Post on 08-Mar-2023
Mr BAIN and Dr ATHERSTONE, SOUTH AFRICA’S PIONEER FOSSIL HUNTERS.
Alan Cohen M.B.B.S., Dip.Archaeol.
email: ab.cohen@tesco.net
ABSTRACT
Although a few explorers had reported the finding of fossils in South Africa during
the eighteenth century, the first important collections of fossils were made during
the 1830s by interested amateurs. Many new species were discovered and sent back to
London, for further study by the newly emerging class there of professional
palaeontologists such as Richard Owen (1804-92) of the British Museum’s Natural
History Department. As a result of a few pioneers like Andrew Geddes Bain and
William Guybon Atherstone, the study of South African geology and palaeontology was
placed on a firm footing by the 1860s. Their contributions to these new sciences
were publicly acknowledged by Owen in 1876 in his monumental study of the fossil
reptiles of South Africa.1
On 12 October 1843 Nathaniel Wallich the Superintendent of the East
India Company’s Botanic Garden in Calcutta 2 wrote from Grahamstown in
the Eastern Cape Province, to Robert Brown at the British Museum’s
Natural History Department in London. 3
I have looked into a small part of what, profoundly ignorant as I am
in matters of Geology, I cannot help considering as a very interesting
1
collection of Fossils made by Mr. Bain in the Eastern districts of this
Colony. He appears to me to be an observant clever man. I hear he is an
excellent land-surveyor, especially a road-maker. I believe he has both
diagrams and local observations to accompany the specimens, which he
proposes to offer to the Geological Society on condition of his expenses
being reimbursed. I told him I could offer no opinion upon this subject
beyond that as he intended to employ an Agent at home and to address either
the Secretary or the President of the Society, the sooner he despatched the
Collection via Port Elizabeth in Algoa Bay the better. He begged of me to
interest some Members on his behalf; and this I now do by stating the above
facts and begging that you will be so kind as to mention them to Mr.
Stokes,4 to whom please to remember me most kindly - In the very act of
writing this Mr. Bain sends me the Frontier Times of this Town containing
some notices of the specimens, which I cut out and enclose. 5
Andrew Geddes Bain was born at Thurso in Caithness, Scotland in 1797.
His parents were simple country people and died when he was very young.
His uncle Lt.Colonel William Geddes of the 83rd Regiment took pity on
the youngster and when he returned to duty in South Africa in October
1816, Bain went with. He became a saddler in Graaff-Reinet, and two
years later married another orphan Maria Elizabeth von Backstrom,
daughter of an ex-officer in the Dutch regular forces who had died in
1812. By 1822 Bain owned property in Graaff-Reinet, and remained there
for thirteen years. He had a large family of eleven children, one of
whom, Thomas, became an engineer and road-builder, following in his
2
father’s footsteps. His second daughter, Johanna Elizabeth, married
Frederick Rex who was also a surveyor, and a son of the famous George
Rex of Knysna, who was widely rumoured to be an illegitimate son of King
George III.
Bain was probably the first to take out a license to trade across the
Orange River when he visited Kuruman with Benjamin Kift in 1825. The
next year he visited Bechuanaland with Lieutenant John Burnet Biddulph,
and in 1829 they set out again, travelling north via Natal and Pondoland
as far as the Umzimvuba River. They produced the first proper
description of the country north of the Fish River and come home loaded
with valuable ivory. In 1825 Bain had written to the Editor of the South
African Commercial Advertiser suggesting improvements in the road from Graaff-
Reinet to Cape Town that could cut the journey by one hundred miles or
so. Shortly after his return from the Umzimvuba he was given the job of
constructing a pass up the Oudeberg for the benefit of the District of
Graaff-Reinet. In 1832 Bain superintended the building of another pass,
for which the grateful citizens of Graaff-Reinet gave him a medal
inscribed ‘For gratuitously superintending the construction of Van
Ryneveld’s Pass, 1832’. In 1834 he set out to fulfil an American
commission to capture live animals and procure rare skins; after
travelling for the first month with Dr Andrew Smith’s expedition6 he
reached the Molopo River near modern Mafeking, and over 200 miles north-
east of Kuruman. However the trip ended disastrously when some of Bain’s
3
party tried to steal cattle from the local Matabele chief Moselekatse
and all his wagons were taken in retaliation. Bain was lucky to have
escaped with his life.
During the Sixth Frontier War in 1834/35 Bain was a Captain in the
Graaff-Reinet Burgher Force serving under Colonel Henry Somerset
clearing the Zuurveld and Bushman’s River district. By July 1835, he was
in command of Fort Thomson. The period from April to September 1836 is
covered by a hand-written journal which gives a good account of the day
to day problems faced by a typical local agent in dealing with matters
of minor administration and law keeping. During this period Bain had
successfully persuaded the local chief Tyali to take up ploughing and to
irrigate the land, hoping that others would follow suit and become
agriculturalists instead of continuing their role as cattle rearers and
warriors. The policy of attempting to persuade the Xhosa to take up
agriculture was in part an attempt to solve the problem of cattle
stealing that was rampant in the frontier region. It was also hoped to
persuade them to adopt the Christian missionary ideals of ‘improving’
the status of women, so that they would look after the household while
the men tilled the land instead. However the relinquishing of the new
Queen Adelaide Province (also known as British Kaffraria) by the British
administration put an end to this idea. Bain recorded that Tyali said
to him one day
4
Tyali has altered his mind since he got his land back....he is not going
to spoil his oxen with ploughing while he has plenty of wives to till the
ground for him. (The Xhosa used their oxen for racing and not as beasts of burden) 7
By the end of the War Bain had moved to a farm at the confluence of the
rivers Tyumie and Gaga where the modern town of Alice now stands. Bain’s
application for the land had been endorsed by the Cape Governor Sir
Benjamin D’Urban, especially as it would help establish a settlement in
this new province. When D’Urban was forced by the Home government to
give up the Province, Bain lost his farm and his livelihood but gained
employment with the Royal Engineers in April 1837 supervising the
making of military roads on the frontier. The chief of these works was
the construction of the Queen’s Road, named in honour of the new young
Queen Victoria, from Grahamstown through Fort Beaufort to the
Winterberg. Bain was so successful that he was soon given the job of
building a road north-east from Cape Town through Bain’s Kloof and
across the Michell’s Pass. Bain’s road is still much as it was in 1854
when it officially opened and just as spectacular as when he first
discovered the trackless kloof which enabled him to cross the first
range of hills out from Cape Town.8 He went on to build most of the
major roads opening up the hinterland of the Western Cape. In the words
of Geoffrey Jenkins and Eve Palmer in their excellent Companion Guide to
South Africa
5
Cape Town had always had the freedom of the sea; it was Andrew Geddes
Bain, and later his son Thomas, who gave it the freedom of the land as
well.9
To fill his spare time while he was working on the Queen’s Road he
borrowed books from his commandant Captain Colin Campbell, including a
copy of Lyell’s Principles of Geology10 and then on a visit to Grahamstown
managed to buy for himself Dean Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise on
Geology and Mineralogy.11 He became fascinated by this relatively new
science of geology. It was barely twenty years since William Smith had
published his Strata Identified by Organized Fossils, his seminal paper with which
he had more or less founded the study of stratigraphical geology.12 In
1824 Dean Buckland had described the remains of a large reptile found
near Oxford, that he had named Megalosaurus and the following year Dr
Gideon Mantell published his description of some large fossil teeth
that his wife had found some three years earlier on the Sussex Downs.
