Reports and Proceedings — Oeological Society of London, 133 



great zone of Pacific weakness. If tlie pole of this circle in the 

 Libyan Desert is placed towards an observer in a globe, the African 

 Continent appears as a great dome surrounded by seas and separated 

 from the Pacific by an irregular belt of land. A second great circle 

 defined by Lake Bailial, and with its centre at ' the morphological 

 centre of Asia' of Suess, and passing through the East Indian centre, 

 may be regarded as the direction-circle for the Eurasian folding. 

 These two centres intersect at an angle of 39°, and, on bisecting this 

 angle, a mean directive circle is found, with its pole near the sources 

 oF the White Nile, 6° north of the Equator. The axis of terrestrial 

 symmetry through this pole passes through the middle of Africa and 

 of the Pacific Ocean. The smallest circle which will circumscribe 

 Africa has its centre near this pole, and within it the symmetry of 

 the fractured African dome is observable. Outside this comes a belt 

 of seas, and outside that again the Pacific belt of continents, the 

 Antarctic, South America, North America, Asia, and Australia. 

 ]Mr. Jeans has concluded on mathematical grounds that the ' pear-like 

 shape of the earth ' might have been possessed by it at the time of 

 its consolidation; and he has suggested that Australia may represent 

 the 'stalked end' of the 'pear.' The author's observations would 

 lead him to place it in Africa, and to regard the Pacific as covering 

 the ' broad end.' 



2. " The Sedimentary Deposits of Southern Ehodesia." By 

 A. J. C. Molyneux, Esq., F.G.S. 



The greater portion of the area of Southern Ehodesia lies on 

 granite and gneiss, and on the schists and slates that contain the 

 auriferous veins worked in ancient times, and now being again 

 opened up on an extensive scale. The remaining area is on sand- 

 stone and other sedimentary beds, with coal-deposits, and regions 

 of volcanic rocks. To explain the deposition and order of these 

 sediments several sections are given ; one being along a line extending 

 from the Zambesi River on the north, through Bulawayo and the 

 central plateau, to the Limpopo River on the south, a distance of 

 over 400 miles. Another section, with remarks thereon, is copied, 

 by permission, from a report by Mr. C. J. Alford, F.G.S., on the 

 coal-bearing rocks of the Mafungibusi District. 



From Bulawayo fine sandstones continue for about 170 miles to 

 the north, when there is a sudden drop in the surface of the country, 

 caused by a long line of cliffs of red sandstone, which extends from 

 the Zambesi Falls Road right across this portion of Rhodesia, and 

 finally merges into the Mafungibusi Hills far away to the north-east. 

 This is the great escarpment, formed by the erosion of 400 feet of 

 coarse grit with angular pebhles. To the north-west of this escarp- 

 ment, and running parallel with it, is a long and narrow valley 

 formed of soft shales which are known as the Matobola Flats. Here 

 the beds dip at 5° south-eastward. Thus, in proceeding further to 

 the north-west, underlying beds are revealed, with a lower series 

 of Coal-measures containing seams of workable coal. Below the 

 Coal-measures are quartzites and current-bedded grits, which rise up 

 and form the Sijarira Range, a flat plateau 15 miles across. Its 



