 
 than was anticipated. But it is on the roads and bridges, and in the sugar 
 and cofifee plantations, and the smaller estates and farms, that the greatest 
 amount of damage has been done. For days the mails were stopped alto- 
 gether, or delayed ; and even now, a week after, intelligence has not yet 
 been received from some of the more remote parts "of the Colony. The 
 great Mulas Flat, extending from the head of the bay to the Isipingo, 
 fifteen miles distant, and to a considerable extent cultivated for sugar, was 
 under water, and much damage has been done, although the extent is not 
 yet tnown. The two Mulas bridges, the public one, and that to the Keunion 
 Estate, were carried off, and the river flows 2000 yards on the hither side of 
 its former channel. Lower down the coast, as well as up northward, similar 
 damage has been sustained both by individuals and by the community. Sudden 
 torrents and landslips have hurried acres of cane and coffee plants, with the 
 soil that bore them, down to the sea. Bridges have gone with them ; 
 yawning gullies have opened across the main roads, or rocks and masses of 
 earth from above have blocked them up. It is impossible, as yet at least, 
 to ' estimate at all accurately the extent of damage that has been done. 
 That to public works has been set down at about £50,000 ; while private 
 persons are variously estimated to have sustained an aggregate loss of 
 £50,000 to £100,000. Altogether, the calamity, widespread and vast as it 
 is, is probably less than was at first supposed, and the lower estimate may 
 turn out to be the more correct. The rainfall at Maritzburg, or the neigh- 
 bourhood, according to Dr Sutherland, was 12-75 inches, considerably less 
 than in the vicinity of Durban ; and in the direction of the counties of Klip 
 Eiver and Newcastle, it is not even said to have been excessive or more 
 than acceptable. No statement has yet appeared of the losses among the 
 stock and sheep-farmers in the upper country, but it will probably turn out 
 to be considerable wherever the rain has reached. 
 
 " The railway embankment near the Queen's Bridge was in two or three 
 places undgrmined and swept off; a bridge on the Point line destroyed, and the 
 line otherwise so injured as to put a stop to all traffic for a week. It is 
 now, however, resumed, although the repairs have net been quite completed. 
 
 " On the very day on the morning of which the Queen's Bridge was 
 destroyed, the Colonial Engineer, who happened to be in Durban, took 
 measures to have boats placed on the Umgeni near the site of the late 
 bridge. Thus the passenger traffic has not been interrupted even for a day. 
 On the day following Mr Paterson proceeded to Maritzburg to lay before the 
 Lieut.-Governor a plan for a temporary bridge, which could be got ready in 
 six weeks, so that the whole sugar-crop of Victoria county, now just begin- 
 ning to be got in, should suffer no unnecessary delay in being brought to 
 market. The Chamber of Agriculture promptly met, and passed resolu- 
 tions expressing their conviction that the planters would cheerfully pay a 
 toll to avoid the delay which must otherwise be sustained. 
 
 " I again visited the Umgeni on the seventh day alter the destruction of 
 the bridge. The river although greatly fallen — fallen, indeed, at that spot 
 to about its ordinary level — was still pouring an immense volume of water 
 at a rapid rate into the sea. The channel, which ten days ago was perhaps 
 barely twenty inches in depth, by scouring away of the sand, was now run- 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY. 237 
 
 iing twenty feet deep. Many hundreds, indeed thousands, of tons of rubbish 
 from the Government quarry, where stone for the "hsirbbur works was being 
 wrought, had been swept away down stream. ' On the same 'spot where I 
 had stood about a month before in the qudrry', a couple of hundred yards ' 
 from the edge of a softly-flowing' streaih, with' waving reeds and sedge, I' 
 now found myself on a cliff of rock, looking right down a swirling torrent' 
 thirty feet below. A spot across which I had then ridden was now on the 
 opposite side of the river, which had there added many acres of bare sand, 
 while on the other side where I was it had swept as many off into the ocean, 
 and now hurried along close under the steep wooded extremity at the Berea, in 
 one spot confined in a channel in a gorge barely sixty yards across, in another 
 widening out to nearly four hundred. Two sections or ledges of the bridge, 
 each of a hundred feet, lay in the stream ; a third, the northernmost, still 
 hung from its abutment ; the other foUr sections were nowhere to be seen. 
 On proceeding to the north of the river, I found it discharging itself right 
 out to sea, having scoured away the broad sandbank, while the opening to 
 the lagoon, through which it had lately flowed to the northward, was now 
 closed up. 
 
 " There has been much controversy as to the height to which the Umgeni 
 has risen as compared with the occasion of 1856, but no clear and 
 thoroughly reliable record appears to have been kept of the rise in either 
 case. In the papers of the day the flood of 1856 is stated to have risen 22' 
 feet above the previous level. But prior to that event the river had been 
 flowing in a channel only 208 feet in width, while since then it has been 
 much wider, filling the whole space of 700 feet spanned by the late 
 bridge. A rise of the same number of feet in so much wider a channel 
 would therefore indicate' a vastly greater rainfall. The amount of rain 
 which fell on the first two days of the flood in April 1856 is stated at 19 
 inches, and the total I'ainfall in four days at 27 inches ; but I feel very dis- 
 trustfuU of the accuracy of those figures. 
 
 "Eight years before, namely in April 1848, heavy floods had been 
 experienced, although not equal to those of 1856, and native tradition spoke 
 of other floods at the same season. People had therefore come to regard 
 April as the month when danger was to be apprehended from this cause. 
 Yet we have not been without warning in the month of August. Only three 
 years ago almost to a day, namely on the 24th of the month, heavy rain 
 fell, continuing with little intermission for three days, on which occasion the 
 Umgeni rose to within eighteen inches of the roadway of the Queen's 
 Bridge. It had not then been erected twelve months, for the day of its 
 destruction was only four years and eight days from that which witnessed 
 its formal opening. 
 
 " Amid all the disasters of these eventful last days there is one thing for 
 which we have to be greatly thankful, — the comparatively small number of 
 lives which have been lost. The only white man known to have perished is 
 a youth of the name of Barr, an only son, who, with two companions, 
 attempted to swim the river Umhloti, to his father's sugar mill. The other 
 two succeeded in getting across, but young Barr, although a good swimmer, 
 was carried off, and his body has not, I believe, yet been found. Of Coolies 
 and Kaffirs some six or eight are known to have perished. The Swedish 
 brig Vaeringer, the only vessel in the outer anchorage at the time, had a 
 narrow escape. She lost one anchor and dragged the other for upw'ards of 
 a mile until she got among the breakers not very far from the mouth of the 
 
236 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 Upigem, Whether the strong flow from the river enabled, her to hold thia 
 position, or whatever may have been the cause, she succeeded in weathering 
 out the storm, and after recovering the proper anchorage ground, has now 
 come happily inside. From the greatly increased cultivation within the 
 last twelve years the amount of damage done to crops, mills, and 
 country buildings generally is much greater than that sustained by the 
 Colony in 1856. On the other hand, the town buildings are now generally, 
 at least at Durban, of a much more substantial character than they were 
 in 1856." 
 
 Of a rainfall mentioned as occurring in April 1857, possibly the same as 
 is spoken of here as occurring in 1856, Dr Mann in a paper read before the 
 Royal Geographical Society, and printed in the society's journal of pro- 
 ceedings in 1867, gives the following particulars : — " It is said that 27 inches 
 of rain fell at Durban, and between 10 and 11 inches at Maritzburg, between 
 the fourteenth and sixteenth days of the month. I was not in the Colony 
 at the time, and cannot vouch for the accuracy of this estimate ; but at any 
 rate there is no doubt that the Umgeni River rose about 28 feet above ita 
 usual level near its mouth, and burst quite across the sand flats on which 
 Durban stands to the inner bay. The water was at one time within 12 feet 
 of the level of the principle street of the town. The Tongaati River rose 
 30 feet above its usual level. The Umvoti River rose 16 feet, and spread a 
 bed of sand 4 feet deep over the neighbouring pastures. Even the Maritz- 
 burg River, the Umsundusi, where the fall was so much less, carried away 
 its bridge, and cut off the communication between the city and the port for 
 several days. The sea beach was covered by trunks of trees and beds of 
 reeds brought down by the rivers. 200 dead oxen were counted on one 
 place on the beach, within a distance of 10 miles." 
 
 In the following year 1869, the Western Province was the scene of similar 
 torrents. The following is a notice taken from one of the local papers : — 
 "After a month of almost uninterrupted fine weather, on the 19th of June 
 rain began to descend in Capetown and neighbourhood, and continued to 
 pour down, in tropical fashion, almos,t without intermission till the night 
 of Wednesday the 30th, doing great injury to buildings in Capetown and 
 neighbourhood, and causing a serious accident on the Wellington railway. 
 To give our English readers some idea of the quantity of water falling from 
 the clouds upon us during the fortnight, Mr Blore, a meteorologist residing 
 a short distance from Capetown, but in a situation where, from various 
 causes, the temperature is more moist than in the town itself, reports that 
 from the 19th June, at one p.m., till the 29th June, at 4 p.m., the fall was 
 18-252 inches, giving an average of -075 inch per hour, and that during 
 eight hours of the 20th June 2-185 inches fell, being at the rate of -273 inch 
 per hour. The same gentleman also reports that the rainfall during the 
 past six months amounted to 33-890 inches, 31-951 of which fell during 
 May and June. Mr George Maclear, of the Royal Observatory, reports that 
 in the past half-year 20-179 inches have fallen, 17-51 inches being registered 
 for May and June. In another direction from Capetown, Mr J. J. Steytler, 
 of Sea Point, reports the quantity to have been 15-219 inches, 13-28 of 
 which fell in May and June. All the reports given agree that if May and 
 June be taken together, more rain has fallen this year than is recorded for 
 the same months in any previous year. If we take the first six months, 
 the rainfall has been greater than in any year since 1838." 
 