Mantell proclaimed them to be from an extinct reptile similar to a
modern Iguana and named the creature Iguanadon. A few years later he
discovered fossil remains of another new creature that he named
Hylaeosaurus. It was not until 1841 that Richard Owen, a leading
comparative anatomist, realised that these reptiles were so unlike
modern species that they deserved classification on their own in a new
‘tribe or suborder’ which he called the Dinosauria. It was these British
6
discoveries that so inspired Bain to look for fossils in the
geologically virgin territory of South Africa.
The Queen’s Road has an easily accessible thick and continuous section
through the upper part of the Cape System, the Dwyka and Ecca beds,
especially where it passes over a small river today called the Brak but
in Bain’s day called the Ecca. The fossil evidence there is meagre and
it must have been difficult for Bain to keep up his enthusiasm which had
been fired by the many excellent descriptions in the books he was
reading. Bain found his first fossils in the Sunday’s River Valley in
1838 when he was exploring with his friend M.J.H. Borchards, the
Resident Justice of the Peace at Fort Beaufort. A mile north of the town
they found a small piece of fossil bone,
… which I have ever since preserved with as much religious veneration as
a good Catholic does a piece of the true Cross. 13
Two days later at Mildenhall, some five miles south of Fort Beaufort
Bain found another piece of bone protruding from a rock. He broke off
the rock and took it home. On examining it more carefully he discovered
it to be a skull of what at first looked like a tiger with two large
canine teeth. Closer examination revealed it to be the skull of a
hitherto unknown creature which had only two teeth, and Bain therefore
gave it the name of ‘Bidental’. At this time Bain was engaged in taking
7
the construction of the Queen’s Road through the forest up to the
Winterburg and blasting through the Beaufort Beds of the Karoo series of
rocks. These were thought to be of equivalent date to the Trias of
Europe, and proved to be of great fossiliferous interest. In a letter to
the Geological Society of London Bain later said of these rocks
1FOOTNOTES:
? Richard Owen, Descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the fossil reptilia of South Africa in the collection of the British Museum,
(London, 1876), iv-vi.
2Nathaniel Wallich (1786 -1854), a Danish surgeon, was captured by the British in Bengal in 1813 and
joined the service of the East India Company. He became Superintendent of the Company’s Botanic Garden
at Calcutta. A member of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, he made an extended visit to the
Cape in 1842-3. There he met, amongst others, the botanists CWL Pappe, Baron von Ludwig, Ecklon and Carl
Zeyher, the astronomer Thomas Maclear, and Arabella Roupell whose flower paintings he later showed to
Sir William Hooker, the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. They were published in 1850 under
the title of Specimens of the Flora of South Africa by a Lady and created great interest. On retiring in 1846,
Wallich settled in England. Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press 1992).
3 Robert Brown (1773-1858), Librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, and later Keeper of the Herbarium and
Department of Botany at the British Museum. He was the discoverer of the molecular ‘Brownian’ movement.
DNB.
8
Whole forests of calcified trees, of large size, are found in the
neighbourhood of Sunday and Bushman’s Rivers, in a most perfect state of
preservation, imbedded horizontally in the rock. Ferns, zamias, and
fragments of wood in a lignitic state occur, mixed up with fragments of
gypsum and reptilian bones, together with marine exuviae - Trigonia,
Ammonites, and various other molluscs.14
4 Sir George Gabriel Stokes (1819 -1903) mathematician and physicist, famous for discoveries in
hydrodynamics, fluorescence and spectral analysis. Secretary of the Royal Society for thirty years 1854
- 85 and President from 1885 - 90. DNB.
5 Geological Society of London Secretary’s letterbooks LR8/115 and 115a.
6 Dr Andrew Smith M.D., K.C.B. (1797-1872) was appointed as Director-general of the Army Medical
Department by the Duke of Wellington in 1851. In 1834 he was in charge of an expedition sent from Cape
Town to explore the interior of Africa. DNB.
7 Journals of Andrew Geddes Bain, (Cape Town: Van Riebeek Society, 1949), 163 – 190.
8 Bain’s account of this discovery is in his letters to Atherstone, especially SM 5501(17).
9 G. Jenkins and E. Palmer, Companion Guide to South Africa (London: Collins, 1978: 241 )
10 Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, (London: John Murray,1830-33).
11 Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation
sponsored by the Earl of Bridgewater and published in 1839; included the treatise on Geology and Mineralogy
Considered with Reference to Natural Theology.
9
Within a short time his collection was so large that he had to hire a
room in Grahamstown to keep it in. In 1844 he offered the collection to
an institution in Grahamstown on condition that it should form the
nucleus of a new museum. His generous offer was rejected, one of the
directors commenting “What are we going to do with a parcel of old
stones?”15 Instead, Bain decided to offer the fossils to the Geological
Society of London. In the meantime a lengthy and well-documented
article about them was published in a local newspaper, the Cape Frontier
Times, and as a result many people asked to see the specimens prior to
their dispatch. According to the writer the highlight of the collection
was an immense reptile skull with fifty-six incisor teeth that Bain had
found in 1838 on the new Blinkwater Road just north of Fort Beaufort and
christened the ‘Blinkwater Monster’.16 The writer further commented that
12 William Smith (1769-1839), a canal engineer who had by 1799 noticed that different layers of rock and
earth could be recognised by the different fossils they contained and that there was a regular
succession of the layers, and published the results of his work around Bath. In 1815 he published his
Geological Map of England and Wales, and commenced publication of his Strata Identified by Organized Fossils in 1816;
this continued in four parts to 1819. DNB.
