THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE- COLONY 457 



coast, Saldanha Bay, an almost land-locked basin in 

 granite, appears to be a drowned valley. There is no 

 well-defined valley entering the bay, though the thick 

 superficial sandy deposits that stretch south-east of the 

 bay may conceal an old river channel. At many places 

 in Saldanha Bay the dune limestone containing the re- 

 mains of land snails passes below sea level, as is also 

 the case near Struys Point and the mouth of the Duiven 

 Hoeks Kiver on the south coast. At Paternoster, north 

 of Saldanha Bay, a well sunk at a spot about twenty 

 feet above sea level revealed the presence of ninety feet 

 of sandy limestone and sand containing land shells, 

 tortoise bones, and broken marine shells, evidently an 

 accumulation formed on the land behind the beach, and 

 not below tide level. These facts all point to a recent 

 depression. 



The origin of the coast line has given rise to contro- 

 versy. From certain facts, that the west and south-east 

 coasts are remarkably straight, and that there is a broad 

 coincidence between the trend of the southern coast 

 generally and the strike of the rocks in the mountain 

 belt, it has been supposed * that the coast as a whole 

 had been defined by faults, an hypothesis that was sup- 

 ported by a misunderstanding of the structure of the 

 country between the Drakensberg and the Indian Ocean. 

 No faults which run parallel to the coast and drop the 

 rocks on the ocean side have been found in the west 

 coast country within the Colony, and south of the folded 

 belt the coast cuts slantingwise across the folds and 



1 E. Suess, Das Antlitz der Erde, vol. i., chap. vi. ; S. Passarge, Die 

 Kalahari, pp. 595-96 ; and Petermann's Geog. Mitteil, 1908, Heft vi. 