ABIDITT AND WATBB SUPPLY. 239 
 
 The rainfall varies greatly with locality in Capetown and its vicinity. 
 Mr Martin, resident in Capetown, gives the following as his observations : — 
 " Sirs, — I beg to forward the following account of rainfall at Rouwkoop 
 Place, upper end of Caledon Street, from the 1st January to the 30th June, 
 1.30 feet above the sea : — 
 
 0-330 inch. 
 
 February 
 March, 
 
 0-010 
 
 0-590 
 
 April, 
 
 May, 
 
 June, 
 
 1-795 
 
 7-465 
 
 7-495 
 
 17-685 „ 
 
 "The above measurements are from a gauge standing on a wall 18 feet 
 6 inches higher than another on the gi-ound about 70 feet distant, from 
 which I obtain at every rainfall an increase of 20 per cent. ; the total for 
 the past six months has been 21-222 inches. 
 
 " Taking the mean of our temperature for the last six months to be 66° 
 Fahrenheit, the daily evaporation, according to experiments by Mr Crichton, 
 of Glasgow, and Mr Dalton, from a space equal to the mean surface of the 
 large reservoir, Capetown, will be 27,947 gallons, or 5-8th inch in depth. 
 
 " With a vessel of 12 inches diameter, from constant observation, I record 
 90 inches evaporated, exclusive of rain-days, which, if added, will give as 
 near an approximation to Dalton's table as need be. I have, &c., 
 
 "Rouwkoop Place, 1st July 1869." " W. Maetin. 
 
 The destruction of property was considerable ; not the least remarkable 
 was the destruction of a railway bridge, in regard to which Mr Watson, the 
 general superintendent, wrote to a local paper, — " The accident seems to 
 have been caused by the embankment having become completely saturated 
 with water during the previous night. An immense quantity of rain had 
 fallen in that locality, and all the water courses were filled and overflowing. 
 The water on the mountain or upper side of the line runs for some distance 
 along the embankment before making its exit by the girder bridge at the 
 Wellington end of the hollow, and as the water appears to have reached a 
 great height against the railway, there is reason to believe that the portion 
 which gave way became gradually so thoroughly soaked and perforated by 
 the flood as to render it quite incapable of resisting the heavy pressure of a 
 passing train." 
 
 Two public trials arose out of this accident, one a criminal trial before the 
 Resident Magistrate at the Paarl, for culpable homicide, an accident to the 
 railway train under which the bridge gave way having been followed by 
 fatal consequences ; another, a trial before the Supreme Court for damages, 
 laid at £5000, sustained by one of the passengers ; and there were elicited 
 facts which were thus summarized by the Chief Justice in the delivery of 
 his judgement : — " The chasm in the railway was undoubtedly produced by 
 water which had accumulated on the upper side of the railway. The water 
 had come from the higher grounds on that side, and also from the Berg 
 River which flows on the lower side of the railway. The river had over- 
 flowed its banks and sent a volume of water to the upper side of the 
 railway, underneath a bridge of 24 feet span, called the Sandhills Brieve, 
 which was rattier less than a mile nearer Capetown than the scene of the 
 
240 HTDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 accident. This bridge, therefore, instead of relieving the railway from 
 water, helped on this ocnasion to increase the water which was coming from 
 , the higher lands. ThS" only exit for the water thus accumulating was 
 through a culvert of six feet span, situated between the Sandhills Bridge 
 and the scene of the accident, and by a bridge of twenty feet space on the 
 further or Wellington side of the site of the accident. The accident' 
 occurred within six chains, or about three hundred feet of this last 
 mentioned bridge, between that bridge and the culvert. When the train 
 passed the twenty, feet bridge on the morning of the 30th the water 
 was above the girders of the bridge, these being of open, not close, construc- 
 tion. The girders,, therefore, operated so far as to dam back the water, and 
 to allow only that to pass which would escape under the girders. As the 
 higher ground on the upper side of the railway converged towards the 
 railway, and met it at a point, a little beyond the twenty feet bridge on 
 the Wellington side of it, the accumulated water had got into a sort of 
 corner, from which what the bridge would not allow to pass could only 
 escape by the six-feet culvert I have mentioned. While waiting for this 
 escape the water seems to have worked its way through the railway at a 
 point, as I have before mentioned, between the culvert and the bridge, and 
 to have opened the chasm of at least thirty feet wide into which the train 
 fell. Several theories were suggested by the scientific witnesses to account 
 for the making of this chasm. One was that the embankment was made 
 of sandy jmaterial ; that the water while it was rising had saturated the 
 sand; that' the water rose till it flowed over the embankment through 
 the cross channels in the ballasting upon the top of the embankment; 
 that it then gradually cut its way through till it had opened a course 
 sufficiently large to give a force of current equal to carrying away the 
 extent of embankment which I have before mentioned. Another theory 
 treated the embankment as having sufficient clay mixed with the 
 sand to make it tenacious, and therefore of good material, provided 
 its sides, if exposed to the action of water, had been faced with clay or 
 stone. In other respects this theory coincided with the first I have men- 
 tioned. A third theory coincided 'with the second in regard to the goodness 
 of the material of which the embankment was composed, but suggested that 
 the accident was attributable to mole-holes in the embankment, which had 
 weakened it, and had allowed water to get entrance. In the view I take of 
 the case, I do not feel it necessary to consider which of these theories is the 
 more correct, neither do I consider it necessary to deal with another matter, 
 which occupied much attention during the evidence and much discussion at 
 the bar, — to wit, whether there had been sufficient proTision made at the 
 time the railway was constructed for carrying away the water which might 
 be expected to accumulate on its upper side. It seems that when the plans 
 for the railway were submitted to the Colonial Engineer, he thought the 
 water-way insufficient, and suggested that it should be increased, so as to 
 afi'ord at that part of the line a drainage of thirty-eight square feet ; that 
 this suggestion was carried out by making a water-way equal to fifty square 
 . feet, and by changing the line of the railway so as to make it pass along a 
 higher level than was originally contemplated. Notwithstanding this 
 apparent careful provision against the accumulation of water, the result has 
 ■shown that, although the water-way has been sufficient since the year 1862, 
 when the line was constructed, it has proved insufficient in the year 1869* 
 when, as seemed to be admitted, the fall of rain, within a given time, during 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY. 241 
 
 the night of the 30th June, from one to three o'clock, was greater than had 
 heen known for many years." 
 
 The fact to which attention is called is, that in connection with severe 
 and long-continued droughts there occur within the Colony occasionally 
 deluges of rain, working disaster and destruction even after every precaution 
 deemed necessary has been taken. 
 
 In the same year, at Beaufort West, a deluge of rain washed down a large 
 dam which had been erected by the municipality for the storage of water 
 for the supply of the inhabitants ; and in the year following the town was 
 flooded by the waters of the Gomka ; of this a correspondent writes : — 
 " This town was visjted on Monday, 7th instant, with a heavy rain, which 
 commenced in the afternoon, and continued without intermission during the 
 whole night. The river Gomka, on the one side, overflowed its banks, 
 carrying away the parapet walls constxucted for preventing its running into 
 the town. At the same time the Springfontein, on the other side of the 
 town, was fuU, and not having vent sufficient through the gap in the dam 
 made by the breakage some time since, both rivers flowed uncontrolled into 
 the town, flooded many houses, causing losses of a very considerable 
 extent, blocked up the water fuiTows, and left the streets in a deplorable 
 plight. The principal losers are Messrs P. J. Alport <fe Co., who had their 
 stores washed through by a body of water of about two feet, filling a large 
 underground cellar, containing quantities of bags, sugar, &c., and wetting a 
 large amount of goods of all descriptions. Many families had to fly from 
 their houses and take refuge with their neighbours." 
 
 In the next year, 1871, Victoria ' West was the scene of disaster. The 
 following is a summary of the details collected by the Gapetown Argue : 
 The beginning of the storm is thus described in a private letter : — " Above 
 the village, on the farm Patrysfontein, occupied by Mr Frans Hugo, 
 at 5 o'clock on the afternoon of the 27th February, heavy low thunder-clouds 
 were seen approaching, while the lower masses flashed vivid lightning, 
 accompanied by but little thunder. Clouds, as it were, of steam rolled in 
 volumes along the ground. An hour before sunset it got so dark that one 
 could scarcely see an object just in front of him, and rain in torrents began 
 to fall, accompanied by immense hailstones. About 8 o'clock Mr Hugo's 
 family heard a loud crash as if of falling iron in the sky. Mr Hugo on 
 opening the door exclaimed, ' Woman, let us fly ! ' And scarcely was she 
 outside with her children when on came a mountain of water which swept 
 away the whole of the buildings, so that scarcely a trace of them could 
 afterwards be found. But that was not the worst. Before they could get 
 away the flood came down, and poor Hugo had to see his wife and four 
 children swept away and drowning, himself barely escaping with the infant 
 in his arms. All his stock, big and little, was carried away and drowned. 
 The flood then took its course towards the village, and about 9 o'clock began 
 the work of destruction." 
 