13 A. G. Bain, Reminiscences and Anecdotes connected with the History of Geology in South Africa, or
the Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa, 1896, vol II part
V: 60.
14 Transactions of the Geological Society of London 2nd series 1856, l 7: 184
10
“lovers of palaeontology may expect to have a treat equal to any since
the discoveries of Cuvier in the Paris basin, and those of Dr. Mantell
in the weald of Sussex.”17 Bain’s friend William Ogilvie offered to store
the fossils and also to pay for their packing and shipment to England,
so the collection was put on public display at Ogilvie’s hardware store
in Grahamstown. 18 It was there that Nathaniel Wallich saw them and was
sufficiently impressed by their importance to report them to his friend
Robert Brown at the British Museum.
Robert Brown told Charles Konig,19 the Assistant Keeper of Minerals about
the letter from Wallich. He also realised the importance of Bain’s
15 A. G. Bain, Reminiscences, 63.
16 Later named by Owen Pareiasaurus serridens, Ow. and illustrated in plates VI and VII of his catalogue of
South African reptiles
17 A. G. Bain, Reminiscences, 64-65.
18 William Ogilvie (1795-1850) arrived in Grahamstown in 1816 with Lord Charles Somerset, having served
in the 42nd Regiment The Royal Highlanders and fought at Waterloo. He owned a hardware shop in
Grahamstown and imported guns from Westley Richards the Gunsmiths of Birmingham, England; visited
England in 1850 to discuss the convict problem with Lord Grey and died after an accident on the way
home. His daughter Fanny married William Richards, gunsmith of Birmingham. Information from I. Mitford-
Barberton and V White Some Frontier Families (Cape Town, Human & Rousseau, 1968), 213-216.
11
fossils and immediately contacted Richard Owen, the leading
palaeontologist of the day
Having just received the particulars, cut out of a Cape Newspaper,
of the remarkable discovery of some entirely unknown osseous remains by
Mr Bain, I lose no time in sending enclosed to you the paragraph with the
request that you will lay it before the Trustees at the Committee
tomorrow – the account in question has by some been looked upon as a hoax
from some person sufficiently acquainted with palaeontological
nomenclature to make his story plauseable, but this supposition must fall
to the ground, for in a letter to Mr R. Brown, Dr Wallich states that he
has seen Mr Bain’s collection. That letter I suppose I may procure
tomorrow from Mr Brown – you will see by the printed account that the
proprietor intends to transmit these objects to the Geological Society,
but I have reason to know that the society is not prepared to receive
them. Under those circumstances Mr B, who is no doubt unacquainted with
the Museum collection and the means we have of working the bones out of
the rock which still partially envelopes them, may perhaps be inclined to
dispose of those specimens in a different manner, and the Trustees on
their part may think it expedient to take steps to make him acquainted
with those circumstances – should the latter be the case they will
perhaps request Sir John Herschel, who is known to take great interest
also in discoveries of this nature, to use his influence to obtain the
objects in question for the British Museum —20
19 Originally Carl Dietrich Eberhard König (1774-1851). He entered the employ of British Museum in 1806.
He was Keeper of the Mineral department at this time. DNB.
12
As a result the Museum Trustees’ Committee requested Konig to approach
the Geological Society and to “ascertain the intention of the Society in
the event of the offer alluded to by Dr Wallich being made.”21 They also
asked him to obtain various opinions as to the scientific value, the
extent, and the possible cost of Bain’s collection to the Museum. Konig
wrote to Henry Warburton M.P. the then President of the Geological
Society on 6 February 1844
I beg to acquaint you and the Council of the Geological Society, that the
attention of the Trustees of the British Museum has been directed to a
newspaper article respecting a collection of osseous remains discovered in
Southern Africa, and likewise to a letter on the same subject to Mr.R.Brown
in which allusion is made to a conditional offer of that collection to the
Geological Society by the proprietor Mr.Bain at the Cape of Good Hope.
In accordance with the desire of the Trustees to ascertain the
intention of the Geological Society as regards the acceptance of such offer
(supposing it has been made) and to receive my report upon the subject as
soon as I shall have obtained the desired information, I take the liberty
of making the enquiry by addressing this letter to you.
20 Owen Correspondence DF 105/13 dated 26 January 1844 (In the archives of the Natural History Museum,
South Kensington, London).
21 Minutes of the Trustee’s committee meeting held 27 January 1844.
13
In case the Geological Society should have declined the offer, it
could be conferring additionally obligation were I enabled by this
communication to mention in my report the expense which will probably be
incurred by procuring the collection in question22
It was not actually until 29 April 1844 that Bain himself wrote from
Fort Beaufort to Sir Henry de la Beche, the Foreign secretary of the
Geological Society, describing his fossils and giving a sketch of the
geology of South Eastern Africa.23 Bain stated that the collection was
being sent via his agent Westley Richards, the gunsmith of Bond Street,
London 24 who had been recommended to him by William Ogilvie. There are
two other letters in the Geological Society archives relating to Bain.
They are both from Richards, who lived in Birmingham, and were addressed
to Warburton. The earliest is dated 30 January 1845 and appears to be a
response to the announcement of the Council’s award of the balance of
the Wollaston Fund to Bain
22 Geological Society of London, Secretary’s Letterbooks for 1844, LR8/115a.
23 This letter was read to the Society on January 8th 1845 and published in the Society’s Transactions vol
VII 2nd series.
24 Westley Richards was the owner of a gunmaking business based in Birmingham and founded by his father
William Westley Richards in 1812. From 1826 - 1872 they also had a shop at 170 Bond Street, London and
were gunmakers to Prince Albert. Information from Howard Blackmore Dictionary of London Gunmakers (Oxford:
Phaidon-Christies Ltd., 1986)
14
… for his extensive geological exploration of South Africa, and
particularly for his original discovery in that country of the remains of
Bidental and other reptiles ... When the papers were read, all praised
the sagacity of Mr. Bain in discovering the peculiarity of structure in
these reptiles. Not one in ten thousand persons, in the situation of Mr.
Bain, and with his limited opportunities of information, would have made
such a discovery. Mr. Owen’s paper was deservedly admired for the clear
manner in which he traced the various analogies of the new reptile to
Crocodile, Plesiosaurus, Turtle, Lizard and Serpent, and no man’s
discovery ever had more justice done to it than the discovery of Mr.
