the ground, a mafs of pure iron in a malleable Rate. Confi-
dered as a great curiofity, it was carried from place to place,
and is now in Cape Town. The mafs was entirely amorphous ;
exhibited no appearance of having ever been in a mine; no
matrix o f any kind was adhering to i t ; nor in the cavities of
its furface were any pebbles or marks of chryftallizatkm. It
was exceedingly tough, and the fradure more like that o f lead
than of iron. The weight of the mafs might be about three
hundred pounds. A fpecimen of this iron being earned into
England, fome time ago, by Colonel Prehn, it was fuppofed
that this metal was to be met with in its native ftate at the
Cape of Good Hope. Mineralogifts, however, are ftill la
doubt whether iron, though the moft abundant o f all metals,
has yet been difcovered in a native ftate; and whether thofe
maifes that have been found in Siberia, in Senegal, and a few
other places, were not the produfts of art, which, on fbme
oecafion, or by accident, had been buried in the ground. The
inafs in queftion exhibited evident marks of force having been
ufed in order to flatten and to draw it out. It had probably
been the thick part of a ¡hip’s-anchor,; carried from the coaft to
the place where it was found by the Kaffers, and attempted by
them to be reduced into fmaller pieces.
Travelling along the feet of the Rietberg before mentioned,
on the northern fide, we paffed feveral fine clumps of foreftt
trees in the kloofs of the mountain, and. among thefe obtained
three new fpecies of timber foreign to the woods near Zwart
Kop's bay. The face of the country was here particularly
jugged: the hills were compofed of fand-ftone, refting on
hafes
hafes of blue flate. In the perpendicular fide of one of thefe
was oozing out a fait of various colors, fimilar to that defcribed
and found near the fait lake of Zwart Kop’s river. The upper
part of the face o f this hill confifted of large, regular, rhomboi-
dal tablets, whofe proje&ing angles formed a kind of cornice
to the face: thefe refted on a mafs of purple flate, crumbling
into duft. The white veins of quartz that appeared to have
once heen liquid, and to have flowed through the flate in cur»
ved feams, were now far advanced in their tranfitions into
clay j pieces of thefe veins were friable between the fingers ,
feveral prifmatic quartz chryfials were found in a corroded
ftate, and evidently decompofing into the fame earth. The
changes of quartz into clay are perceptible in all the mountains
of Southern Africa. It fhould feem that this is the laft ftage
of all the earthy bodies. Future difcoveries in chemiftry may
perhaps demonftrate that the earths, now confidered as having
different bafes, were originally formed of one, and are reducible
to the fame ultimate principle ; or that they are convertible
fubftances. That expofure to, and combination with, the different
airs that float in the atmofphere, or with water impregnated
by different materials, they become fubjeft to pafs into
the nature of each other.
Several detached pieces of hematite were found among the
mafs of flate. Indeed there is fcarcely a mountain in Africa
that does not produce iron ores ; and ochres are every where
found in the greateft abundance. The fineft of thefe are met
with in the ftate of impalpable powders inclofed in cruftaceous
coverings of a reddiih color, of the hardnefs and confiftenee of
g G 2 baked