 Of what took place in the village itself the following is a brief description 
 by one who was there : — " On Monday night, about 9 o'clock, rain com- 
 menced to fall, and at ten o'clock our whole village was flooded. I was 
 reading a newspaper in my bedroom. The next moment my wife heard a 
 scream and went out, but came running back, and cried out ' We will be 
 drowned.' A heavy knock then came at the window. I asked ' Who is 
 
 2a 
 
242 Hn)BOto&Y OF south afbioa. 
 
 there y The jeply was, 'Mrs Laws, let me in, we are drowmingi' We 
 threw open our French window which leads to our parlour, and the poor 
 woman rushed inside. It was awfal to- hear my children screaming, some- 
 times ' Father,' and sometimes ' Mother, we will be drowned — ^we will be 
 drowned.' Our s!^op stands very high — our stoep stands about five feet 
 higher than the opposite, which is the lower side of the street — ^which saved 
 us from the ruin. Now, what could we do ? The screams from the opposite 
 side of the street were something terrible, a,nd it was as dark as pitch. I 
 flew to the shop, put all the lamps I could lay my hands on in the window, 
 opened my shutters, and threw out all the light into the street. All that 
 could find their way to my stoep did so. The sight was most lamentable. 
 Bales of wool by the hundred floating down the middle of the street in the 
 flood. Door-frames, window-frames, roofs of houses, sheep, goats, mules, 
 and horses were like feathers in the water. You may imagine what it was 
 in the river which runs behind the houses and shops opposite me. They 
 screamed from the opposite side to throw a rope across. When Mrs Laws 
 opened her door the water rushed in. She screamed out to Mr Laws and 
 three other gentlemen that were sitting having a chat. She rushed across 
 to our place, which took her up to her knees, and before they got to the 
 door it was impossible for them to cross. Luckily, I had a coil of rope in 
 my back store; I got it out, and succeeded, with the assistance of Mr 
 Palgrave, who was drenched to the skin, in getting it across. He had been 
 through the water, up to his chest ; he worked like a nigger. By his contri- 
 vance we got the rope across. They made it fast to the rail above the door. 
 We held on tight, and all four succeeded in getting across safe. By this 
 time the back of the building had fallen, which leaves Mr Laws a heavy 
 loser, — a place that was all but finished. The opposite corner to Mr Laws 
 was still more distressing. Here lives a Mrs Dodds. I think the number 
 this evening was seven in the house, and with the rope we succeeded in 
 getting them all across ; but before getting them all across the whole of the 
 house fell in, barring a little piece of the front, which held on ; but a fine 
 young lady, eighteen years old, who was to be married the 15th of next 
 month, got struck on the forehead with a brick, which caused her death 
 about an hour after they got her across. Behind Mrs Dodds' place stood 
 that of John M'Donald, baker and butcher, close to the river. We con- 
 cluded they were both gone, — I mean his wife also, — as the building was 
 gone. But for a willow tree he planted in front of his house they would 
 have been washed away. When the bricks began to fall in they flew to the 
 tree, and when the water went down a little they got on the top of the 
 ruins. They had screamed till they were tired ; but nobody heard them 
 for the roar of the water. When the water fell enough to enable us to get 
 over to their place, we heard a voice from among the ruins, and found John 
 M'Donald and his wife almost in a state of nudity. They had only been in 
 bed a quarter of an hour when part of the place fell in. We got them across 
 to our place, and had them dressed at once. The next up the street was 
 Mr Smith, who had a very narrow escape of his life. I think he will save 
 the most of his stock, as his place fell in after the water fell. It has hurt 
 him very much ; not quite recovered yet. Mr Adams, his brother-in-law, 
 will be the heaviest loser in the village, as a great many houses belonging 
 to him are gone. Opposite this stands the Commercial Hotel, which had 
 three feet of water inside ; they are afraid to sleep in the place. I think it 
 will fall; The next place was Mr Jacobsohn's. The screama from both of 
 
AttlDtTT JJSD WATER BUFFLt. S48 
 
 them were terrible. They Btood on a table till the place be^n to fall in. 
 He is a heavy loser. He had about 400 bales waiting for transport. He 
 may get it all, but fancy some of it two or three miles off. Skins, you need 
 not look for them. Opposite is the magistrate's office ; aU their books and 
 papers are in an awful state. Mr Garcia, our worthy magistrate, also Mr 
 Rawstome and Mr Munnik, worked until they were actually worn out, 
 Eawstome and Munnik's landlady is gone, and everything they had. You 
 can hardly see the foundation of the house. Marcus and Mrs Armstrong 
 went down the river with her, holding fast to one another. TeU 
 Eisner and Lewis that Schoombom's place is completely gone, — in factj 
 part pf the foundation is away. Hanna and Hoffa will lose, I think, seven 
 or eight hundred pounds in wool and buildings. A farmer, called Frans 
 Hugo, living about six miles from the village, lost his wife and four chil- 
 dren, and his farmstead i& left the same as the veldt — bare. Mr A. L. 
 Devenish, three mUes from the village, has lost four hundred of his best 
 sheep, and a splendid dam he was making, which was supposed to cost 
 j£2000 when finished. As near as possible twenty-five houses have 
 completely gone. Up till six o'clock this evening (1st March), fifty-three 
 dead bodies have been discovered and buried ; but we are afraid we shall 
 hear of a great many more, as this river runs a long way." 
 
 On the same day similar destructive effects were produced by the rain- 
 fall near Oudtshoom. Of this a correspondent of the Cape Argus writes : — 
 " Not having as yet seen an account in any of the papers of a severe hail- 
 storm accompanied with torrents of rain, which was experienced on the 
 farm known by the name of ' Schoemanshoek,' at the entrance of the Cango 
 Poort, distant about ten miles from this village, on Monday, the 27th ult. 
 — the same day on which the calamity occured at Victoria West, — I send 
 you particulars of the storm. The weather looked gloomy on the date 
 mentioned; there were several heavy showers in this village, and dark 
 clouds appeared in the direction of the Cango. The Grobbelaars Eiver, on 
 the banks of which Oudtshoom is situated, was almost stagnant, but 
 swelled into a torrent towards evening, and almost became impassable. 
 Nothing, however, was known by the villagers of the hailstorm, or the 
 damage occasioned by it to the proprietors of the farm ' Schoemanshoek,' 
 until the following day. It appears that at about 2 o'clock p.m. it com- 
 menced to rain in torrents at ' Schoemanshoek,' accompanied with hail, which 
 lasted about an hour, and in that short space of time the whole of the 
 tabacco plantations, for which the above farm is celebrated, were completely 
 destroyed ; the greater portion of the crop, which was unusually fine, was 
 ready for gathering. The leaves were battered to pieces ; in fact, nothing 
 remained after the storm was over but the bare stalks. The storm was 
 confined to ' Schoemanshoek' only, and did not extend to the adjoining farms. 
 All the kloofs and gullies running down to the Grobbelaars River in a 
 remarkably short time became foaming torrents, and quite impassable while 
 the storm lasted. The watercourses on the farm were found, after the storm 
 had passed over, to be silted up with sand and stones ; there was a great rush 
 of water on the homestead between the houses of the several proprietors. 
 All the manure from the kraals was swept into the river, and the roads in 
 the locality were washed into deep chasms, so that traffic was stopped to 
 and from the Cango, until the farmers in a body turned out to repair damageis, 
 which was no easy task as regards the roads. With- respect tio tiie tobioco 
 
244 HTDROLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 their losses are very heavy. The following is a statement of the losses sus- 
 tained ; the estimate, I was assured by my informant, one of the Messrs 
 Sohoeman, whose statement may be relied on, is considerably below the 
 mark: — H. P. Schoeman, 3000 lb, tobacco; L. M. Schoeman, 7000 lb. do.; 
 Estate late P. J. Schoeman.' 3000 lb. do. ; H. S. N. Schoeman, 4000 lb. do. ; 
 H. S. Schoeman, 7000 lb. do. ; P. Schoeman, 2000 lb. do. ; Jan Schoeman, 
 2000 lb. do. ; Jacs Schoeman, 2000 lb. do. ; Jan Schoeman and Jacob van 
 Antwerp, 2000 lb. do. ; Christoffel Spies, 3000 lb. do.— total, 35,000 lb. do. 
 Reckoning the price of the tobacco at 5d per lb., the losses sustained by 
 the proprietors of the farm Schoemanshoek will reach about ,£725." 
 
 In the Cape Argus of 4th June 1872 it is mentioned : — " Heavy rains 
 have fallen in all parts of the Colony. In Capetown they caused a flood 
 which for a time turned several of the streets into rivers. Many houses 
 and stores had water in them to the depth of four feet." 
 
 Such details seem to teU that it is not want of rain which is the cause or 
 occasion of the drought. They seem to tell that " it never rains but it 
 pours." They remind one of what has been written in regard to St. 
 Swithin, of popular fame ; and of what has been told of St. Dunstan's 
 brother Peter of the Inglesby legends, — rain, rain, raining as if it would 
 never cease. And they, remind one of the feeling of the ancient mariner, — 
 sea, sea, sea, everywhere sea, and not a drop to allay his thirst. Water, 
 water, water, everywhere water, and not a hundredth part to be retained to 
 fertilize the ground ; all rushing in torrents to the main, where there 
 is no lack. 
 
 Whatever may be the aridity of South Africa there is moisture in the 
 atmosphere, for all this superabundance of water has fallen thence, and 
 fallen from what was, shortly before the collision and intermingling of aerial 
 currents preceding the down-pour, a cloudless sky. 
 
 I had almost said scarcely does a newspaper come to me from the Cape 
 in which mention is not made of drought. While some of the preceding 
 pages were passing through the press I have received several. In one of 
 these I read : — " A gentleman who has very recently travelled from Murrays- 
 burg to GraafT-Reinet, writes to a contemporay : — ' You can form no idea of 
 the dreadful state of the country between this (Graaff-Eeinet) andMurrays- 
 burg ; water is failing ; pasturage is completely dried up, and covered with 
 locusts. At Murraysburg I paid two shillings a bundle for forage. If we 
 don't get rain soon I don't know what will become of us.' ' 
 
 " A Fraserburg correspondent, writing on the 1 9th inst., [Nov. 1874] says : 
 — ' While I write, the rain is coming down in torrents — a blessing which 
 we have not enjoyed here for the last eight months. That scourge to the 
 country, the spring-bucks, are said to be in the neighbourhood in countless 
 numbers.' " These animals are generally driven into the Colony by the 
 lack of water and of pasturage in districts beyond. 
 