Bain. 25
The importance of the collection lay partly in those specimens that Bain
had already described as Bidentals.26 He realised that these were new to
knowledge at the time and once they arrived in England they could be
properly studied by Professor Owen. Owen came to the conclusion that
Bain had found at least three and possibly four species of this new
genus which he named Dicynodon. They are now considered to be mammal-like
reptiles which were very successful herbivores living in the first half
25 Geological Society of London, LR9/36 and LR10/195
26 Andrew Geddes Bain, On the discovery of the Fossil Remains of Bidental and other Reptiles in South
Africa. Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 1845, 7: 53 and also in the Quarterly Journal of the Society,
1845, 1: 317.
15
of the Triassic period, and part of the therapsid group of reptiles
which eventually gave rise to the mammals themselves. Of especial
importance is the dicynodont Lystrosaurus which is commonly found in
Africa as well as Europe, Asia and Antarctica and provides compelling
evidence for the existence of the supercontinent Gondwana. By 1845 even
Parliament had recognised the importance of Bain’s discoveries. The Earl
of Lincoln wrote to Warburton on 15 August
Before the end of the Session of Parliament, I applied to Sir H. De
la Beche and Professor Owen (in consequence of your having called my
attention to the services of Mr. Geddes Bain to the cause of geological
science) for their opinion of the value of his discoveries and the merit
of his exertions. Their answers were so highly favourable that I brought
his name and services under the notice of Sir Robert Peel, with a view to
some assistance being rendered by Government to enable him more
opportunities to prosecute his investigations.
Sir Robert Peel has written to me saying that he shall have great
pleasure in presenting him with the sum of £200 as an acknowledgement of
the services he has rendered to science.27
The exhibition of Bain’s fossils in Grahamstown had yet another long-
lasting result. One of the visitors was Dr William Guybon Atherstone, a
local medical practitioner, who was so fascinated that he asked Bain for
permission to make some sketches and notes, and determined to begin the
27 Quoted in A. W. Rogers, Pioneers in South African Geology 1937: 27.
16
study of geology at once. Atherstone wrote in his journal “When I saw
Bain’s geological and fossil exhibits in Ogilvie’s store, I was
astounded, as I had no conception that fossil remains were so vast. From
that moment on whilst sketching the fossils, I decided to devote myself
to study geology and, after my family, it became my greatest passion.” 28
Until that time Bain and his friend Borcherds had made up the sole
members of the local fossil-hunting team and were rather looked down
upon by other local amateur scientists as a bit eccentric. They both
congratulated themselves that they had added to their ranks “the
transcendental talents of Dr. Atherstone, who soon imbued our minds with
elevated ideas, and gave fresh vigour and stimulus to our pursuits.”29 A
firm and life-time friendship developed between them and they spent many
fossil hunting expeditions together. Indeed Bain relates one episode
when returning from an expedition to the Gamtoos River
After a hard day’s work, covered with dust and mud, and with our long
hammers dangling at our sides like mighty broadswords, and our well-
filled haversacks around our shoulders; we called at a little cottage in
the midst of a wood to enquire the way, when the owner, a coloured man,
Scotsman-like answered our question by another, “You are masons,” said
28 Nerina Mathie, Atherstone Dr W.G. man of many facets 3 volumes (Grahamstown: privately published, 1998)
1:.53.
29 A. G. Bain, Reminiscences, 66.
17
he, “seeking work, as I can see by your hammers, and as I want to add a
little to my cottage, you may have the job if we can agree a price.” Here
was an opportunity of making our fortunes which we could not withstand,
so we dismounted, gravely examined the proposed addition required, and
after giving a rough estimate of the cost and having the way pointed out
to us, we jocularly promised to return as soon as possible to execute the
work, and then cantered off to Van Staden’s River. We returned home by
the way of Enon and Zuurberg richly laden with the spoils of the former
worlds, and never were six weeks of my life spent more intellectually. 30
However he leaves to the reader’s imagination as to whether they ever
returned to “execute the proposed extension.” Bain had a rather
mischievous sense of humour. In his reminiscences he recalled that
during his discovery of what he called the ‘Blinkwater Monster’ he was
busily engaged in his camp chiselling out the skull when a young Boer
passed by and asked what he was doing. “Don’t you see” Bain replied “it
is the head of a petrified wildebeest.” “Alamagtig, how came the
wildebeest in the stone?” “Do you read your Bible?” said Bain. “Did you
never read that when Noah was in the ark that one of the wildebeests
jumped overboard, and before Noah could get out his life-buoy, it was
drowned?” The poor Boer looked rather bewildered, but not wishing to be
thought deficient in Bible lore, scratching his head and looking as
sheepishly as possible, said “Ja tog (yes, I remember).” “Well then”
continued Bain, “you know of course that the waters covered the tops of
30 A. G. Bain, Reminiscences, 59-75.
18
the highest mountains, and that at that time Noah was floating above the
lofty Winterberg, and the wildebeest, falling into the Fishback, became
petrified there, where he has lain ever since till I took him out the
day before yesterday.” “Alamagtig, het is tog wonderlijk (it is
wonderful)” said the Boer and rode away. The next day a whole deputation
of Boers from the Winterberg, including the Elders of the Church, turned
up at the camp to see for themselves this wonder of Noah’s newly
discovered wildebeest. 31
In 1845 Atherstone had arranged to meet Bain and three of his children
who had taken a ‘holiday excursion for the purpose of geological
exploration’ but he was delayed by an urgent call from a patient. When
he eventually caught up with them on the Bushmans river about half way
between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth he was greeted by Jeannie Bain
staggering under a heavy load of stones. When he went to help he found
that her stones were fossil bones “bigger than those of an ox!” Bain and
Atherstone recognised from the texture of the bones that they were
reptilian in origin, but needed something more diagnostic. The next day
they found an upper jaw with a row of black serrated and fluted teeth.
At the time they felt that these remains were of a creature related to
the Iguanadon which had been found and described a few years previously
by Gideon Mantell and his wife Mary in Sussex, and so named it the “Cape
Iguanadon”. Their find is now recognised as the first discovery of a
31 A. G. Bain, Reminiscencs, 62-63.
19
dinosaur in South Africa, although the correct identification had to
wait until 1981 when Peter Galton and Walter Coombs established its true
taxonomy as a stegosaurian dinosaur and named it Paranthodon africanus. 32
Interestingly, many years later in 1878 Atherstone’s sister-in-law, the
well-known natural historian Mary Elizabeth Barber, was bathing with her
daughter in the Vaal River when she found
… upon the slaty rocks that were cropping out into the river, the
footprint of one of the creatures of “the days that are no more,” it
might have been the impression of a bird’s foot, two of the toes were
quite perfect, the third was only partly visible, owing to the rock
having crumbled away by the wear and tear of atmospheric influences, this
foot print greatly resembled some of those, which are pictured in Lyells
introduction to geology.— 33
32 P. M. Galton & Coombs, W. P., Paranthodon africanus (Broom): a stegosaurian dinosaur from the lower
Cretaceous of South Africa. G,obios, 1981, 14: 299-309. For the full story of this find and its
identification see an article on the web by B de Klerk, Curator of Earth Sciences at the Albany Museum
in Grahamstown. The URL is http://www.ru.ac.za/departments/am/paranth.html
33 Letter from Mary Elizabeth Barber to Roland Trimen. Trimen Correspondence box 18/106 dated from Vaal
River 29April 1878. Royal Entomological Society, Queen’s Gate, London. For further details of this
lady’s fascinating life see my article, Mary Elizabeth Barber: South Africa’s first lady natural
historian, Archives of Natural History 2000, 27 (2): 187-208.
