Alexander Logie Du Toit, 1878-1948

Abstract

Alexander Logie du Toit was born at Newlands, near Cape Town, in the former Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, on 14 March 1878, and died at Pinelands, Cape Town, on 25 February 1948. He was educated at the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, and the South African College, Cape Town, where he obtained the B.A.(Hons.) degree of the University of the Cape of Good Hope, and then proceeded to Glasgow, where he qualified in mining engineering at the Royal Technical College, obtaining the Diploma therein in 1899. He studied geology at the Royal College of Science, London, in 1900-1901. He was lecturer in geology, mining and mine-surveying in the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, and in geology in the University of Glasgow in 1901 and 1902. In 1903 he returned to Cape Town and was appointed Assistant Geologist to the Geological Commission of the Cape of Good Hope. From the date of this first appointment to a few days before his death he devoted himself to the collection of geological data, first in his own land, and later, as opportunity offered, in lands overseas; and, as time went on, he attempted more and more to synthesize this accumulation of facts into a comprehensive picture of the earth’s changes and of the forces that caused them. The mental and physical energy used up by him is incalculable; it poured out from him unceasingly. In the early years of his wrork with the Geological Commission he worked alone in the eastern part of the Cape Colony, covering a large tract of rugged and mountainous country between Herschel in the north and Cala in the south, mapping the various divisions of the Stormberg series and studying in particular the coal horizons of the Molteno beds, the great thickness of Stormberg lavas, and the striking volcanic pipes which penetrate the sediments and lavas of the series. For this work he had no reliable base-maps on which to lay.down geological boundaries; he travelled either on foot or on an ordinary bicycle, with his plane-table carried on his back. No mountain-top was unvisited by him, no valley or ravine left unexplored. The result was a series of field-sheets and geological maps whose detail and accuracy are a source of wonder and envy to the younger men who to-day attempt to ‘revise’ his work with good topographic maps, aerial photographs and motor transport at their command.