 The same post which brought the newspaper from which these quotations 
 have been made, brought me a letter from the District Surgeon of Fraser- 
 burg, the place mentioned, in which he writes, amongst other things, of a 
 journey of about a hundred miles which he made to visit a patient : — " We 
 left about mid-day, pushed slowly on with weak, poor horses, for the whole 
 land Buffers from drought, and all the cattle are poor and dying, the 
 
.AEIDITY AND WATEE SUPPLY. 245 
 
 waters giving up, and general distress impending. We pushed on all night 
 [with changes of horses] as that is much cooler for the horses, and the next 
 day before sunset wc reached pur destination." Thirty-two hours of con- 
 tinuous travelling for a journey of one hundred miles ! He goes on to say : 
 — " I have been writing this morning since before sunrise and a fine 
 
 thunderstorm has been coming in from the north. Little 's morning 
 
 greeting was, ' Kind God, making the tunder and send the nice rain.' Thus 
 you see how early God's blessings are appropriated here ! This is indeed a 
 dry and thirsty land, and everyone in the village and neighbourhood is 
 anxiously, hopingly watching the clouds." 
 
 In another part of the newspaper I have cited is a communication from a 
 correspondent at Burghersdorp, in which is said : — " We had a heavy thunder- 
 storm on Saturday (7th November), accompanied with great hailstones, as 
 large as hens' eggs, which caused considerable damage amongst the glass, 
 especially the windows of the Masonic Lodge. Most of the blue gums here 
 have a very peculiar appearance. The heavy frosts during the winter killed 
 aU the foliage, and many are now without leaves. They are, however, 
 shooting out round about the stem and branches, which at a distance has 
 the appearance of immense clusters of bees. Strange to say, one or two in 
 the town escaped, and have not suffered any injury. The Port Jackson 
 willows are all dead ; the blackwood trees also. Fruit will be scarce this 
 season. Our market is badly supplied — some mornings not a single thing, 
 not even an egg ! Butter, when there is any, 4s 6d per lb. The country 
 round about is as dry as a chip, the hiUs bare and brown." 
 
 Any other newspaper taken at random at any other time would probably 
 have been found to contain similar accounts of drought. But in these 
 notices of drought there are, as probably would also be found to be the 
 ease in notices of the state of the weather elsewhere, at some other time, 
 references to rain ; and to form a correct conception of the state of things 
 to be remedied to this also attention must be given. 
 
 The beginning of November is, at the Cape, the beginning of summer. 
 HaU in summer is not unknown elsewhere in connection with thunderstorms, 
 but to some who reside elsewhere it may be supposed that a description of 
 " great hailstones, as large a hens' eggs," must be an exaggeration. I can- 
 not say it is not, but I have no reason to suppose it is ; and from what I 
 have seen and learned in the district of Burghersdorp I am led to accept the 
 statement as correct. 
 
 When at the Cape, in travelling from King Williamstown to Burghers- 
 dorp, I visited Queenstown, the principal town of an adjoining district, about 
 the same season of the year, a little later, with summer more advanced, and 
 I was told that the week before there had been there a heavy fall of snow ; 
 stores, banks, and public offices were closed that the men of business, clerks 
 and principals alike, might have the sport of snowballing. I there heard of 
 a storm of hail which, falling in a slanting direction, had cut off the cobbs 
 of Indian corn almost as regularly, over extensive plots, as if it had been 
 done with a hedgebill. And on the same journey, near Eiversdale, I saw a 
 house the wall of which was defaced with numerous marks like such as 
 might be made with a pick-axe, and was told it was the effect of a hail- 
 storm, or storm of ice, which had occurred some six weeks before. And 
 large as the hailstones falling at Burghersdorp were said to be, in this there 
 is nothing incredible. 
 
546 HYDROLOGY OP BOtJTH AF&IOA. 
 
 Of men of science no one stands higher in general reputation at the Cape 
 than does Sir John Herschel. On the subject of hail he wrote : — " In a 
 balloon ascent, performed by Messrs Green, Bust, and Spencer, on Septem- 
 ber 4th, 1838, after mounting to an altitude of 19,185 feet, during which 
 ascent the thermometer, at 12,000 feet, marked 46° Fahrenheit, they found 
 on descending again to the last mentioned level a temperature of 22° 
 Fahrenheit only, or 24° colder than in their ascent. At the same time 
 they found there a heavy fall of snow in progress. It is evident that this 
 arose from the condensation of vapour at that level, and that, from the 
 intrusion of some current, a mass of intensely cold air had been introduced, 
 which, finding vapour near saturation, converted it into snow. It is equally 
 evident that had the latter condition prevailed not at the level in question, 
 but at a somewhat higher, where the condensation might have been into 
 rain very near freezing point, the drops in descending would have been 
 frozen solid and fallen as hail. It might have been so equally, had the 
 precipitation been so copious as to allow the coalescence of a great number 
 of minute particles in a nascent state into drops frozen together instanter, 
 since there is good reason to believe that the solid forms is never assumed 
 without transition through the liquid, however momentary. 
 
 " The generation of hail seems always to depend on some very sudden 
 introduction of an extremely cold current of air into the bosom of a 
 quiescent, nearly saturated mass. Hail-storms are always purely local 
 phenomena, and never last long. They often mark their course by linear 
 tracks of devastation of great length and very small breadth. In the hail- 
 storm of July 13th, 1788, which passed across France from south to north, 
 two such tracks were marked, of 175 and 200 leagues in length respectively, 
 parallel to each other, the one four leagues broad, the other two, and 
 separated by a track five leagues in breadth, in which only rain fell. A 
 similar character is very common, though not to such an extent. Such 
 linear hail-storms are always attended with violent wind, sudden depression 
 of the barometer, indicating a great commotion in the air, and probably 
 mingling of saturated masses of very different temperature. To attribute 
 to haU, as is often done, an electrical origin, because hail is often accompanied 
 with thunder and lightning (' hailstones and- coals of fire '), seems to us to 
 be putting the effect for the cause. 
 
 "Hail may be very properly distinguished into single hailstones and 
 aggregated masses. Single stones have generally a crystalline structure, 
 radiating from a centre, if large forming spherical, oval, or rounded masses, 
 often marked out (on making a section) into concentric layers, like the 
 rings in the section of a branch. They fall from the size of small peas to 
 that of an egg, an orange, or a man's head, and weighing from a few grains 
 up to fourteen pounds and upwards. Dr Thomson, in his Introduction to 
 Meteorology, a work in which the reader will find assembled a most extrac 
 ordinary collection of the recorded marvels of meteorology, gives many 
 instances of the fall of large hailstones. One described by Capt. Delcrosse, 
 as having fallen at Bagoniere, July 4, 1819, fifteen inches in circumference, 
 had a beautiful radiated stmcture marking it as a single stone, formed in 
 passing through two distinct regions of condensation. Dr Buist stated to 
 the Bombay Geographical Society that in India the hailstones are from 
 five to twenty times larger than those in England, often weighing from six 
 ounces to a pound, seldom less than walnuts, often that of oranges ! These 
 storms are almost always accompanied by violent wini and raiuj thunder 
 
AMDITT AKTD WATEB StJPPLT. 2*7 
 
 and lightming, and are frequent in the delta of the Ganges, especially in the 
 low coimtrjr within fifty miles of the Bay of Bengal. 
 
 " Great haU-storms are often preceded by a loud clattering and clashing , 
 Bound, indicating the hurling together of masses of ice in the air. . The 
 recent experiments of Professor Tyndall, in the re-uniting of broken ice by 
 ' regelation,' or a sort of welding, fully explains the formation, under such 
 circumstances, of large masses of ice of irregular forms in this aerial 
 conflict. Such are recorded to have fallen of almost fabulous magnitude. 
 In Candeisch, in 1826, in a hail-storm which perforated the roofs of houses 
 like small cannon-shot, a mass fell which took some days to melt, and must 
 have weighed more than a hundred-weight. — (Malet)'. On May 8, 1832, a 
 mass fell in Hungary a jard in length, and nearly two feet in thickness. — 
 (Thomson). And if it be true, as stated in the Bosshire Advertiser in 1849, 
 that a block of irregular shape, nearly twenty feet in circumference, fell in 
 August of that year on the estate of Mr Moffat, of Ord, immediately after 
 an extraordinarily loud peal of thunder, Heyne's relation of a hailstone as 
 large as an elephant, at Seringapatam, in the reign of Tippoo Sultan, may 
 perhaps find believers. The Rosshire mass is stated to have been composed 
 of lozenge-shaped pieces, one to three inches in size, firmly congealed 
 together." 
 
 I have before me the IntrodiLction to Meteorology by Dr D. P. Thomson, 
 a work published in Edinburgh in 1849. I have read the extraordinary 
 collection of details to which Sir John Herschel refers, with the statement 
 of the authorities upon which the details of extraordinary hail-storms are 
 given, and I consider no one after doing so would see anything incredible in 
 the statement sent from Burghersdorp. 
 
 According to views advanced by Espy, a distinguished American meteor- 
 ologist, the two parallel lines along which the hail-storm advanced in the 
 case mentioned by Sir John Herschel can be satisfactorily accounted for. 
 According to one of the laws regulating storms, many of these advance, as 
 does a wheel, rotating and progressing horizontally — as a wheel does verti- 
 cally in advancing along a road — as is made visible in a small advancing 
 whirlwind of dust, or leaves, or straw, or chaff. The cyclon, a whirlwind of 
 such extent as to create a storm, is fed with air as it advances; this, 
 raised to a great height, expands, cools, precipitates the moisture it contained, 
 and throws this off in a frozen state — as does a twirled wet mop throw off 
 drops of water, — and by .gravitation it falls. As the rotating whirlwind 
 advances the motion of the air forming the forefront will cross the breadth 
 of the circle from left to right, or from right to left, as the case may be; 
 the air forming the rear will cross the breadth of the circle in the opposite 
 direction, and scatter the hailstone or rain over the whole breadth traversed 
 in two showers, minutes, hours, or days apart ; but at the sides the wind 
 blows in but one direction on the right of the circle, and in one direction, 
 the opposite of this, on the other, and along the lines followed by these the 
 hail or rain falls continuously in greater abundance. 
 
