Mr Pope, of the Cape of Good Hope, presented a series of fossil reptilian remains, consisting mainly of vertebrae and rib fragments of an unidentified large animal (later placed in the genus Dicynodon), to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1836. With the exception of the Karoo fossils found and described by C.H. Grisbrook*, Pope's finds appear to be the earliest vertebrate fossils recorded from southern Africa. According to the Proceedings of the Asiatic society of Bengal (1836, Vol. 5, p. 518) the remains were collected in the bed of the Gamka River in the district "between the Zwarteberg and the Nieuwbergen, the central part of the Cape Colony, Lat. 33º S and 22º-23º W Long." This description places the find in rocks of the Beaufort Group, somewhere close to the present road between Leeu Gamka and Beaufort West. The fossils were presented to the society, with a note, by "Mr J. Trotter". He was probably John Trotter (senior), of the Bengal Civil Service. In 1825 he had addressed a letter to W. Robertson and other members of a committee nominated by the merchants of the Cape, requiring them to compile "a report on the state of the commerce, finances, and agriculture of that colony, for the consideration of His Majesty's commission of inquiry." Pope promised to collect more fossils for the society, to be presented "in the name of his lady".
