24:8 Mr. R. Bullen Newton on some 



these facto, it would seem possible that this African formation, 

 with its freshwater assemblage of organisms, would appear 

 to favour a correlation with the Iiitertrappean beds of India, 

 and consequently would be Upper Cretaceous. Such a 

 result is in support of the now generally received view of the 

 existence of a land-connexion between India and Africa 

 during the Cretaceous epoch. Moreover, pala?ontological 

 researches support the theory of such a land-surface being 

 continuous from Upper Pulseozoic times, and so uniting 

 Australia, India, Madagascar, Africa, and America — a stretch 

 of territory known as Gondwana Land, which has yielded the 

 celebrated Glossopteris flora *. At the close of the Cretaceous 

 epoch this great land-area was broken up, and finally became 

 submerged by the invasion of the Tertiary Sea t' 



Conclusions. 



Tliis chalcedonized rock from Matabeleland is mentioned 

 by Mr. Maufe as occurring in a peneplain of Upper Karroo 

 Beds and at tiie base of Pleistocene deposits known as the 

 Kalahari Sands, which in this region of Africa mostly cover 

 the basalts and the other underlying formations. Dr. Pas- 

 sarge J has described similar rocks to the south in the 

 Kalahari country undor the group-name of " Botletle Schich- 

 ten," and later Mr. G. W. Lamplugh§ recognized the same 

 deposits in the Batoka Gorge of the Zambesi River, and 

 termed them " Chalcedonic Quartzite.'^ No definite geolo- 

 gical age has been assigned to this formation, on account of 

 the absence of palffiontological evidence, although Dr. Passarge 

 has attempted a divisional sequence of the beds as they occur 

 in the Kalahari Desert, involving certain climatal conditions, 

 the oldest of the beds being regarded as Eocene. 



It is important also to again mention the presence of 

 similar beds made known to us under the name of " Surface 

 Quartzites" by Dr. A. VV. Rogers, containing both Chara 

 and Li?7incea, occurring in the South-eastern area of Cape 

 Colony, thus proving fairly conclusively a contemporaneity of 

 deposition with the chalcedonic rocks of Matabeleland, the 

 Zambesi territory, and Kalahari. 



It is now suggested, from an examination of the obscure 



• E. A.N. Arber, "On the Distribution of the Glomwteris Flora," 

 Geol. Mag. 1902, pp. 340-349. 



t See Mr. R. 1). ()ldhnm',y remarks on this subject in bis edition of 

 Medlicott and Blanford's ' >[RnuHl of the Geologv of India,' 1893, p. 211. 



i ' Die Kalaliari,' 1904 (JJeriiu), pp. ]9G, 285, 648. 



§ Quart. Jouru. Geol. See. 1&07, vol. Ixiii. p. 198. 



