378 E. H. L. Schwarz — Gold in Cape Colony. 



How, then, did the gold get to the locality ? The goldfields lie 

 almost midway between the folded mountain range, the Zwarte- 

 bergen, on the south, and the dolerite-capped escarpment of the great 

 inner plateau on the north. The country is hilly, and the tops of 

 the hills reach a pretty level skyline of about 3,500 feet ; on the 

 immediate south there is a wide plain separating it from the 

 mountains. The gold is found equally on the tops of the hills as- 

 in the gullies, and there is no higher ground from which it could 

 have been washed anywhere within twenty or thirty miles. 



Fig. 2. — Generalized section from the Zwartebergen to the Prince Albert Goldfields,. 

 showing the Old High Level Plateau, which has now nearly disappeared. 

 G, granite ; M, Malmesbury Beds ; T, Table Mountain Sandstone ; B, Bokkeveld 

 Beds ; W, Witteberg Beds ; D, Dwyka Beds ; E, Ecca Beds ; F, Beaufort Beds. 



A careful piecing together of evidence has shown me, however, 

 that the great river -cut plain that can be seen so plainly in 

 Uniondale and Willowmoi'e must have extended all over this country 

 as well ; it was on a level of from 3,500 to 4,000 feet, and stretched 

 northwards from the Zwartebergeu to probably the foot of the 

 inland plateau escarpment. Narrow gravel-covered ledges can still 

 be seen on the foot-hills north of the Zwartebergeu, and a very 

 much folded range in front of the main chain, composed of hard 

 quartzites of the Witteberg Series, has been cut to a level about 

 4,000 feet. Far to the north, the hills about the goldfields can be 

 seen cutting a level skyline, and I have been led to consider that 

 there is satisfactory evidence for the former existence of this great 

 high-level plateau, although the traces of it to-day are so scanty. 

 Everywhere where the remnants of the plateau exist, in the foot- 

 hills of the mountains, on the tops of the skirting range, and on the 

 tops of the hills about the goldfields, gold has been discovered. 

 The rivers in those days flowed over this plain northwards, carrying 

 the gold in their waters, whether chemically or mechanically ; since 

 then, however, the channels have been diverted, and an easterly- 

 flowing stream has excavated an immense plain at a level of some 

 1,000 feet below that of the old one, separating the hills about the 

 goldfields from the mountains. 



The Zwartebergeu are made up of Table Mountain Sandstone, 

 immense quantities of which have been removed in past ages, and 

 a very little gold that may once have existed in the rock became 

 concentrated in the gravels laid down on the old high-level plateau ; 

 I conclude, therefore, that the little outlier of the old plateau existing 

 in the Prince Albert Goldfields has derived its gold from the 

 Zwartebergen. I could find no banket beds immediately to the 

 south of the goldfields, but not very far to the east I found a well- 



