THE LION'S RUMP. 275 



to give it a reddish hue. The felspar of the bed i» decom- 

 posed, and exactly resembles that of the conglomerate 

 above it. The mica seems, in a good measure, to have 

 passed into steatite. The quartz is in small crystals, fre- 

 quently having their angles rounded. This bed is several 

 feet in thickness, and gradually terminates in the granite ; 

 but the precise line of junction I was unable to trace. The 

 appearances thus were in the following order : — 



1. Horizontally-stratified sandstone. 



2. Bed of compact dark-red sandstone, passing into 

 slate. 



3. A bed of coarse sandstone resembling gravel. 



4. A second layer of compact dark-red sandstone, passing, 



5. Into a conglomerate, consisting of decomposed crystals 

 of felspar, and fragments of quartz in a sandstone basis. 



6. A bed composed of the decomposed constituents of 

 granite and red sandstone, passing, 



7. Into granite." 



The above is the only spot to the southward of the range 

 of mountains near Cape Town which has been particularly 

 described in a geognostical view. To the northward of 

 Cape Town, it is said that the mountains ?re principally 

 composed of the same rocks as those which occur through- 

 out the peninsula, and whose characters and position have 

 been examined with considerable attention in the Lion's 

 Rump, Lion's Head, Table Mountain, and Devil's Peak, by 

 our pupils the late Dr. Clarke Abel, Dr. Adam, now of 

 Calcutta, the late Captain? Carmichael, and also by Captain 

 Basil Hall. From the observations fiirnished to us by these 

 naturalists, and also from accounts published by them, we 

 have drawn up the following description : — 



LioiCs Rump. — The Lion's Rump rises by an easy 

 ascent, and, excepting at one or two points, is covered to 

 the summit with a thin soil, bearing a scanty vegetation. 

 Dr. Adam informs us that vegetables appeared to be most 

 luxuriant over the sandstone of the peninsula, but less so 

 on the soil formed by the decomposition of the granite, and, 

 least of all, over clay-slate, as on the Lion's Rump, where 

 clay-slate is the predominating rock. Although this latter 

 hill has been cultivated in some places, yet it presents a 