20
Mary Barber’s description is almost certainly the earliest recorded
finding in South Africa of what appear to be the footprints of such a
dinosaur. Although she obviously did recognise what she had found,
unfortunately Mary could not realise its true importance at the time as
there was not yet sufficient information on the topic available.
In 1845 as a result of a reorganisation in the Colony’s Engineer’s
Department, Bain was removed from his post as military road surveyor and
appointed Inspector of Roads under the Central Road Board. This created
a great furore amongst his scientific associates in England and a scheme
was put in train by Westley Richards and Henry Warburton to get him
reinstated so that he could devote more time to his geological studies.
Although there were at the time very few professional geologists
anywhere and certainly none in the Cape Colony, it was becoming to be
appreciated that the emergence of this new breed of professional
scientists was highly important as a means of exploring and exploiting
possible new mineral resources in the colonies. The sudden appearance of
a gifted amateur such as Bain could therefore be of great importance to
the Home government, always keen to gain something from the colonies at
minimal expense. However Bain, when approached for his opinion replied
that in fact he was in a better position than he had earlier hoped and
was now (June 1847) quite happy to remain in his new position. He was at
the time commencing work on the Mostert’s Hoek mountain pass about
eighty miles from Cape Town, and overseeing a work force of some two
21
hundred convicts, overseers and constables together with about thirty
free workers, a magistrate, a chaplain and a surgeon. He also comments,
in this long letter to Richards, that not only had his salary been
raised but that he had every cause to be contented and proud of his new
situation, especially as it actually gave him more liberty to pursue his
geological interests than he had before. So notwithstanding the demands
of this new post he continued to find and send new fossils to London. In
1855 Professor Owen described a skull of another dicynodont in the
British Museum which had been sent to him by Bain in 1849
This skull surpasses in size that of the largest walrus, and resembles
that of a lion or tiger in the development of the ridges ... associated
with the temporal biting muscles. 34
He therefore decided to name it Dicynodon tigriceps.
In his June 1847 letter to Westley Richards, Bain mentioned a geological
map he had been making of the whole Colony instead of just the Frontier
District. He had been discussing many aspects of the process with
Atherstone over the years, and acknowledged the latter’s help frequently
in their correspondence. In 1848 John Montague, the Secretary to the
34 R. Owen, Description of skull of a large species of dicynodon (D. tigriceps, Ow.) transmitted from South
Africa by A.G. Bain.
Transactions of the Geological Society of London 2nd series vol. 7, 1845-56: 233-240.
22
Government of Cape Colony, tentatively suggested that Bain attempt to
produce a geological map similar to that being produced by De la Beche
in Great Britain, without of course realising how impossible a task that
would be without the full-time staff, working with already good
topographical maps of the area, that De la Beche had at his disposal. De
la Beche was himself of independent means and had become interested in
geology and mineralogy at an early age. He had in the 1820s commenced
his own geological map of England in much the same way as Bain was now
doing. In 1832 his request for additional funding from the Board of
Ordnance resulted in the offer of a post as Geologist to the
Trignometrical Survey of Great Britain and he thus turned his hobby into
a profession. It was largely his persistence and influence that had
persuaded the British Government to set up the Geological Survey of
Great Britain in 1835.35 Ten years later there were still no professional
geologists working in South Africa, and Bain was forced to rely on the
Cape Surveyor-General’s office for maps which he found inaccurate and
poorly labelled anyway. However by 1848 Bain was writing to Owen
I still require a better acquaintance with the district of Clanwilliam
and the great southern peninsular of Africa at Cape Agulhas before I can
complete my map. These I expect very soon to make, as well as a general
35 Biographical information from T. Sharpe and P.J. McCartney The papers of H.T.De la Beche (1796-1855) in the
National Museum
of Wales, (Cardiff, National Museum of Wales Geological series no. 17, 1998), 7-9.
23
tour of the whole Colony, when I shall be enabled to lay before the
Geological Society the first attempt at a geological map of South Africa
as far as the 29th degree of S. Lat.36
In 1851 Charles Bell, Surveyor-General at the Cape took up the cudgels
on Bain’s behalf. He wrote to the astronomer Sir John Herschel 37
As I know you retain a kindly interest in South Africa and all that
relates to it, I venture to bring to your notice the work of an old
friend of mine, Mr. Andrew Geddes Bain, who was connected with our
exploratory expedition of 1834-5-6, and who has of late years been
acquiring for himself an English, or rather a European, reputation on
account of his remarkable discoveries in geology … The general map, the
result of his long continued labour, will be sent to England by the
36 Quoted in A.W. Rogers, The Pioneers in South African Geology and their work, Annexure to Transactions of
the Geological
Society of South Africa (1937), 39: 31.
37 The son of Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus and founder of sidereal astronomy. John
Herschel (1792-1871) also became a noteworthy astronomer, his chief work being the study of the
southern skies during a four year stay at Feldhausen in the Cape of Good Hope, from January 1834. His
astronomical observations were published in 1847 in his book called Cape Observations. He also invented the
process of photography on sensitized paper independently of Fox Talbot in 1839, and was the first to use
the terms ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ with relation to photographic images. DNB.
24
steamer … and if you should have any opportunity of directing the
attention of geologists to it, so that thereby the value and consequent
sale of the collections may be increased, I would venture respectfully to
offer my opinion that a worthy man who has sacrificed much for and
deserves well of science will be therefore much relieved.38
Herschel also received a letter in similar vein from a fellow astronomer
Thomas Maclear,39 recommending Bain’s geological map. In addition Maclear
pointed out Bain’s connection with Andrew Smith’s expedition of 1834
with which Herschel had also been involved. Herschel therefore wrote to
Sir Roderick Murchison who had published The Silurian System in 1839. This
book included a description of fossils collected by Dr Andrew Smith in
the Cape Colony. Herschel suggested that if Bain’s fossils were so
extraordinary, perhaps the British Museum might purchase them.
