Coal and Gold Deposits in Natal. bi 



Pepworth station across the farm " Burford," near the sharp 

 southerly bend of the Klip River. Beyond that fault a strip is met 

 with which has been dropped about 500 feet, the differential move- 

 ment on the fault being therefore approximately 1,500 feet. On 

 crossing the fault, the coal measure sandstones suddenly appear on 

 the surface, while .several boreholes, among which mav be mentioned 

 one on the farm " Netherton," have passed through the coal seams 

 at heights above sea level of about 3,050 feet. 



Near Elandslaagte, the northern side of the depressed strip is 

 reached, and at the Elandslaagte Colliery coal outcrops, the seams 

 being respectively 3,538 feet and 3,529 feet above sea level. From 

 bor.^holes put down at Elandslaagte, and the Ramsay Colliery near 

 Wessels Xek, it is clear the lower seam must be more than 700 feet 

 above the Ecca shales. To the north of the Biggarsberg the seams 

 are observed to be closing together. Near Glencoe Junction, on the 

 farm '' Sterkstroom,'' the two principal seams are 15 feet apart; 

 at the Woodlands Colliery, between Glencoe and Hatting Spruit, 

 5 feet ; and at the Durban Navigation Colliery, near Dannhauser, 

 I foot 6 inches. 



North of Dannhauser the sections of the coal seams and the 

 associated strata become very variable, widely different results being 

 obtained in boreholes relatively close to one another. As a generalisa- 

 tion, it may be said that there we usuallv find two seams, one thick 

 and the other thin. 



It is clear that both at Hatting Spruit and Newcastle the coal 

 seams are far from the base of the coal measures. At the Woodlands 

 Collierv (formerly New Campbell) a borehole has passed 500 feet 

 below the seams without reaching the Ecca shales, while on the farm 

 " Johnstone," between Newcastle and Utrecht, a borehole at a lower 

 geological horizon than the coal, has gone down 600 feet in coal 

 measures, apparentlv reaching the Ecca shales at about that depth. 

 In the Utrecht and Vryheid districts the seams vary in section as 

 they do near Newcastle, but as a rule not quite so rapidly. They 

 are more numerous than on the Klip River field. The lowest seam 

 at Hlobane is 4,030 feet above sea level, and about 400 feet above 

 the Ecca shales, and as the latter are thin there, little more above 

 the Dwyka. Little is known of the seams near Nongoma up to tlie 

 present. 



The coal seams so far referred to lie almost horizontally, but 

 when we come to Somkeli, on the Zululand coast, w^e meet with 

 a different condition of things, for there the strata dip at an angle 

 of 20 to 30 degrees to the south-east. It appears probable that the 

 parallel lines of outcrop of thick seams which are found on the 

 Somkeli Coalfield do not represent originally separate seams, but 

 are due to step faulting. About 8 miles inland from Somkeli we 

 have a section showing several seams, while other seams not yet 

 correlated outcrop there. A borehole at the Zululand Colliery, near 

 Somkeli Station, shows a very thick seam and a thinner seam lower 

 down. In the diagram correction has been made for d'vn. The 



