Rhodes Geology Centenary

摘要

It would seem appropriate in this, the Centenary Year of the University, to offer a few notes of historical interest on the development of Earth Science at Rhodes, ninety-nine years after the foundation of the Geology Department in 1905. It is here, after all, that a monument to the 'Father of South African Geology', Andrew Geddes Bain (1797-1864) stands a few miles outside of Grahamstown. It was Bain who had literally put South Africa 'on the map' with the shipping of his fossil collection overseas, and publication of his work in 1856 in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London [see also the archivist's contribution later in this issue of GB; Ed]. The Geology Department, the fifth to be established within the fledgling Rhodes University College, was founded by Ernest H. L. Schwarz. A graduate of the Royal College of Science and the Camborne School of Mines, he had served for 10 years with the Cape Geological Commission, under whose name he had already published 115 contributions. One must view some of his rather controversial views within the context of the times - a mere 40 years after [yell's Elements of Geology came out in 1 865 - for many of his ideas were indeed controversial.