 Of Natal Dr Mann writes in a paper read before the Eoyal Geographical 
 Society, and published in their journal for 1867, — "Very heavy hail- 
 storms occasionally happen in connection with thunder-storms. The hail 
 for the most part sweeps on in the midst of a torrent, a distinct drone or 
 humming is heard to herald its approach for one minute, or even two minutes, 
 before it arrives. Hailstones as large as pigeons' eggs are sometimes seen ; 
 massea of ice weighing three-quarters of a pound have, in rare iuataaces, 
 
248 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 been noticed. The fall of the hail is always limited to a very narfow zone. 
 The path of the hail-storm is accurately marked out over the country by a 
 long narrow line of devastation." 
 
 And in a letter from Natal by Mr Dunn, a geologist there, on a special 
 exploratory expedition to the Transvall, for which he was now about to 
 leave, are given the following details of a hail-storm there witnessed by 
 him: — " Pietermaritzburg, 18th April 1874. — The climate here is some- 
 thing out of the ordinary run, if yesterday is a sample of it j for we then' 
 witnessed one of the most extraordinary hail-storms I have ever even read 
 of, and I am sure even you would think I am romancing unless I assure you 
 to the contrary. 
 
 "Yesterday afternoon, about 4.25 p.m., I was walking with a friend up 
 
 Street when suddenly the wind — such an usual precirrsor of storms — 
 
 began to blow the dust about ; at the same time I observed that the S.W. 
 portion of the sky was filled with an exceedingly black cloud, contracting 
 upwards to a point. Presently a few drops fell, then heavier ones, and 
 then solitary great lumps of ice. On the sigTit of these we dashed under 
 an iron verandah, and none too soon. A loud rushing sound came from the 
 S.W., which rapidly became more distinct, and then suddenly the most 
 terrific display took place of Heaven's artillery. Hailstones poured down 
 with , great violence and rapidity ; liberally mingled with the stones were 
 great masses of ice of very irregular forms. The hailstones were seldom 
 less than one inch in diameter ; the average was from one and a half to two 
 inches in diameter. These were of very regular spherical form, and con- 
 sisted of a nucleus of white snow, with an envelope of hard transparent ice. 
 Sometimes they presented when broken through a concentric arrangement 
 of zones, alternately white and opaque and transparent. 
 
 " The irregular masses were formed of a nucleus generally longer in one 
 direction than the others, from two to four inches in diameter ; projecting 
 all over were stalactites, each one about the thickness of a little finger, and 
 presenting when broken across an agate-like structure, as though segrega- 
 tion had built them up. Of these masses I weighed a few with the 
 following results : Three weighed over 8 oz., two over 6 oz., and one over 
 4 oz. The last, which was the largest, I found myself, and it was weighed 
 sometime after the storm was over. Those below were weighed by others, 
 but I saw some, and know the otliers are right from the parties who took 
 the weights. One weighed 7J oz., one 8 oz., and one 6 oz. This last was 
 weighed fully fifteen minutes after the storm had ceased, and it had suflFered 
 much from melting. It was an irregular mass, with projections all over it. 
 The storm raged with fury for seven or eiglit minutes, the great lumps 
 could be distinguished as they descended, and then as they fell on the road 
 they broke into fragments, scattering all around. In about two minutes 
 from the commencement the whole road was completely covered, and 
 appeared as though covered with snow. 
 
 " The hail as it came down smashed the tiles in a terrible manner ; pieces 
 as they were broken ofi' ran down the roof into the road, while the thuds of 
 the stones against the galvanized iron threatened to destroy even it. 
 Ground beneath trees was strewn with severed twigs. 
 
 " On looking round afterwards the damage was enormous. On many 
 roofs fully half the tiles were broken, not merely cracked, but very 
 frequently -the masses went right through into the' houses. None have 
 escaped. Fortunately for windows there was no wind, or the damage 
 
ABIDITT AND WATER SUPPLY. 249 
 
 would have been much heavier. Many of the corrugated iron roofs are 
 dented all over, and have a pock-marked aspect, while some corrugated iron 
 roofs are completely riddled, the stones went rigM through, as though they 
 had but paper to encounter. I have made a point of examining the iron 
 roofs, and therefore can vouch for the above. The mischief done will not 
 be covered by £2000, or anything like that sum. 
 
 " Soon after the downpour ceased the drains were running swiftly with 
 water ; most had disappeared by dark." 
 
 This narrative is in keeping with the communication from Burghersdorp 
 which I have cited ; and all of the details given by Dr Mann are in accord- 
 ance with what has been stated above, the parallel line of hail or rain, 
 corresponding to the long narrow line of devastation mentioned by him, 
 may have been ten or a hundred miles, or less or more, to the right or to 
 the left of it. With fuller details, this and much more in regard to any 
 such case could be determined. But all goes to show that there is moisture 
 in the atmosphere, that it is not only not absolutely devoid of moisture, but 
 the quantity of moisture suspended in it is absolutely great — a fact of which 
 the occasional flooding of the country by rainfall and overflowing rivers 
 thus fed supplies additional, and it may be more satisfactory, evidence. 
 
 The communications from the midland districts, from Fraserburg, and from 
 Burghersdorp, I have quoted from a Cape paper published towards the end 
 of November of last year [1874], all tell of drought, of severe and long- 
 continued drought, but of a promise of rain. A newspaper received by the 
 next mail contained the following announcement, which showed that the 
 hopes awakened had not been disappointed : — " Breaking up of the 
 Drought. — The Colesberg paper of the 20th ult. says, — On Friday 
 evening of last week, a heavy thunder-storm burst over this neighbourhood 
 and extended for a considerable distance towards and along the Orange 
 Rivef. On the following day heavy rain again fell. On Sunday the 
 weather was fine, but heavy rain fell on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and 
 Thursday. The heaviest and longest down-pour occurred on Wednesday 
 afternoon, when rain continued to fall during some seven hours. We are 
 glad to learn the rain has extended far and wide, and that there is now 
 every reason to believe that a favourable season has set in both for stock 
 farmers and agriculturists, to which the greatest drawback will be the 
 locusts, countless swarms of voetgangers being reported in all directions. 
 Here the grass is growing rapidly, and, unless destroyed by locusts, will 
 soon be in fine condition." 
 
 But it was the old story over again — after a drought a deluge ! The 
 same paper contained the following : — " The following extract from a 
 private letter, dated Jansenville, 26th ult,, has been kindly handed to us 
 for publication : — On Monday a severe thunder-storm, accompanied by 
 smart showers of rain, passed over the village, and the whole sky in the 
 direction of Graafi'-Reinet presented an appearance as dark as night, giving 
 evidence that no ordinary storm was being experienced in that quarter. 
 During the whole of Tuesday it continued to pour almost incessantly, and 
 on Wednesday morning, at three a.m., the Sunday's River came down with 
 a rush never before experienced within the recollection of the oldest 
 inhabitant. The noise was like distant thunder, but quite near enough to 
 make things uncomfortable. By six a.m. the river, which for many months 
 past could have been crossed without wetting one's feet, was now running 
 
 2h 
 
250 HTDHOIOGY OF SOUTH APRIOA. 
 
 mountains high, and was still rapidly rising. By ten o'clopk it began, to 
 overflow, and the width of the water at the place where the Jansenvilie 
 bridge is being constructed was 250 yards or more. Large trees floated 
 down like so many pieces of cork, and bales of wool, pigs, sheep, oat 
 sheaves, and pieces of fencing, all came down in quick succession. The 
 lower parts of the gardens at the north top of the village were aU covered 
 with water, amongst others, that of our worthy resident magistrate. At 
 one time it was feared that the barracks occupied by the immigrants con- 
 structing the bridge would have been flooded, the water having come to 
 within a few feet of their houses, and orders had been given to be ready for 
 any emergency. Fortunately the flood subsided towards the evening, and 
 the inhabitants of Jansenvilie returned to their beds satisfied that for, the 
 present there is no necessity for removing on to the numerous hiUs which 
 surround the village. As I write this it ' is still raining, but all fear of a 
 flood is over. The box in which the mails are conveyed across the river has 
 been washed away, and I have no idea when this may reach you. Notwith- 
 standing the flood, the bridge works stood the test well, and no damage has 
 been done to any part of the works." 
 
 The Cradoch Register, of Nov. 27th, says, — " Yesterday intelligence was 
 received in town of a sad case of drowning in a small sloot between Blauw- 
 hoogte and Plankfontein Poort, about eight miles from Cradock, on the 
 Tarkastad road. The particulars are as follows : — On the previous day 
 (Monday) four Dutch farmers, named Jan Coetzer, Barend de Lange, 
 Andries de Lange, and P. Jordaan, left Cradock for their homes. On 
 arriving at the sloot in question, which is deep and narrow, they found it 
 very full. Jan Coetzer started iirst and got through safely. He then 
 called to the others to wait and he would drive back his horse, which is a 
 strong animal and accustomed to water, and they could use it in turn. 
 They took no heed of the offer, however, but all plunged into the stream, 
 and were all in a moment swept down by the force of the current. Two of 
 them — Barend de Lange and his companion, Piet Jordaan, scrambled out 
 by means of some bushes. The three men then ran down the banks in hopes 
 of saving Andries, who could be seen for a while struggling in the water. 
 Unfortunately, after they had followed the poor man for about 450 yards, 
 they saw him disappear over a steep descent in the stream, and there can be 
 no doubt but that the unfortunate man was drowned. They followed the 
 course of the stream to where it joins the Tarka Eiver, but were unable to 
 find any traces of him. The brother of the drowned man suffered a hea^y 
 pecuniary loss by the accident, for on reaching firm ground he found that 
 by some means or other a courier bag, which he had slung around him, 
 containing £200 in gold and silver and £100 in notes, had been torn from 
 the straps and was nowhere to be seen. The deceased was about thirty 
 years of age, and leaves a wife and three children to mourn their loss. 
 
