374 J. w. BEWS. 



about Pinetown, but the detailed geology is unknown between 

 this town and the Tongaat Eiver. Anderson^s work in Victoria 

 County indicates a somewhat dissected slope rising fairly 

 evenly for some ten or twelve miles inland, whence there is 

 a sudden drop from the Table Mountain Sandstone to the 

 more friable granite. The seaward half of this belt is formed 

 of Karroo Beds, with the Dwyka cropping out inland, followed 

 by the higher horizons near the coast ; faulting is not unusual. 

 The " drowning " of the coast is evinced by the broad alluvial 

 belt extending for a number of miles up the valley of the 

 Umvoti River. 



II. CLIMATE. 

 1. Temperature. 



Temperature variations on the coast belt are not extreme 

 as they are at higher altitudes. The average mean tempera- 

 tures are high and, according to available records, only once 

 — at Stanger in 1893 — has the temperature fallen below 

 freezing point; but frosts would probably have been recorded 

 more frequently if observations had been taken continuously 

 at the bottom of any of the valleys. In the early days when 

 sugar-cane cultivation was carried on only on the river 

 flats, injury from frost appears to have been frequently 

 experienced. 



The mean amount of cloud over the coast belt is relatively 

 much greater than for the midlands, being 4" 7 (if the over- 

 cast sky is taken as 10) at Durban, and this leads to a less 

 range of temperatures as a rule, though there are occasionally 

 very high temperatares recorded, e.g. 123'^F. for Stanger, 

 where the mean cloudiness is less. 



The general absence of frosts, the relatively high mean 

 temperatures and the less range are the chief points which 

 distinguish the coast belt as a whole, and mark it off as 

 distinctly more tropical than any other part of the south- 

 eastern summer-rainfall region of South Africa. The pre- 

 vailing cloudiness and somewhat high rainfall, which is fairly 



