Fauna and Stratigraphy of the Stormberg Series. 487 



Swaziland to within 25 miles or so of the Zululand coal-field. In the 

 latter (St. Lucia tield) the coal-bearing beds are separated from the 

 Basalts by horizontal beds of calcareous sandstone. At Somkele the 

 coal is considered by du Toit to be of Beaufort age, overlain by red 

 and purple shales which he thinks are Middle or Upper Beaufort. 



In the N. W. Zoutpansberg the Bushveld Sandstone rests either 

 on the old gneisses and schists or upon a variable thickness of Coal 

 Measures underlain in places by Glacial Conglomerate. 



The palaeontological evidence seems to bear out the correlation 

 of the Zoutpansberg and Springbok Flats members with the Red 

 Beds and Cave Sandstone of the Cape Province area. Two questions 

 remain to be settled definttaly 1. Is the fine-grained sandstone 



of the Komati Poort area really Bushveld Sandstone? 2. Is there 

 any Transvaal representative of the Molteno Beds? Kynaston has 

 already covered most of the ground, but the questions can be briefly 

 discussed. 



1. The onlv recorded fossil from the Komati Poort area is Glos- 



<j 



soptcris sp. from below the fine-grained sandstone. Here, in the 

 southern extension of the belt in Swaziland, and in Zululand upper 

 coal-seams occur near the top of the "Coal-Measures". In the 

 St. Lucia coal-field the following plants have been found: - Glosxop- 

 teris broivniana var. indic, (! . browniana var. angus'ifjliii, G. damudica, 

 G.retifera, G.acu*a. G. spatulo-cvrdata, PJiyllotheca sp. and Taeniopteris 

 spathulatum. This tlora was held to be an Ecca one by Etheridge 

 jim. ; but there seems little doubt that the assemblage is, as a whole, 

 typically Lower Beaufort. These beds are, however, separated by a 

 wide belt from the aniygdaloidal lavas at Somkele. a belt which is 

 not yet at all known. If the coal-bearing beds at Komati Poort are 

 the equivalent of those at St. Lucia then two possibilities arise: 

 (a) that the fine-grained sandstone at Komati Poort is true Bushveld 

 Sandstone and lies unconformably on the Beaufort Beds - just as 

 the Red Beds lie unconformably on the Beaufort Beds in the N. E. 

 Free State; or (b) that the fine-grained sandstone is itself of Upper 

 Beaufort age. The general nature of the sandstone, its mode of 

 weathering, its non-variability over a large district, and the known 

 unconformity at Harrismith and in the neighbourhood lend strong 

 support to the former alternative. The matter awaits further treat- 

 ment based upon more detailed field work ; but it is important to 

 note that the similarity of the sandstones in the different areas points 

 to formation under similar climatic conditions; and these conditions 

 do not seem to have occurred in the southern area until the onset 

 of Red Beds times. 