 " We hear also that Mr Gert Venter (son of Mr Field-Cornet Venter) had 
 a very narrow escape on the same day. He was crossing a drift that wns 
 swoUeu ,with the rains, when he was swept from his horse. ?>v oTeat ';-ood 
 luck he and the horse managed to scramble out." 
 
 These notices were only, like those which have been already cited, the 
 precursors of others of greater moment which were to follow. In anotlier 
 paper received by the same mail it was stated, — " In the Eastern province 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY. 2S1 
 
 the rains have been very heavy, and the damage to the pubhc works is 
 estipiated at £350,000. Telegraphic communication east of Algia Bay was 
 stopped, the poleshaVihg been washed away." 
 
 •From another paper I cite the following : — " There is something not 
 merely exceptionally, but extremely sensational, in the telegram which we 
 piiblish to-day. The bridges reported as washed down by the recent floods, 
 and the damages resulting therefrom, cannot be estimated at muchi less 
 than £300,000 ! There are the Klaas Smit Eiver, near Queen's Town, 
 gone ; the Koonap Eiver Bridge, ditto ; the Carlisle Bridge over the Fish 
 River, ditto ; the Fort Brown, also over the Fish River, ditto, though the 
 piers may still be available ; the Kookhuis Bridge, the Tarka Bridge, the 
 Cradock Bridge, with the new Buffalo Bridge damaged at King William's 
 Town, and the Port Beaufort Bridge, injured, though now being repaired, 
 across the Kat River. In addition to this. Fort Beaufort itself has been to 
 a considerable extent destroyed by floods. Alice has been more than half 
 under water, from the small neighbouring stream of the Chumie ; and lives 
 were saved only by the pluck of the inhabitants. The Committee's Drift 
 Bridge, in course of buiding, was forty-five feet under water, and quite 
 swept away. On the principle that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, 
 or an ill flood that sweeps nobody fortune, we find that at East London the 
 bar has been swept quite clear, and the Florence was able to discharge her 
 cargo inside. But, per contra, there were some eight wrecks, more or 
 less, outside." 
 
 The Friend of the Free State, of 26th November, gives the following 
 details of what occurred there : — "From 4.30 a.m. till noon, on the 24:th 
 instant, the rain descended unceasingly and literally in cascades. The 
 aocoriipanying thunder and lightning roared and gleamed at intervals 
 during the lengthened period of seven and a half hours. The first intima- 
 tion we had of the unparalleled nature of the down-pour was the tidings 
 that our big dam, which had been completely empty for several months, 
 was filled to overflowing, and that, moreover, 2000 square yards of the flats 
 beyond it were submerged. What made this the more surprising was that 
 thousands of loads of mud had recently been removed from the bed of the 
 dam, which was thereby very level, capable of holding at the deepest part 
 upwards of thirteen feet of water. From 8.30 a.m. the rain put on a spurt, 
 dirfing which period the water was precipitated to the ground in one solid, 
 uiibroken sheet. The effect of this was to cause Bluim Spruit, which had 
 already been running like mad, and roaring like a thousand bulls of Bashan, 
 to go altogether beside itself; it broke bounds and continued to rise, and 
 to rise, till it rose to an unprecedented height, at least so our authority 
 the oldest inhabitant afiSrms, and it is not for us to impeach his word." 
 ' ' Next, it was reported that the Spruit had burst barriers intended to pre- 
 vent its destroying the fountain ; and shortly thereafter that the bridge in 
 Green Street was swept away in sight of scores of spectators who had lined 
 the banks of the raging torrent. " Then a horseman came tearing up and 
 announced that the bridge in Fraser Street had taken to the water as 
 
 naturally as a duck, and was sailling away beautifully to no one knows 
 
 where. All eyes were now intently fixed on the only remaining bridge, 
 that in Church Street. Presently the shout arose, ' She's gone,' and 
 shortly afterwards she parted in the middle and sailed down the stream as 
 saucily as ever did the Arethusa, \yhich called forth tears from some of thb 
 
252 HTDBOLOGT OP SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 spectators. Meanwhile the incorrigible Spruit continued to swell in a 
 most alarming manner. SeTeral houses were one after another surrounded 
 by water, and suffered considerable damage. One of these, the dispensary 
 of Dr Keillor, which, says the report, " was alike a credit to himself and 
 an ornament to the town, is internally a heap of ruins. The water gained 
 access to the cellar by forcing a hole through the back-wall facing the 
 Spruit, and the disastrous effects of this fissure was to cause the ilooring 
 above the cellar to give way, and then down came partition walls and 
 shelving with a tremendous crash, smashing the bottles containing the 
 doctor's drugs and chemicals to shivereens. It was a piteous sight to 
 behold. The place where order and regularity, cleanliness and good taste, 
 reigned supreme but a moment previously was, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 converted into a scene of inextricable and utter wreck. While the events 
 we have been depicting were transpiring. Fountain Street became the bed 
 of a roaring boiling torrent, and great fears were entertained for the inmates 
 of houses " — which are specified. In one of these " the women and children 
 were removed from their perilous position, but not before the water had 
 attained a depth of two or three feet " in the houses spoken of ; and many 
 such minor details are given. The large dam, which had been repaired 
 some time before, stood its ground, but the park dam succumbed. Happily 
 no lives were lost. 
 
 Such, in regard to water supply, is South Africa within and beyond the 
 regions colonized by Europeans ! Much that I have seen of it has reminded 
 me of a description I got in America, from a Kansas man, of the state of 
 Kansas as one frequently given of that state. It is said to be the richest 
 and the poorest, the hottest and the coldest, the wettest and the driest 
 state in the Union, in America, or in the world ! 
 
 Similar contrasts may be seen in South Africa : diamonds and rubies, and 
 copper and gold in some districts, but some of these so devoid of vegetation 
 as to recall, by the appearance they present, a remark of John Campbell, 
 cited by Moffat, and well remembered by his few surviving friends, ' Hech, 
 sirs, it would take a good pair of spectacles to see a blade of grass here ;' 
 vineyards and orchards in one district, others, heard by, covered with the 
 rhinoster bush, or other plants as profitless ; districts covered with waving 
 corn, others with arid sand j spots in these, to which water is conveyed, 
 yielding crops a hundred fold in quantity to the seed sown, and all around 
 a barren waste. Livingstone tells of the heat experienced at Kolobeng : I 
 have suffered more from cold in South Africa than I ever did during a 
 residence of seven years in Eussia. There are districts flooded with waters, 
 as was found to be the case by Livingstone and Stanley, and districts 
 dry as Livingstone found Kolobeng to be, and as that in which Mr Helmore 
 and his family perished. 
 
 Within the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope there are rains and torrents 
 such as have been described and referred to, and, as often it happens within 
 an hour or two after torrents of rain the sky is cloudless and serene, so, 
 frequently within a month or two after, all is as arid as before ; and the 
 traveller listening to details of what had happened hears them with a 
 feeling of incredvdity and a disposition to ascribe much of what he hears to 
 a fervid fancy, and to liken much of what he heai's to what Moffat tells of 
 his experience in his first journey to Griqua Town of visions of water — ^but 
 vlsionB of water which had no corresponding existence. The passage I shall 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUPPLY. 263 
 
 giro entire, as a picture of the aridity which prevails, notwithstanding the 
 abundance of moisture in the atmosphere, and the occasional deluge and 
 torrent by which it is carried off to the sea : — 
 
 "On the seventh day (says he)we reached thatpart of the river called Quis or 
 Kwees, from which we intended to go in a direct course to Griqua Town, 
 leaving the Orange Eiver far to the right. We had previously made 
 inquiries about the country which lay between ; some said there was water ; 
 others, that we should find none. We had eaten a small portion of meat 
 that morning, reserving only enough for one single meal, lest we should get 
 no more, and drank freely of water, to keep the stomach distended, and felt 
 tolerably comfortable. At night we came to some old huts, where were 
 remains of tobacco gardens, which had been watered with wooden vessels 
 from the adjoining river. We spent the evening in one of these huts ; 
 though, from certain holes for ingress and egress, it was evidently a 
 domicile for hyenas and other beasts of prey. We had scarcely ended our 
 evening song of praise to Him whose watchful care had guided and pre- 
 served us through the day, when the distant and dolorous howls of the hyena, 
 and the no less inharmonious jabbering of the jackal, announced the kind of 
 company with which we were to spend the night ; while, from the river, the 
 hippopotami kept up a blowing and snorting chorus. Our sleep was 
 anything but sweet. On the addition of the dismal notes of the hooting 
 owl, one of our men remarked, ' We want only the lion's roar to complete 
 the music of the desert.' ' Were they as sleepy and tired as I am,' said 
 another, 'they would find something else to do.' In the morning we 
 found that some of these night scavengers had approached very near the 
 door of our hut. 
 
