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Looking down

Educational graphs spotted en route down to the Mantle Room, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town. Situated in the bowels of the Leslie Social Sciences Building on upper campus, the Mantle Room ""houses a collection of upper mantle-derived materials (mantle xenoliths and xenocrysts, kimberlites and related rocks and megacrysts, as well as deep crystal xenoliths) that is most likely the largest of its kind. The collection was assembled over the past 50 years and has been and continues to be an invaluable and irreplaceable resource for mantle research. Informally named the “Mantle Room” collection, it is maintained under the auspices of the Department of Geological Sciences”(Department of Geological Sciences 2021).
The South African College

“UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, a high school for boys. The College had a small tertiary-education facility that grew substantially after 1880, when the discovery of gold and diamonds in the north – and the resulting demand for skills in mining – gave it the financial boost it needed to grow. The College developed into a fully fledged university during the period 1880 to 1900, thanks to increased funding from private sources and the government. During these years, the College built its first dedicated science laboratories, and started the departments of mineralogy and geology to meet the need for skilled personnel in the country's emerging diamond and gold-mining industries” (University of Cape Town 2021).
The South African College

“UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, a high school for boys. The College had a small tertiary-education facility that grew substantially after 1880, when the discovery of gold and diamonds in the north – and the resulting demand for skills in mining – gave it the financial boost it needed to grow. The College developed into a fully fledged university during the period 1880 to 1900, thanks to increased funding from private sources and the government. During these years, the College built its first dedicated science laboratories, and started the departments of mineralogy and geology to meet the need for skilled personnel in the country's emerging diamond and gold-mining industries” (University of Cape Town 2021).
Cecil John Rhodes statue

The man who consolidated thousands of small diggings in Kimberley to found De Beers Consolidated Mines was Cecil Rhodes, who then used the profits to extend into gold mining in and around Johannesburg.
Sharpeville

Stow’s discovery of coal deposits in 1878, found in the beds of the Vaal River, was of interest to the diamond magnate, Sammy Marks. Marks realised the importance of Stow’s discovery and the opportunity for using coal at the Kimberley diamond fields for energy generation (Leigh, 1968:112). He believed he could transport the coal from Vereeniging to Kimberley by floating it down-river by a series of weirs to his diamond claims. This turned out to be impractical and he had to resort to using ox-wagons as a method of transport instead (Leigh 1968:17). Marks & Lewis who at that time owned a quarter of all the Kimberley diamond claims sold most of their Kimberley claims to concentrate on the coal finds through their newly formed mining company, the Zuid-Afrikaansche en Oranje Vrystaatsche Mineralen en Mijnbouvereeniging (later to become the Vereeniging Estates Limited). In 1892, the small village of Vereeniging was formally established. Near Vereeniging the predominantly black community of Sharpeville was established where on the 21st of March, 68 years later, the Sharpeville massacre would occur.
A curious request...

"Dear post-graduate researchers in Geological Sciences I am a lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, and have brought my Honours in Curatorship students almost annually to visit the Mantle collection that forms part of your department. Dr Janney usually chats to us, and shows us the kimberlite specimens... As of recently, I have been doing research on George Stow, a British born, South African geologist and ethnologist (who was also a poet, historian, artist, cartographer and writer) and who, during the 19th century, was responsible for documenting the rock art he found in the caves and shelters of South Africa. In 1872, he was employed by Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of the Cape Colony, to survey the territory of Griqualand West. On this subject he read a paper before the Geological Society in London in 1873 (""Geological Notes on Griqualand West""). Two years later, Stow undertook the task of studying the geology of the country surrounding the diamond fields of Kimberley, travelling down to the junction of the Orange and Vaal rivers and beyond, in order to connect this research to the previous work he had done in the area. I have attached a map he drew up during this time and would be very interested to know what a contemporary geologist makes of it... I welcome any insights - and would especially be interested to know whether there are materials in the department which could possibly relate to it, such as specimens in the Mantle Room, or other maps perhaps? Or maybe you can just point me in the right direction and I can chat to someone else in the department or further afield? I am keeping my fingers-crossed... Regards, Nina Liebenberg"
H.4

This object, a leather cartridge case said to belong to Sammy Marks, occupies a place in the Special Collections of the University of Cape Town. It forms part of the Sammy Marks Papers (BC770).
A geologist responds

