of mineral wealth, Cape Colony is not so rich as some adjacent lands.  It contains coal, but the individual beds of coal are thin, and owing to this thinness the coal necessarily alternates with shale, which is more conspicuous than in the coal fields of Britain.  I remember that Professor Sedgwick, my old master in geology, told me that in his youth seams of coal only some four to six inches thick were worked on the sides of hills in Yorkshire, and that the coal was carried on horseback over the country to supply the wants of the mountain population.  Cape Colony is in a far better state than that.  In the Eastern Province the beds of coal are frequently a foot or two or more in thickness.  They crop out on the surface with a slight dip near to the railway, and although only worked at present in a few pits (as at Cyphergat, Fairview, Molteno—­I did not visit the Indwe)—­the coal-bearing rocks certainly extend over a much wider area of country than that which has been explored.  One of the happy results at which I arrived in my short visit to this district was to find that there are certain extinct forms of reptilian life associated with these coal beds, by means of which the geological horizon upon which the coal occurs may be traced through the country; so that there is a prospect of this mineral being followed along its outcrop in the Eastern Province with comparative ease by this means.  It is desirable on all accounts that coal should be burned rather than timber, since the destruction of wood is harmful to the supply of water.  With regard to the gold of Cape Colony, I have not the requisite knowledge to speak with the same confidence.  The quantity in any district is probably small:  the amount is great in the aggregate, but very widely diffused.  Gold appears to be present in small amounts in almost all the volcanic rocks, so that as those rocks decay and new mineral substances are formed out of the decomposed products, the gold which they contained is often preserved and concentrated in thin and narrow veins of zeolitic minerals, which extend over the surface of these volcanic rocks.  To what extent these zeolites may be hereafter worked with profit it is impossible at present to say, for much may depend upon water supply, by means of which the ore would be crushed and washed, and much on the varying quantities of gold present in samples from different localities.  On the whole, the utilisation of science in the service of man, especially in relation to metals, coal, and water supply, if systematically carried out, will, I believe, be an element of future prosperity to Cape Colony, and enable the Colony to minister to the welfare of adjacent lands.

Mr. J.X.  MERRIMAN:  I am sure South Africans are very grateful indeed to the amiable and kindly critic in the person of Sir Frederick Young.  It is no new thing to Colonists to owe him a debt.  All those present will acknowledge the great things he has done for the Colonies