On some Mammalian Remains from Lake Nyasa

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Abstract
Though the kindness of Dr. F. Dixey I have been privileged to examine a number of fragments brought back by him from the Chiwondo Beds of Uraha Hill, Lake Nyasa. They are very much broken up, and only three pieces are in sufficiently good condition to allow of a generic name being applied to them. Nevertheless, they are of great interest, since they are the first vertebrate remains to be obtained from that region, and since they indicate a fresh means of throwing light on the problems connected with the Great Rift-Valley. The bones are highly mineralized, of a greyish colour, and are badly cracked and fissured. Some at least of the cracking was effected before burial, but much of it is due to subsequent weathering. The matrix is a coarse quartzose grit with a calcareous cement. It is very hard, with numerous pockets of soft unconsolidated matter. in this respect it resembles the deposits of the Albert Nyanza and of the Victoria Nyanza. The Albert Nyanza deposits are cemented by oxides of iron, and are dark brown or black; but the fossils collected by Dr. Felix Oswald in the neighbourhood of Lake Victoria are, so far as the state of preservation is concerned, hardly to be distinguished from those collected by Dr. Dixey. This does not prove that the beds near Lakes Nyasa and Victoria are of the same age. It is most unwise to rely on lithology as a means of correlation, especially when dealing with lacustrine deposits.

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