"Dear Nina, Thanks for your email - it was a lovely detour from the work I have been trying to do all afternoon. I love looking at geological maps - both old and new alike - so this was a treat. Stow's map is fantastic, right down to the amazing calligraphy. Truly a piece of scientific art. I couldn't read his name on the map properly - Did he have middle initial(s) other than 'W' or did he sign off as Geo W Stow (just curious)? Off the bat, sadly, I am not in the UCT geo dept anymore so I can't say what materials might relate to your request. I am sure there are plenty of maps that will reference part of his original map/work (esp given it was likely in the 1880s!!). I recently went down a Du Toit rabbit hole and I know he mapped in this general area too: Du Toit, A. L., 1907. Geological survey of the eastern portion of Griqualand West. Rep. Geol. Comm. C. G. H. for 1906, pp. 87 - 176. [no doubt this has some lovely maps - how much overlap with your study, I am not sure] Du Toit, A .. L., 1910. The evolution of the river system of Griqualand West. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, 1(2), 347–361. Given this area appears close to Kimberley there are no doubt lots of historical and modern maps that will be useful at UCT. The 'modern' 1:250 000 Kimberley map is number 2824 (attached an extract here, the red box shows where I think Stow's map was taken). I don't think the Mantle Room necessarily will have specimens from here as they are likely geologically ""young"" consolidated gravels and sands. From the map itself, it seems he put a lot of effort into mapping out the exposures of the older Vaal river terrace deposits ('boulders', gravels and grits). This would make sense in light of the alluvial diamonds (& I see diamondiferous - truly wish I had this in front of me!). He has also mapped out much of the modern sediments & sand bars on the river (& even the rapids- gorgeous). My take is that if you have diamondiferous gravels, they would want to know where they are being transported to by the river - hence the detailed mapping of sandbars and currents, which a modern geological map wouldn't be too specific about. Given this is not my area of geological expertise, I can't really comment on the geology off the top of my head but there are extensive terraces along the Vaal and I remember them also being significant for stone tools. Given there are no grid-coords that I can see, I would rely on trying to find the spot along the river based on the place names given and the morphology of the river (as it was then, relative to how it looks now) between 14 Streams and ?""Karryn Poort"". Find attached the .kmz file - in which I've tried to overlayed Stow's map you provided onto the 2009 geomorphology of the Vaal downstream of 14 Streams (try shifting between 2021 and 2009 to see how Stow's map fits with the river's course - this was fun!). I don't know how accurate that is (largely because I struggled to read his scale [? 1 inch:927 feet? = 1 cm: 111m?]); but it gives you an idea of what it may have been like to map there in the late 1800s, and also how the river moves and shifts over the course of ~150 years & seasonally (which I find fascinating). It is probably safe to say that he most likely mapped the area in the dry season - as the river doesn't look particularly 'full' relative to the time-warping you can see on Google Earth. Anyway, I hope that helps in some small way - I love looking at old maps in a historical context and relative to what is known now. Particularly when it overlaps with some of the work I have been doing! I also like to think of them going about the work on foot or by ox-wagon in the late 1800s- early 1900s... how times have changed! Best of luck with the project. I would love to know what you find! Cheers, Lara "
Cape Town Diamond Museum

A display outside the Cape Town Diamond Museum in the V&A Waterfront.
Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San

In 2008, the exhibition 'Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San' opened at the Iziko Museum of South Africa. Curated by Pippa Skotnes, the exhibition featured the work of a relatively unknown figure in 19th century South African history. George William Stow was a British born, South African geologist, ethnologist, poet, historian, artist, cartographer, and writer who was responsible for a creating large collection of watercolours and drawings that documented the rock art he found in the caves and shelters of South Africa. The exhibition brought together a vast range of materials representing Stow’s life and the period in which it was produced – from his drawings and paintings; his letters, documents, and poems; to his maps, and field diaries. The display shows one map in particular which is kept as part of the National Library of South Africa collections, and was drawn by Stow during the period he was conducting geological surveys of the country surrounding the diamond fields of Kimberley, down to the junction of the Orange and Vaal rivers and beyond. It shows amongst other things, the diamondiferous deposits of the Vaal river during the late 19th century and, as part of this section of the exhibition which focused on Stow the geologist, Skotnes displayed it alongside relevant disciplinary materials she sourced from the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town.
Google Earth view of Stow

Google Earth view of area of 'Griqualand West' (GPS 28° 9'2.15"S 25° 2'3.77"E) on 2 May 2021
Google Earth view of Stow

Google Earth view of area of 'Griqualand West' (GPS 28° 9'2.15"S 25° 2'3.77"E) on 2 May 2021
Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San (The map)