 " Having refreshed ourselves with a bathe and a draught of water, we 
 prepared for the thirsty road we had to traverse ; but before starting, a 
 council was held, whether we should finish the last small portion of meat 
 (which any one might have devoured in a minute), or reserve it. The 
 decision was to keep it till evening. We sought in vain for ixia bulbs. Our 
 only resource, according to the custom of the country, was to fill ourselves 
 with as much water as our bodies could contain. We had no vessels in 
 which to carry it ; and if we had, our horses were not equal to more than 
 the carriage of our persons. We were obliged to halt during the day, 
 fearing our horses would, give up from the excessive heat. When the 
 evening drew on we had to ascend and descend several sand-hills, which, 
 weary and faint from two days' fasting, was to us exceedingly fatiguing. 
 Vanderbyle and myself were somewhat in advance of the rest, when we 
 observed our three companions remaining behind ; but supposing they 
 staid to strike light and kindle their pipes, we thoughtlessly rode forward. 
 Having proceeded some distance we halted and hallooed, but received 
 no reply. We fired a shot, but no one answered. We pursued 
 our journey in the direction of the high ground near the Long 
 Mountains, through which our path lay. On reaching a bushless plain. 
 We alighted and made a fire : another shot was fired, and we listened with 
 intense earnestness ; but gloomy desert silence reigned around. We con- 
 versed, as well as our parched lips would allow, on what must be done. To 
 wait till morning would only increase the length of our sufi^ering, — to retrace 
 our steps was impossible : probably they had wandered from the path, and 
 might never overtake us : at the same time. we felt most reluctant to, pro- 
 ceed. We had just determined to remain, when we thought we would firg 
 
364 HTDHOLOGT OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 one more shot. It was answered — by a lion, apparently close to the place 
 w;here we stood. No wood was at hand to make a fire, nothing but tufts of 
 grass / so we ran and remounted our horses, urging them on tbwai'ds a 
 range of dark mountains, the gloom increasing as we proceeded; but as our 
 horses cbuld not go much above a walking pace, we were in dread every 
 moment of being overtaken. If we drew up to listen, his approach in the 
 rear was distinctly heard. On reaching the winding glen or pass through' 
 the mountaiiis, despairing of escape from our enemy, we resolved 
 to ascend a steep, where, from a precipice, we might pelt him with stones ; 
 for we had only a couple of balls left. On dragging ourselves and our 
 horses up the steep, we found the supposed refuge too uneven for a standing- 
 place, and not one fragment of loose stone to be found. Our situation was 
 now doubly dangerous ; for, on descending to the path, the query was, on 
 which side' is the lion'! My companion took his steel and flint to try, by 
 striking them, if he could not discover traces of the lion's paws on the path, 
 expecting every moment that he would bound on one of us. The terror of 
 the horses soon told us that the object of our dread was close to us, but on 
 the right side, namely, in our rear. We instantly remounted, and con- 
 tihued to pursue the track, which we had sometimes great difficulty in 
 tiracing along its zig-zag windings among bushes, stones, and sand. The 
 dark tbwering cliffs around us, the deep silence of which was disturbed by 
 the grunt of a solitary baboon, or the squalling of some of its young ones, 
 added to the colouring of the night's picture. We had not proceeded very 
 far before the li6n gave a tremendous roar, which echoing from precipice to 
 precipice, sounded as if we were within the lion's den. On reaching the 
 egress of the defile through which we had passed, we were cheered by the' 
 waning moon, rising bright in the east. Descending again we would gladly 
 hiivelECid our weary limbs down to rest; but thirst, and the possibility of 
 the lion's resolving to make his supper on one of us, propelled our weary 
 steps, for our horses were completely jaded. 
 
 " We ' continued our slow and silent march for hours. The tongue 
 cleaving to the roOf of the mouth from thirst, made conversation 
 extremely difficult. At last we reached the long-wished-for ' water-fall,' so 
 named, because when it rains, water sometimes falls, though in small 
 ^uantitie^ ; but it was too late to ascend the hill. We allowed the poor 
 worn-out horses to go where they pleased, and having kindled a small fire, 
 arid produced a little saliva by smoking a pipe, ^e talked about our lost 
 companions, who happened for their comfort to have the morsel of meat, 
 and who, as Jantye thought, would wander from the position in which we 
 left them towards the river. We bowed the knee to Him who had merci- 
 fi^Ily preserved us, and laid our heads on our saddles. The last sound we 
 heiard to' soothe us was the distant roar of the lion, but we were too much 
 exhausted t6 feel any thing like fear. Sleep came to our relief, and it 
 seemed made up of scenes the most lovely, forming a glowing contrast to 
 our real situation. I felt as if engaged, during my short repose, in roving 
 among ambrosial bowers of paradisaical delight, hearing sounds of music, 
 as if from angels' harps ; it was the night wind falling on my ears from the 
 neighbouring hill. I seemed to pass from stream to stream, in which I 
 bathed and slaked my thirst at many a crystal fountain, flowing from 
 g'olden mountains enriched with living green. These Elysian pleasures con- 
 tinued till morning dawn, when we awoke speechless with thirst, our eyes 
 inflamed, and our whole frames burning like a coal. We were, however 
 
ABIDITY AND WATER 8UPPLT. 266 
 
 ^pmewhat less fatigiied, but wanted water, and had recourse to another 
 j)ipe before we could articulate a word. r . • 
 
 " My companion then directed me to a projecting rook, near the top of the 
 hill, where, if there were water at all, it would be found. I took up the 
 gun to proceed in that direction, while he went in search of the, horses, 
 which we feared might have been devoured by the lion. I ascended the 
 rugged height to the spot where water once was, but found it as dry as the 
 sandy plain beneath. I stood a few minutes, stretching my languid eye to 
 see, if there were any appearance of the horses, but saw nothing ; turning to 
 descend, I happened to cough, and was instantly surrounded by almost a 
 hundred baboons, some of gigantic size. They grunted, grinned, and sprang 
 from stone to stone, protruding their mouths, and drawing back the skin of 
 their foreheads, threatening an instant attack. I kept parrying them with 
 my gun, which was loaded ; but I knew their character and disposition tpo 
 well to fire, for if I wounded one of them I should have been skinned in 
 five minutes. The ascent was very laborious, but I would have given any 
 thing to be at the bottom of the hill again. Some came so near as even to 
 touch my hat while passing projecting rocks. It was some time before I 
 reached the plain, when they appeared to hold a noisy council, either about 
 what they had done, or intended doing. Levelling my, piece at tw;o that 
 seemed the most fierce, as I was about to touch the trigger, the thought 
 occurred, ' I have escaped, let me be thankful ;' therefore I left them un- 
 injured, perhaps with the gratification of having given me a fright. 
 
 " Jantye soon appeared with the horses. My looks, more expressiye than 
 words, convinced him that there was no water. We saddled the poor 
 animals, which, though they had picked up a little grass, looked miserable 
 beyond description. We now directed our course towards Witte Water, 
 where we could scarcely hope to arrive before afternoon, even if we reached 
 it at all, for we were soon obliged to dismount, and drive our horses slowly 
 and silently over the glowing plain, where the delusive mirage tantalized 
 our feelings with the loveliest pictures of lakes and pools studded with lovely 
 isletsy and towering trees moving in the breeze on their banks. In sonie 
 might be seen the bustle of a mercantile harbour, with jetties, coves, ai^d 
 moving rafts, and oars ; in others, lakes as lovely as if they had just come 
 from the hand of the Divine Artist, a transcript of Eden's sweetest views, 
 but all the result of highly rarefied air, or the reflected heat of the sun's 
 rays on the sultry plain. Sometimes, when the horses and my companion 
 were some hundred yards in advance, they appeared as if lifted from the 
 earth, or moving like dark living pillars in the air« Many a time did we 
 seek old ant-hills excavated by the ant-eater, into which to thrust our 
 heads, in order to have something solid between our fevered brains and the 
 piercing rays of the sun. There was no shadow of a great rock, the shrubs 
 sapless, barren, and blighted, as if by some blast of fire. Nothing aninj^te 
 was to be seen or heard, except the shrill chirping of a beetle resembling 
 the cricket, the noise of which seemed to increase with the intensity of the 
 heat. Not a cloud had been seen since we left our homes. 
 
 " We felt an irresistible inclination to remain at any bush which could 
 afibrd the least shelter from the noonday's sun, the crown of the head 
 having the sensation as if covered with live coal, and the mind 
 wandering. My companion became rather wild. Having been anxious to 
 spare him all the toil possible, I had for a long time carried the gun j he 
 asked for it, apparently to relieve me, but his motions were such that I was 
 glad to recover possession of it. 
 
356 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 " My difficulties and anxieties were now becoming painful in the extreme, 
 not knowing any thing of the road, which was in some places hardly 
 discernible, and in my faithful guide hope had died away. The horse* 
 moved at the slowest pace, and that only when driven, which effort was 
 laborious in the extreme. Speech was gone, and everything expressed by 
 signs, except when we had recourse to a pipe, and for which we now began 
 to lose our relish. After sitting a long while under a bush, oh ! what a 
 relief I felt when my guide pointed to a distant hill, near to which water 
 lay. Courage revived; but it was with pain and labour that we reached it 
 late in the afternoon. Having still sufficient judgment not to go at once 
 to drink, it was with great difficulty I prevented, my companion doing that, 
 which would almost instantly have proved fatal to him. Our horses went 
 to the pool, and consumed nearly all the water, for it appeared that some 
 wild horses had shortly before slaked their thirst at this spot, leaving for 
 us but little, and that polluted. 
 
 " Becoming cooler after a little rest, we drank, and though moving with 
 animalcules, muddy, and nauseous with filth, it was to us a reviving draught. 
 We rested and drank, till the sun, sinking in the west, compelled us to go 
 forward, in order to reach Griqua Town that night. Though we had filled 
 our stomachs with water, (if such it might be called, for it was grossly 
 imptire,) thirst soon returned with increased agony ; and painful was the 
 ride and walk, for they were alternate, \mtil we reached at a late hour the 
 abode of Mr Anderson. 
 
 " Entering the door speechless, haggard, emaciated, and covered with 
 perspiration and dust, I soon procured by signs, that universal language, 
 for myself and my companion, a draught of water. Mr A., expecting such 
 a visitor from the moon as soon as from Namaqua^-land, was not a little 
 sui-prised to find who it was. Kind-hearted Mrs A. instantly prepared a 
 cup of coffee and some food, which I had not tasted for three days ; and I 
 felt all the powers of soul revive, as if I had talked with angels — it was to 
 me a ' feast of reason and a flow of soul.' 
 
