Note 101 — CHAP. III.

In the Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxviii. part I. p. 102, we have a Letter from Mr. Anderson to Sir John Pringle, describing this remarkable stone. The account sent home from the Cape, and read before the Royal Society, is much the same with that now published, but rather fuller. In particular, he tells Sir John, that he went to see it at Mr. Mason’s desire, who, probably, had not had an opportunity of sufficiently examining it himself. In the account of his journies, above referred to, p. 270, he only says, “there are two large solid rocks on the Perel Berg, each of which (he believes) is more than a mile in circumference at the base, and upwards of two hundred feet high. Their surfaces are nearly smooth, without chink or fissures; and they are found to be a species of granite, different from that which composes the neighbouring mountains.”

Mr. Anderson having, with his letter to Sir John Pringle, also sent home a specimen of the rock, it was examined by Sir William Hamilton, whose opinion is, that “this singular, immense fragment of granite, most probably has been raised by a volcanic explosion, or some such cause.” See his Letter to Sir John Pringle, annexed to Mr. Anderson’s, in the Philosophical Transactions.