Art. XV.— Notes on the Stone Epoch at the Cape of Good Hope.* See Trans. N.Z. Inst., Vol. IV., p. 157.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 5, 1872, Page 138

Art. XV.— Notes on the Stone Epoch at the Cape of Good Hope.* See Trans. N.Z. Inst., Vol. IV., p. 157. By B. H. Darnell. [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 28th August, 1872.] Some new facts have turned up respecting this subject within the last year or two. Diamonds were first found on the surface over a large area. Then followed the diggings in the beds of rivers and their banks; these are the wet diggings. Then diamonds were found in the diorites and amygdaloids where these swell up into what are called “koppies,” small round hills like heads (Dutch kop); these are the dry diggings. Lastly they were found in the “Pans,” which are reed-bound circular depressions in the surface, filled with limestone (mainly carbonate of lime) a few feet in thickness. These Pans are quite a feature in this part of the country, and generally hold water after the rainy season. In them fragments of ostrich shells, stone implements,

earthern vessels, etc., have been found by the diggers imbedded in the calcareous deposit. Some, whose opinions are entitled to respect, consider it probable that these relics found their way into the hollows at the same time and in the same manner as the broken and perfect diamonds have done, and that the accumulation was a work of time and great climatic changes; and that the diamonds were not found where they are now found, but have come from some other source. The sagacious editor of a newspaper, in commenting upon these views in a leading article, remarks:—“We cannot say that we agree with this judgment. The diamonds are strangers in the chalk beds at Du Doit's Pan and De Beer's, but they are scarcely much older strangers than the ostrich eggs and broken pots.” He was, perhaps, nearer the mark than he imagined when he wrote this. For how old may these ostrich eggs and broken pots not be? The ostrich, I imagine, is older in Africa than the Moa is in New Zealand, geologically speaking, and then it is not yet extinct. Dr. Atherstone, a geologist of some repute, says, “But though some surface diamonds no doubt, along with ostrich eggs, arrow heads, bones, etc., got down these cracks to a considerable distance, it does not follow that all Bultfontein diamonds were thus accumulated. Wind may have blown sand and pebbles, and even diamonds in, but there are other sections and facts which cannot be thus explained.” Daintree says (I don't think he has seen a “Pan”) “The Du Toit's Pan kalk is evidently a secondary deposit, as it contains abraded fragments of quartz, garnet, etc., and besides has 86 per cent of carbonate of lime, soluble in hydrochloric acid. I have just seen a diamond attached to this kalk, which certainly looks, under the microscope, very much as if it had crystallized in situ, showing no sign whatever of abrasion, and having small cavities on the surface corresponding with the structure of the kalk matrix to which it is attached. This specimen shows me that Bunn's theory of the diamonds being blown into the Du Toit's Pan material can only hold for a moiety of such gems, and will, I almost think, account for very few. Why should they be blown into cracks in the kalk? Why not into any cracks between that and their source, and in that way it should not be difficult to find out their source? We must, in this matter, ‘wait a little longer.’” I have sent to the Cape for all the pamphlets which have been published on the diamond field, in the hope that some further light may be thrown on the subject.