 " Eetiring to rest, the couch, though hard, appeared to me a downy bed. 
 I begged of Mr A. just to place within my reach half a bucket of water : 
 this he kindly and prudently refused, but left me with a full tumbler of 
 unusual size : such, however, was my fevered condition, that no sooner was 
 he gone than T drank the whole. After reviewing the past, and looking 
 upward with adoring gratitude, I fell asleep, and arose in the morning as 
 fresh as if I had never seen a desert, nor felt its thirst. AVe remained here 
 a few days, in the com-se of which our lost companions arrived, having, as 
 we rightly supposed, wandered towards the river, and escaped the thirst 
 which had nearly terminated our career in the desert." 
 
 In a foot-note he adds : — " The following remarks on the general appear- 
 ance of the mirage, taken from Belzoni's Narrative of Ms Operations and 
 Researches in Egypt, will not be uniteresting :— ' It generally appears like a 
 still lake, so unmoved by the wind, that every thing above is to be seen 
 most distinctly reflected by it. If the wind agitate any of the plants that 
 rise above the horizon of the mirage, the motion is seen perfectly at a o-reat 
 distance. If the traveller stand elevated much above the mirage'' the 
 apparent water seems less united and less deep ; for as the eyes look down 
 upon it, there is not thickness enough in the vapour on the surface of the 
 ground to conceal the earth from the sight ; but if the traveller be on a 
 
ARIDITY AND WATER SUI'PLY. 257 
 
 level with the horizon of the mirage, he cannot see through it, so that it 
 appears to him clear water. By putting my head first to the ground, and 
 then mounting a camel, the height of which might have been about ten feet 
 at the most, I found a great difference in the appearance of the mirage. On 
 approaching it, it becomes thinner, and appears as if agitated by the wind, 
 like a field of ripe corn. It gradually vanishes as the traveller approaches, 
 and at last entirely disappears when he is on the spot.' 
 
 " This phenomena is called by the Bechuanas, ' Mo6n6ne ;' and, therefore, 
 parched ground, in Isaiah xxxv. 7, translated ' glowing sand,' by Dr Lowth 
 and others, I have rendered by this term in that language. It is produced, 
 as Dr Hartwell Home correctly remarks, in his Introduction to the Critical 
 Study of the Scriptures, ' by a diminution of the density of the lower stratum 
 of the atmosphere, which is caused by the increase of heat, arising from that 
 communicated by the rays of the sun to the sand, with which this stratum 
 is in immediate contact.' " 
 
 2i 
 
258 HYDROLOGY OP SOUTH AFEIOA. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Much that has been stated in the preceding pages is applicable, with a 
 slight change in the phraseology, to what has occurred or been seen in other 
 lands. While the compilation has been made chiefly with a view to the 
 help and encouragement of the colonists of South Africa in prosecuting the 
 execution of measures which they have it in contemplation to carry out, 
 with a view to counteracting the aridity which prevents the full accomplish- 
 ment of their desires and purposes in developing the agricultural capabilities 
 of the country, the publication of it may subserve the accomplishment of 
 similar purposes in other Colonies and newly settled territories ; and in view 
 of both objects I desire to indicate the remedial measures which a state of 
 things such as has been depicted seems to render desirable. 
 ' In view of what has been stated, the desiccation and consequent aridity 
 of South Africa may be considered to be the combined results of the eleva- 
 tion of the land above the level of the sea, and the consequent flow, or 
 draining off by gravitation of much of the water which falls upon it in the 
 form of rain, and of the evaporation which may be traced to the law of 
 gaseous diffusion, but is increased by the solar heat, and has been promoted 
 by the destruction of vegetation removing an important screen which throws 
 off or absorbs the direct rays of the sun, and one which in other ways 
 conserves the humidity of soil and of the atmosphere. 
 
 If the escape of water by gravitation and evaporation combined be greatly 
 in excess of the supply from the atmosphere, the desiccation will go on with 
 rapidity; if the disproportion between the escape and the supply be 
 lessened the desiccation may still go on continuously, but with diminished 
 rapidity ; if they be equalized the desiccation will be arrested ; if the escape 
 of water be reduced below an equality with the supply the process of 
 desiccation will be reversed, and a degree of humidity such as previously 
 prevailed may be restored. 
 
 From all this it seems to follow that any measure, and every measure, 
 which has the effect of preventing the escape of water by gravitation or 
 evaporation will, in its measure, tend to arrest the evil and promote the 
 good ; and it so happens that some, if not all, of the more important 
 measures which suggest themselves as calculated to have the effect of 
 arre«ting the desiccation are such that they may remunerate the outlay 
 required for their execution by immediate profit. 
 
 The counsel given by a Hebrew prophet in other circumstances, " Cease 
 to do evil ; learn to do well," is not inapplicable here, as counsel whereby 
 the greatest amount of benefit may be secured. Abandon, if possible, the 
 practice of burning the veldt ; carry out an enlightened conservation and 
 extension of forests ; and introduce, wherever it can be done, irrigation and 
 the construction of dams, together with such other measures as may be 
 likely to retain and utilize the water supply. 
 
 I care not to discuss here the relative importance of these several 
 measures. The adoption of all of them is necessary if we would have a fiill 
 
CONCLUSION. 259 
 
 reward ; but any one of them, carried out to any extent, however limited 
 may be the measure of that extent, would tend to secure the end desired. 
 
 The measures spoken of are all of them measures which have commanded 
 more or less effectively the attention of the colonists. I may differ from 
 some in regard to the relative importance of some of these measures, but I 
 do not consider the absolute importance of any ofthemtobe over-estimated 
 by its most sanguine panygerist or partizan.* 
 
 Apart, however, from the desiccation and consequent aridity of the 
 country, though intimately connected therewith in the relation of cause 
 and effect, is the torrential character of the rivers. 
 
 Much attention has been given on the Continent of Europe to the study 
 of torrents, with a view to the prevention of them and of the disastrous 
 consequences which often follow them. In some respects South Africa is 
 in the very condition which it is sought to prevent in the Alps. And the 
 South African toiTents are in some respects homologous with the torrents 
 which threaten devastation there. In the Alpine torrents the different 
 characteristic portions — the basin drained, the channel, and the deposit of 
 earthy materials — are compressed longitudinally, supplying thus facilities for 
 the study of them. In the South African torrents the channel is elongated, 
 and the deposit of earthy matter is in the sea ; but the homology is complete. 
 
 In France it has been found that the best and most efficient means, and this 
 an effectual one, of preventing the forming of torrents, and of bridling and 
 extinguishing them when formed, is planting the basin drained by them with 
 grass, and herb, and shrub, and tree ; and that by such an appliance the 
 torrential rivers of South Africa might be controlled, and much of their 
 waters retained to fertilize the soil, I have no doubt. But to accomplish 
 this might require operations so extensive as to startle and to forbid the 
 attempt being made. 
 
 The precipitation of rain in torrents instead of drizzling showers, and the 
 drainage of the land by short-lived torrents instead of equably flowing rivers 
 and streams, are charaoteristios of land divested or devoid of vegetation. 
 
 In the High Alps the designation torrent is given to the channel of what 
 we call mountain torrents. These are there to be seen in various stages, and 
 it has been remarked that in the forests there are none ; that the deepest 
 and most dangerous are in mountains devoid of wood ; that old torrents, now 
 always dry, are found where the woods have extended themselves over what 
 is called the hansin de reception ; and that lately formed torrents are found 
 
 * Along with the abstract of the "vrpmoir, of which this is an expansion, there were appended 
 to Report of Colonial Botanist for 1866 the following :— 
 
 1. Ab.'itract nf a Mi-moir prepared on Irrigation and its application to AgrioultHral 
 Operations in South Afi ica ; with Notices of the Water Supply of South Africa : Its sources, 
 its quantity, the inodns of irrigation required in different circumstances, the facilities for the 
 Jldoption of these in different districts, and the difficulties, physical and other, in the way^ of 
 works of extensive irrigation being carried out at the Cape, and the means of accomplishing 
 these which are at command . o .u i ^ • -.t j ^ •, „ i_ ^ i 
 
 2 Abstiact of Memoir prepared on Arboriculture m boufh Africa, with details ot what has 
 been done and of what might be done in planting trees in the Cape Colony, with notices of 
 the natural history of Australian and European trees which have been recommended by arbori- 
 culturists for plantation there. io.u ac- -ot-^-l. 
 
 3 Abstract of Memoir prepared on the Forest and Forest-lands of Southern Africa: With 
 details of the extent and eontents of the different forests of the Colony of the Cape, of Kaffir- 
 land of Natal, and of the rpgions beyond to the mouth of the Zambesi, and to a corresponding 
 latitudeonihe west coast, with the intermediate districts. , , , . , 
 
 4 List of South African Trees and Arborescent Shrubs, upon the natural history, botanio 
 characteristics, and economic uses of which a report had been prepared. 
 
 5 Abstract of Memoir prepared on the Forest Economy ot thp Colony. 
 
260 HYDROLOGY OF SOUTH APEICA. 
 
 where the forests have been of late years destroyed. And in consequence of 
 this the French Government have been carrying on for years extensive 
 operations of reboisement, replanting with woods the Alps, the Pryenees, and 
 the mountains of Central France, with a view thereby to prevent the 
 occurrence, or the destructive effects and consequences, of torrents. 
 
 It would be both more difficult and more expensive to carry out such 
 measures in South Africa than in France. But the secondary advantages — 
 climatal and economic — might compensate for this ; and an outlay far short 
 of the value of property, to say nothing of lives, destroyed by such torrents 
 as have been described might accomplish much. I have given Colonial 
 estimates of the loss occasioned by fire and flood during the last eight years, 
 which would show that loss to have been about £100,000 per annum. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 TRINTSO BY JOHN OEAWFOKD, HlSH STKEKT, KlaKOAMT. 
 

 »