Murchison passed the request on to Richard Owen, who replied
By the next Council I shall have sent a report recommending the
Trustees of the British Museum to give £100 for the fossils in the rough,
now in the crypt at the Geological Society. It will cost about as much
again to clean them and make them intelligible; there will be some good
things to work on.
I wish you every success in your good endeavours for the discoverer
of the Dicynodon and other wonders of the old South African lake.40
38 Quoted in A.W. Rogers, Pioneers, 33.
39 Thomas Maclear (1794-1879) was the royal astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope from 1834 to 1870. DNB.
25
In the event Bain received £150 from the British Museum Trustees for his
“parcel of old stones”, a very generous sum of money as his salary at
the time was £440 per annum.
In 1852 the Geological Society finally published Bain’s map. The
original, which was the first comprehensive geological map of South
Africa to be undertaken, was drawn up by him at Bain’s Kloof and dated
20 November 1851. It measures about 4 feet by 2 and a half feet, and is
beautifully coloured and annotated by Bain. The positions of three
cross-country sections are shown. Section I runs from Cape Town north to
the Little Fish River; section II from Algoa Bay across to Somerset,
then to Graaff Reinett, then north to just west of Colesberg; section
III runs from Bathurst to Beaufort, then to Great Winterburg then east
of north until halfway between Smithfield and Aliwal North. This
original copy which Bain sent to the Geological Society of London, is
held in their archives.41
As a result Murchison again tried to help Bain further his career by
recommending to the British government that a Geological Survey of the
Cape Colony be set up with the appointment of ‘a proper person to
develop the mineral and geological structure of that important Colony.’
40 Quoted in A.W. Rogers, Pioneers, 35.
41 Geological Society of London archives no. LDGSL 166.
26
At the time there were very few professional geologists anywhere, and
most of the well known experts were men of independent means. It was
therefore a fairly revolutionary step to propose such a post in a small
colony. The person he had in mind, of course, was Bain. Murchison
enlisted Herschel, Bell, Owen, and De la Beche to endorse his opinion
that Bain was the most suitable geologist for the job. However the
suggestion got bogged down in the difficulties of deciding whether it
should be a full-time or part-time post and how it should be funded. In
1854 the Lieutenant-Governor of the Cape, C.H. Darling wrote to the
Secretary of State raising the matter of a geological surveyor once
more, but recommended that such a person be appointed from outside the
Colony so as to avoid
the jealousies unhappily incident to long residence in small communities
which could hardly fail to throw doubt in a greater or less degree upon
the entire trustworthiness of the reports and the soundness of the
conclusions of any gentleman of local nomination ...42
Obviously the Cape Colony was still new enough for officials sent out
from the Home government to mistrust the intentions of the ‘colonials’
in possibly over-promoting the benefits of their new environment. As a
result Andrew Wyley from the staff of the Irish Survey, was sent out as
the first professional Government Geologist, not without some protest
42 Quoted in A.W. Rogers, Pioneers, 41.
27
from his chief that all the best men were being sent out to the
colonies, and none were left to work at home for the Mother Country. It
was not until 1895 that the Cape Government finally appointed a
Geological Commission to organise a proper geological survey of the
Colony, followed over the next few years by similar surveys of the
adjoining areas which now form the Republic of South Africa.
Bain continued to discover new fossils. In 1856 he announced another
discovery near Fort Beaufort.
There were many skulls entirely without teeth, which we first thought
belonged to the Chelonians or Turtles; but afterwards finding that the
animals had distinct narrow ribs, which Chelonians have not, we put them
down also for something new, and named them ‘Oudenodons’, or toothless
animals. 43
They were duly sent to Owen for study. By this time he had been
appointed Superintendent of the Natural History Department of the
British Museum and was being snowed under by administrative work. It was
not until 1860 that he described Bain’s new fossils in the Quarterly Journal
of the Geological Society of London together with a collection sent to him by Sir
George Grey in 185844 and which came from the sandstone rocks at the foot
43 Eastern Province Monthly Magazine September 1856.
28
of the Rhenosterberg. In this article Owen came to the conclusion that
as a result of both collections he could differentiate three species of
this new genus, two from Bain and one from Grey, and named them
Oudenodon Bainii, Oudenodon prognathis and Oudenodon Greyii.45
Guybon Atherstone continued to occupy his spare time from his medical
practice with his geological studies. In 1854-55 as there were no
professional geologists in the country apart from Andrew Wyley who had
just arrived, Atherstone was commissioned to explore Namaqualand for the
Grahamstown Prospecting Company, searching for metal ores, especially
copper, but reported that mining was not economically viable there.46 In
1857 he published his chief geological paper ‘The geology of Uitenhage’
which was probably the first major geological study to have been
published in South Africa. In 1867 he identified the first diamond to be
discovered in the region and thereby laid the foundations for the whole
South African diamond industry. One day in 1867 an unknown Hottentot
child on a farm in Hopetown far to the north west of Grahamstown, gave
44 Sir George Grey (1812-98) was Governor of the Cape in 1855-59.
45 Richard Owen, On some Reptilian Fossils from South Africa, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London,
1860, vol 16 part I: 49-63 & plates 1-3.
46 Atherstone’s Report to the Syndicate was published in the Eastern Province Monthly Magazine in 1857, number
13: 7-8 with the
comment that ten of the mines he had predicted would fail, had since failed.
29
to his white playmate a small round glittering pebble that he had found.
The children played with it for a few days then left it lying around the
house. A neighbour, Schaleb van Niekerk, passing by saw it and picked it
up. He offered to buy it but the farmer’s wife told him to take it if he
wanted it. He showed it to a local trader John O’Reilly who thought it
might have some value and in turn took it to someone that had some
geological knowledge in Colesburg. The Acting Civil Commissioner Lorenzo
Boyes thought it might be a diamond but the local chemist Dr Kirsch
disagreed. He thought it was a topaz. They decided that the best person
to advise them all was Dr Guybon Atherstone who was now known throughout
the colony for his geological expertise. One day the post-cart drew up
at Atherstone’s house with an unsealed letter. Out tumbled a small round
glittering pebble about the size of a hazelnut. To his astonishment when
he examined it with his new polarising microscope it proved to be a 21-
carat diamond of the first water, the first to be found in South Africa.
