TERTIARY AND RECENT DEPOSITS 405 



upon a more or less extensive shelf cut into the sloping 

 land behind the shore. 



The most northern raised beaches yet found in the 

 Colony are on the coast between the Olifant's Kiver 

 mouth and Thorn Bay. The coast is formed by a 

 range of cliffs about 100 feet high, composed of the 

 Malmesbury beds to the north of Strand Fontein and 

 of Table Mountain sandstone to the south. South of 

 the Zand Leegte the cliffs are remarkably fine, and they 

 are broken into many small inlets and rocky points by 

 the attacks of the Atlantic waves. The Table Moun- 

 tain sandstone dips eastwards at about 35, and is cut 

 flat on the top of the cliffs. The old beach deposits lie 

 on this flat surface, and consist of water-worn boulders 

 mixed with sand. The beach has been cemented into 

 a hard conglomerate by the deposition of iron oxides 

 and siliceous matter in places, and in these conglom- 

 erates shells or fragments of them are scarcely to be 

 found ; but in other parts of the beach at the same 

 level, where this process has not gone so far, shells 

 belonging to species still living on the west coast are 

 abundant, and the rock is a loose shelly conglomerate. 

 Transitions from the latter to the former condition of 

 the beach are to be found, and as the amount of change 

 increases the shells decrease in quantity ; they are dis- 

 solved without being actually replaced by the cement- 

 ing material. 



On the peninsula to the west of the south end of 

 Saldanha Bay there are shelly limestones with abundant 

 shells of living marine forms lying from ten to twenty 

 feet above high water. These limestones pass inland 



