412 SALT PANS 



under the sea, or at any rate liable to inundations of 

 salt water at high tide during storms, and it is possible 

 that the salt derived from this source is still inexhausted 

 in spots where, owing to a slightly lower level or to the 

 presence of more favourable surface deposits, a larger 

 quantity of the sea- water evaporated than elsewhere. 



One of the best known salt-pans is that on the Zwart- 

 kops Heights north of the river of that name. It is 

 surrounded by the shelly beach deposits described on 

 page 406, but the fossiliferous clays and limestones of 

 the Sunday's Kiver beds crop out beneath them on one 

 side of the pan. The salt which collects in the pan 

 after rain must come from the rocks near at hand, pro- 

 bably from the Sunday's River beds, some of which 

 contain enough salt to form an incrustation on their 

 outcrops on the road leading to Addo Drift ; so far as 

 we know, however, the presence of salt in the beds 

 round or under the pan has not been proved. Crystals 

 of gypsum lie in the sandy mud on the floor of the pan. 



The inland pans are abundant over a great stretch of 

 country extending from the north of Calvinia through 

 the Divisions of Fraserburg, Carnarvon, Kenhardt, 

 Prieska, Britstown, Hopetown, Kimberiey, and Boshof. 

 This tract is sometimes called the Panne-veld and coin- 

 cides roughly with the outcrops of the Dwyka series. 

 Pans are also numerous in Gordonia on the same for- 

 mation. 



These pans are usually circular or oval, more rarely 

 irregular, in outline ; they vary from a few yards up to 

 several miies in width. Haakschein Vlei in Gordonia 

 is fourteen miles long and six miles wide ; Kopjes Kraal 