He showed it to a number of people in the town including his friend the
Roman Catholic Bishop who scratched his initials on a pane of glass
together with the legend “Initials of the Rt Rev James David Ricards,
cut with the first Diamond discovered in South Africa. 1867.” In his
reply to Boyes, Atherstone commented “I congratulate you on the stone
you have sent me. It is a veritable diamond, weighs twenty-one and a
quarter carats, and is worth £500. It has spoiled all the jewellers’
files in Grahamstown, and where that came from there must be lots more.”
47
30
Atherstone realised the great importance to the economy of the new
Colony of this discovery and suggested to Richard Southey, the Colonial
Secretary, that the stone be purchased by the Governor Sir Philip
Wodehouse and that it be sent to the Paris Exhibition. It duly appeared
at the great Exhibition that same year, but surprisingly attracted
little attention.48 The following year other stones of similar kind were
found in the Vaal River valley. When the news reached London, Harry
Emanuel a senior diamond merchant, decided to send out an expert to
investigate. After a superficial examination of the area, the
mineralogist James R Gregory wrote in the Geological Magazine of May 1868,
that it was not suitable for diamonds and in his opinion was a bubble
scheme got up entirely to promote the sale of land. Emanuel wrote in the
Journal of the Society of Arts on 13 November 1868 that he had sent Gregory who
he stated “is clearly of the opinion that no diamonds have, or ever will
be, found in the Cape Colony-saving such as are there deposited for a
purpose”. Atherstone countered by stating that his researches had shown
that there was sufficient cause to justify a thorough search of the
countries to the north of the Orange River from which he surmised that
the diamond had been washed down. In this he was supported by several
other authorities, including his friend Nathaniel Rubidge,49 and Andrew
Wyley the Cape Government Geologist. During February 1869 Dr John Shaw
47 Quoted in A. F. Williams, Some dreams come true 1948: 61.
31
of Colesburg published accounts of the geology of the Vaal River valley
in the Grahamstown Journal and about the same time WB Chalmers also
published statistics of the diamonds found so far. The general opinion
in South Africa was against Gregory and a letter from Edgar Layard the
Curator of the South African Museum to Joseph Hooker at Kew Gardens
explains this
...What a mess Messrs Emanuel & Gregory have made of the Diamonds. We
believe here, that they have perpetrated a letter game to raise the
market, like the former has to his stock., or shares, or something. No
one here doubts the Diamonds, & many more have been found which have not
been reported. Gregory stole two photographs of diamonds from the museum!
So I have good cause to doubt his honesty in other matters!... 50
48 This diamond, now called the Eureka, is in the Library of the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town. It
was presented to Parliament by Harry Oppenheimer in 1952 to celebrate the tercentenary of the Cape.
49 Richard Nathaniel Rubidge (1820-69) was apprenticed to Guybon Atherstone’s father as a student
surgeon. He qualified in medicine in London and returned to South Africa to practice chiefly as a
hospital doctor in Port Elizabeth. He became interested in geology as a result of his connection with
Atherstone and Bain and made his major study that of metamorphism. He also first recognised the
relationship between the Glossoptera of the Karroo and India and Australia, and had a species of
dicynodont named for him Dicynodon rubidgei. The Geological Society of London published a number of his
articles in their Transactions.
32
Soon the discoveries of diamonds in Griqualand West started coming thick
and fast. The first organised party of prospectors to explore the Vaal
River valley were a group of Natalians under a Captain Loftus Rolleston
in November 1869. They were joined by two Australians, Glennie and King,
who found the first diamonds in January 1870. At about that time a party
arrived from British Kaffraria, sent by Mary Elizabeth Barber’s nephew
Gray Barber and led by his friend A. McIntosh.51 These groups began
randomly working up and down the river and diamonds were soon found in
large quantities at Klipdrift on the north, and Pniel52 on the south bank
of the Vaal river. The Natal party collected about half a tumblerful
over two months and the Kaffrarians about a hundred diamonds weighing
from one to thirty carats within ten weeks. The news quickly spread and
both river banks quickly became covered with tents for miles with a few
wooden shacks scattered amongst them. Within a year the numbers of
prospectors had increased from ten Europeans to nearly 10,000 spread
over one hundred miles of country.
50 Directors Letters Kew vol 190/186 dated February 29th 1869. Held in the archives of the Royal
Botanic Gardens at Kew, London.
51 Unfortunately every writer on the topic tells a slightly different story. Mine gathers details from
several sources that more or less tally with Mary Elizabeth Barber’s version as related in her letters.
52 Pniel was a station of the Berlin Missionary Society and a Korana settlement before diamonds were
discovered.
33
A few years later Atherstone was directly involved in the discovery of
what became known as the Kimberley mine, the richest source of diamonds
at that time. Contemporary photographs show him in 1871 sorting the
ground for diamonds in the middle of a group of friends including the
Rhodes brothers, Cecil, Frank and Herbert, who had arrived there in May.
In July he toured the diamond fields for the first time since he had
recognised the first diamond, visiting Jagersfontein, Bultfontein and
the new diggings of Du Toits Pan and De Beers. There he met his
relatives the Barbers on a cold frosty day when the piles of debris from
the diggings looked like hills of snow, and the vlei was frozen over.
Gray Barber produced a fifteen-carat diamond for him to examine, and
Mary and Guybon entered into a detailed discussion as to the variations
in sizes of cameel doorn tree and whether they were different species.
The next day Guybon, Mary and her son Hal drove out to Spitskop where
they ‘geologised’ and found numerous ancient arrowheads and fossil
plants in the shales and sandstones. During his excursions Guybon had
measured the extent of the diamond-bearing areas and noticed the
similarities between Jagersfontein and De Beers. On 16 July 1871 he
pointed out to the Barbers and his brother-in-law Charles Cumming a
nearby kopje which he felt was indicative of a bulge in the
diamondiferous dyke and should produce even better diamonds.
I urged my friends to prospect there at once, being still unable to do so
myself (He had been laid up for a few days with a thorn in his knee). Five days afterwards
34
a few diamonds were found, and De Beers New Rush was pegged out. I
reported this prediction to Landdrost Truter,53 offering corroborative
evidence, and two claims, as usual, were promised to me ... The name was
afterwards changed to Colesberg Kopje, and ultimately Kimberley. Such is
the history of the Kimberley Mine 54
Atherstone’s interests in all things scientific never waned, even when,
as an old man he became virtually blind. His inventive mind enabled him
to devise a method of writing in the dark so he could continue his
correspondence and his researches as his sight deteriorated.
