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- Title
Henry Edward Richard Bright: a forgotten pioneer of the geological and palaeontological exploration of Lesotho in the 1870s.
- Authors
Master, S.
- Abstract
All existing accounts of the geology of Lesotho (formerly Basutoland), in southern Africa, refer to the pioneering efforts of the Revd S. S. Dornan, published between 1905 and 1908, as the first geological works in this country. However, one Henry Edward Richard Bright had already published two papers on Basutoland geology in the Cape monthly magazine, in 1873 and 1874. The first paper dealt with an uneconomic twelve-inch coal seam south of Maseru. It was accompanied by a sketch map and the first published geological cross-section through any part of Lesotho. In the second paper, dealing with the geology of Basutoland, Bright described the sedimentary strata and first fossil plants from western Basutoland, in rocks today assigned to the upper Karoo Supergroup. Bright erroneously assumed that the whole country was made up of these strata – being unaware of the existence of thick basaltic lava flows that occupied the mountainous high ground. He also recorded the oldest known earthquake from Lesotho (near Maseru, February 1873). Among his mineralogical finds was ilmenite, which we now know as occurring in kimberlitic intrusions. For his various discoveries, Bright deserves to be recognized as a pioneer in the geological and palaeontological exploration of Lesotho.
- Subjects
LESOTHO; NAMAQUALAND (South Africa); SOUTH Africa; GEOLOGY; PALEONTOLOGY; UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh; MISSIONARIES; GEOLOGICAL maps; DARWIN, Charles, 1809-1882
- Publication
Archives of Natural History, 2008, Vol 35, Issue 2, p191
- ISSN
0260-9541
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3366/E0260954108000338