In 2008, the exhibition 'Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San' opened at the Iziko Museum of South Africa. Curated by Pippa Skotnes, the exhibition featured the work of a relatively unknown figure in 19th century South African history. George William Stow was a British born, South African geologist, ethnologist, poet, historian, artist, cartographer, and writer who was responsible for a creating large collection of watercolours and drawings that documented the rock art he found in the caves and shelters of South Africa. The exhibition brought together a vast range of materials representing Stow’s life and the period in which it was produced – from his drawings and paintings; his letters, documents, and poems; to his maps, and field diaries. The display shows one map in particular which is kept as part of the National Library of South Africa collections, and was drawn by Stow during the period he was conducting geological surveys of the country surrounding the diamond fields of Kimberley, down to the junction of the Orange and Vaal rivers and beyond. It shows amongst other things, the diamondiferous deposits of the Vaal river during the late 19th century and, as part of this section of the exhibition which focused on Stow the geologist, Skotnes displayed it alongside relevant disciplinary materials she sourced from the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town.
Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San (installation detail)

In 2008, the exhibition 'Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San' opened at the Iziko Museum of South Africa. Curated by Pippa Skotnes, the exhibition featured the work of a relatively unknown figure in 19th century South African history. George William Stow was a British born, South African geologist, ethnologist, poet, historian, artist, cartographer, and writer who was responsible for a creating large collection of watercolours and drawings that documented the rock art he found in the caves and shelters of South Africa. The exhibition brought together a vast range of materials representing Stow’s life and the period in which it was produced – from his drawings and paintings; his letters, documents, and poems; to his maps, and field diaries.
Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San (installation detail)

In 2008, the exhibition 'Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San' opened at the Iziko Museum of South Africa. Curated by Pippa Skotnes, the exhibition featured the work of a relatively unknown figure in 19th century South African history. George William Stow was a British born, South African geologist, ethnologist, poet, historian, artist, cartographer, and writer who was responsible for a creating large collection of watercolours and drawings that documented the rock art he found in the caves and shelters of South Africa. The exhibition brought together a vast range of materials representing Stow’s life and the period in which it was produced – from his drawings and paintings; his letters, documents, and poems; to his maps, and field diaries.
Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San (installation detail)

In 2008, the exhibition 'Unconquerable Spirit: George Stow and the landscapes of the San' opened at the Iziko Museum of South Africa. Curated by Pippa Skotnes, the exhibition featured the work of a relatively unknown figure in 19th century South African history. George William Stow was a British born, South African geologist, ethnologist, poet, historian, artist, cartographer, and writer who was responsible for a creating large collection of watercolours and drawings that documented the rock art he found in the caves and shelters of South Africa. The exhibition brought together a vast range of materials representing Stow’s life and the period in which it was produced – from his drawings and paintings; his letters, documents, and poems; to his maps, and field diaries.
Sheet No 11

"Geological Map of the Vaal River, from Fourteen Streams to the Kareyn Poort shewing the Various Formations, and the Position of the Diamantiferous Deposits. "
Sound from the Thinking Strings (installation detail)

'Sound from the Thinking Strings' was comprised of twenty etchings created by Skotnes that drew on southern San mythology, archaeological and historical research and rock paintings; poems by the late poet Stephen Watson that interpreted extracts of nineteenth-century recordings of |xam cosmology compiled in the Bleek and Lloyd archive and pre-selected by Skotnes; and historical and archaeological contextualisations of these recordings in the form of essays by archaeologist John Parkington and historian Nigel Penn. The exhibition also displayed associated visual material that Skotnes sourced from the UCT and State Archives, the UCT Archaeology Department and the SAM.
Sound from the Thinking Strings (installation detail)

'Sound from the Thinking Strings' was comprised of twenty etchings created by Skotnes that drew on southern San mythology, archaeological and historical research and rock paintings; poems by the late poet Stephen Watson that interpreted extracts of nineteenth-century recordings of |xam cosmology compiled in the Bleek and Lloyd archive and pre-selected by Skotnes; and historical and archaeological contextualisations of these recordings in the form of essays by archaeologist John Parkington and historian Nigel Penn. The exhibition also displayed associated visual material that Skotnes sourced from the UCT and State Archives, the UCT Archaeology Department and the SAM.
||kabbo's song on the loss of his tobacco pouch

The loss of ||kabbo's tobacco bag, which was stolen by a hungry dog, belonging to !gou !nui, named 'Blom'
!nue