Geddes Bain considered that it was his successful relationship with the
Geological Society of London that persuaded both Atherstone and Rubidge
to start geological societies in Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth. However
neither society lasted long, Bain died suddenly in 1864 on his return
from his only visit back to the ‘home country’, and Rubidge in 1869.55
Atherstone became too involved in his medical practice and local
politics to devote much more time to his geology. Bain’s work was
53 Olof Johannes Truter was the Orange Free State’s Commissioner of the Diamond Fields at Pniel; he
became landrost at Du Toit’s Pan on February 22nd 1871 and retired to Bloemfontein when the fields
became British.
54 Quoted from Atherstone’s paper on “Kimberly and its diamonds” read to the South African Geological
Society on 12 August 1895.
35
continued by his son Thomas, who had studied to become a professional
road surveyor, but remained an amateur palaeontologist. It was not until
the discoveries, first of diamonds in 1867, and then of gold in the
1880s that there was any incentive for an influx of professional
geologists into the country who followed in the wake of the amateur
treasure-hunting prospectors. Until that time the local amateurs like
Bain had to rely on obtaining all their information and technology from
the professionals at ‘home’. The colonial process of the British Empire
consisted of Britain retaining the fount of knowledge, economic power
and processing skills while the colonies supplied the raw materials to
keep the wheels of science and industry turning. Bain and his
colleagues accepted that situation and continued for many years to send
their ‘finds’ back to London for study. In spite of this reliance on the
expertise of the home country, Bain and Atherstone laid the groundwork
for the continuing study of both geology and palaeontology in South
Africa, Bain himself being acknowledged as the “Father of South African
Geology” during his lifetime. However it was not until 1895 that there
was a sufficient core of both interested amateurs and professional
geologists and mining engineers in the colony to enable a Geological
Society of South Africa to come into being under the presidency of
another medical doctor, Hugh Exton.56 Atherstone being still alive and
active, although almost blind was elected an honorary vice-president and
in August 1895 was one of the first members to present a paper to the
36
society, on ‘Kimberley and its Diamonds’. The society continues to
flourish today.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks are due first to Alison Roberts and Peter Mitchell who
introduced me to these fascinating characters. I must also thank the
many people who helped me to track down biographical information. In
particular Lesley Price, Archivist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew,
Fleur Wyn-Jones and Cecilia Blight of the Albany Museum and Cory Library
in Grahamstown, and the staff of the Natural History Museum Kensington,
for access to their files of correspondence. Also to many others in
several continents, and especially to Kate and Zoe Henderson in South
Africa, who have contributed useful snippets of information.
55 The family interest continues today, as the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research at
the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, has as its Director Professor Bruce Rubidge, a
descendent of Nathaniel Rubidge’s brother.
56 Dr Hugh Exton FGS (1833-1903). Medical practitioner, geologist, explorer and museum curator. Born in
Huddersfield, and apprenticed there, he then studied at London and Leyden and qualified in medicine at
Giessen in Germany. He went to South Africa in the 1850s and practiced for over forty years in many
parts of the colony, taking an active interest in natural history, ornithology, geology and civic
affairs wherever he was. He was the first President of the Geological Society of South Africa.
37
CONTRIBUTOR
Dr. Alan Cohen is a retired medical practitioner in England, who has had
an interest in archaeology for many years. A recent research project for
the British Museum led him to discover a small group of dedicated
amateur scientists living during the nineteenth century in the Eastern
Cape Province of South Africa. Closely connected, either by friendship
or family, their work contributed greatly to the establishment of the
study of natural history, and the earth sciences in South Africa. He is
presently engaged in a biography of Mary Elizabeth Barber, who was the
linchpin of the group.
ARCHIVES
Much of this article is based on original letters written by the people
mentioned. Bain’s correspondence with the British Museum is included in
the Owen Correspondence in the Archives of the Natural History Museum,
South Kensington (DF 105/13 and Volume II/33). Other letters dealing
with the topic are held in the archives of the Geological Society of
London (Secretary’s letters, book LR8) and the British Geological Survey
(GSM 1/5). The De la Beche archive is in the Archives of the Department
of Geology, the National Museum Cardiff. Letters by Bain to Atherstone
dealing with the period are in the Albany Museum, Grahamstown (SM
38
5501/1-31). Unfortunately only one of Atherstone’s replies exists (SM
5501/32), but Nerina Mathie’s ‘pseudo-biography’ of Atherstone is an
invaluable extra source of information. Other biographical data was
obtained from the Dictionary of National Biography: from earliest times to1985,
published in 1992 by Oxford University Press or from various volumes of
the Dictionary of South African Biography published by the Human Resources
Research Council of South Africa.
REFERENCES
Atherstone, William Guybon, The geology of Uitenhage, Eastern Province Monthly
Magazine June 1857.
Bain, Andrew Geddes, On the discovery of the fossil remains of bidental
and other reptiles in South Africa. Transactions of the Geological Society of London
2nd series volume 7, 1845-56: 53.
Bain, A. G., Reminiscences and anecdotes connected with the history of
geology in South Africa, or the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.
Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa, volume 2 (5) 1896: 59-75.
Blackmore, Howard, Dictionary of London Gunmakers, (Oxford: Phaidon-Christies
Ltd., 1986).
Buckland, Dean William, Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural
Theology, 4th edition (London: William Pickering, 1837).
Cohen, Alan, Mary Elizabeth Barber: South Africa’s first lady natural
historian. Archives of Natural History 2000, volume 27 (2): 187-208.
39
Jenkins, Geoffrey and Eve Palmer, The Companion Guide to South Africa, (London:
Collins, 1978)
Lister, Margaret Hermina (ed). , Journals of Andrew Geddes Bain, (Cape Town:
Van Riebeek Society, 1949).
Lyell, Sir Charles, Principles of Geology, (London: John Murray,1830-33).
Mathie, Nerina, Atherstone Dr W.G. man of many facets, 3 volumes (Grahamstown:
privately published, 1998).
Mitford-Barberton, I. and V. White, Some Frontier Families, (Cape Town, Human
& Rousseau, 1968).
Owen, Richard, Description of skull of a large species of dicynodon (D.
tigriceps Ow.) transmitted from South Africa by A.G. Bain. Transactions of the
Geological Society of London, 2nd series volume 7, 1845-56: 233-240.
Owen, Richard, Descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the fossil reptilia of South Africa in
the collection of the British Museum, (London, 1876).
Rogers, A. W., The pioneers in South African geology and their work.
Annexure to Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa volume 39 1937.
Smith, William, Strata Identified by Organized Fossils (1816-19).
Williams, A.F. Some dreams come true (Cape Town, Timmins 1948).
40