THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE COLONY 427 



This series is one of the several eminently arenaceous 

 formations that seem to be characteristic of Africa 

 generally and Southern Africa in particular ; an im- 

 portant feature is that they contain few or no fossils. 

 The Matsap series can scarcely have been formed in the 

 sea, and its well-bedded character is against its being 

 regarded as a purely subaerial formation. It is probably 

 an example of that great class of deposits known as 

 "continental," formed either in a region without an 

 outlet to the ocean or on sinking ground by rivers laden 

 with sediment ; the differences between such rocks and 

 marine deposits is due to the absence of marine condi- 

 tions, which precludes the formation of marine lime- 

 stone. 



Though now only represented in the west of Hay, 

 Gordonia, Bechuanaland, and the Protectorate, the 

 Matsap beds probably had a very much wider distribu- 

 tion in Pre-Karroo times. They are probably repre- 

 sented in the Transvaal by the Waterberg beds, and 

 the intervening country, now occupied chiefly by older 

 rocks, may have been covered by them. After their de- 

 position there was a period of earth-movements which 

 produced the greatest effect along the eastern border of 

 the Kalahari ; from the Ezel Band in Prieska at least 

 as far north as Kuis on the Molopo these beds were 

 closely folded, and to a less extent faulted, and formed 

 a considerable range of mountains, of which the Koran- 

 naberg and Langebergen are remnants. This folding 

 must have been brought about while the beds we see 

 now were still under a deep cover of later deposits, but 

 what this cover consisted of is unknown. The oldest 