1. shana, 2. "pot", 3. da a "fire", 4. ya ||gu, 5. !nue ("bag"), 6. Ngoba ≠ko ≠ko, 7. shana |ne ≠nauwa ya. Shana fruit which has fallen upon the ground., 8. shana |ne, 9. shana go, 10. shana !gua, shana leaf, 11. ≠ko ≠ko tsema, 12. ≠ko ≠ko |nu |nu ||a, 13. ≠ko ≠ko tchu, 14.!ku (Ngoba !ku), 15. Ngoba tchu, 16. ||gu yo, water pot, 17. !nu tsema, 18. ngoba (necklace), (19. shana |ne), (20. !kan ssin), (21. gomi |no), 22. skin fastening of necklace, 23. yo tsema, 24. !kan tsema, 24. leaves which have fallen to the ground
Sound from the Thinking Strings (installation detail)

'Sound from the Thinking Strings' was comprised of twenty etchings created by Skotnes that drew on southern San mythology, archaeological and historical research and rock paintings; poems by the late poet Stephen Watson that interpreted extracts of nineteenth-century recordings of |xam cosmology compiled in the Bleek and Lloyd archive and pre-selected by Skotnes; and historical and archaeological contextualisations of these recordings in the form of essays by archaeologist John Parkington and historian Nigel Penn. The exhibition also displayed associated visual material that Skotnes sourced from the UCT and State Archives, the UCT Archaeology Department and the SAM.
Ways of looking

"Skotnes had a longstanding relationship with the museum, which started when she was still a student at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Davison remembers that Skotnes would visit the taxidermy section of the South African museum to draw bones. As an anthropologist, Davison admits to finding Skotnes’s way of looking at things stimulating – an individual way of looking at objects that made her look at them differently, even though she was already very familiar with these materials. Davison recalls a visit to the ethnographic stores during which she showed Skotnes the San skin bags, carefully conserved in their drawers and laid out on acidfree paper. Skotnes admired not only their aesthetic qualities but related the stories she had been studying in the Bleek and Lloyd archive to them – stories that shifted their status from anthropological museum objects to powerful animate objects in San spiritual and social life (P. Davison, personal communication, 28 January 2021). Skotnes remembers that she asked staff whether they knew what was inside the bags and was shocked when nobody could remember looking in them. She was allowed to look inside one and found a claw, which they thought must be a leopard’s (P. Skotnes, personal communication, 9 May 2021)" (Liebenberg 2021: 215).
Hunting bags (Audio)

"I met Pippa quite a long time before 'Sound from the Thinking Strings' and I knew she found the museum really interesting. In those days you could climb over the wall between the art school and the museum, before the new building. Pippa would climb up a little ladder and over the wall and come to taxidermy to draw bones and other things. She especially loved the very old exhibits. We got to know each other. There was a conversation going. We weren't planning anything in particular, but I just found her way of looking at things stimulating. It wasn't so much a curatorial intervention then as simply a way of looking at objects that made me look at them differently, even though I was very familiar with them. I remember the very first time that Pippa came to the ethnographic store and we looked at the skin bags (the San hunting bags that women carry, the beautiful ones) together. These were looked after with utter care and beautifully laid out on acid free tissue. Nobody had however, looked at them in the way Pippa looked at them, which was to see their beauty really... She was also able to relate them to the folklore and the stories which she knew from the Bleek and Lloyd archive, which spoke of these bags as animate. If you had one of these little hunting bags made from the skin of a small antelope, for instance, you would be able to converse with it, as if it was the animal. There was that kind of connection. I therefore had a variety of these types of imaginative interactions with Pippa, and it was an absolute pleasure to see the collection looked at in that way. Fast-track twenty years forward, when the curatorship students started looking at our collections, I had a similar feeling. It is just that suddenly, through somebody else's eyes, something takes on another level of meaning - and you look at it quite differently yourself."
Sound from the Thinking Strings (installation detail)

'Sound from the Thinking Strings' was comprised of twenty etchings created by Skotnes that drew on southern San mythology, archaeological and historical research and rock paintings; poems by the late poet Stephen Watson that interpreted extracts of nineteenth-century recordings of |xam cosmology compiled in the Bleek and Lloyd archive and pre-selected by Skotnes; and historical and archaeological contextualisations of these recordings in the form of essays by archaeologist John Parkington and historian Nigel Penn. The exhibition also displayed associated visual material that Skotnes sourced from the UCT and State Archives, the UCT Archaeology Department and the SAM.