276 Notices of Memoirs — A. de Andrade — Portuguese Territories 



Shales, sandstones, and grits, with beds of coal of Carboniferous 

 age, occur along the left bank of the Zambesi, in the Tete basin, 

 and in the area between it and the Eovugo river. The flora of these 

 beds has been studied by Zeiller: it includes species of Fecopteris, 

 AUipteridium, Aletliopteris, Annularia, Sphenopliylliim, Cordaites, and 

 Galamodendron, which are considered to indicate the horizon of the 

 Upper Carboniferous in Europe. Some of the bands of coal are of 

 considerable thickness, but the quality is inferior, and owing to their 

 distance from the coast they cannot be worked economically. 



To the Karoo Formation the author attributes the conglomerates 

 of Lorenzo Marques which extend along the east face of the 

 Limbombos range nearly to the frontiers of the Transvaal. They 

 consist mainly of stones and boulders of quartzite, and in places 

 also rolled pebbles of amethyst, opal, etc., probably derived from 

 beds of amygdaloidal porphyry. No fossils are known from these 

 conglomerates, and all that can be positively said about them is 

 that they are later than the Carboniferous and Pre-Jurassic, and 

 contemporaneous with the eruptive period which continued from 

 the Carboniferous to the Triassic. 



The rocks which are found next above the Karoo series are 

 limestones containing Nummulites, which occur near the base of 

 the slopes of the Chimanimaui Mountains, having a very slight 

 easterly dip. They are hard, compact, white or yellow rocks, 

 mainly composed of remains of Nummulites and other Foraminifera, 

 with some moulds of Gasteropods. The Nummulites are small and 

 flattened ; two species, N. Btarritzensis and N. Beaumonti, can be 

 recognized. These prove the Eocene age of the beds. 



Of probably Miocene age are beds of marl overlain by compact 

 white limestones, which occur near Goruja and the junction of the 

 I'ivers Revue and Busi. The marls contain Trochus patulus (a 

 Miocene species), Ostrcea crassissima, and fragmentary shells of 

 Turritella and Cardita. 



It is not certain that Pliocene beds are represented south of the 

 Zambesi, but the siliceous sands, which cover so large a portion of 

 the districts of Lorenzo Marques and Inhambane, may be of this 

 period. In some places they reach a thickness of 50 m. In some 

 calcareous beds, which pass up into the sands, there have been 

 found impressions of Tapes, Cerithiiim, and TelUna with a very 

 characteristic Pliocene aspect, which supports the view that the 

 sands may be Pliocene. 



Of comparatively recent deposits may be noticed extensive areas 

 of alluvium near the mouths of the large rivers, and the sand-dunes 

 along the coast. The auriferous sands in the river beds within the 

 Portuguese territory, which have been worked in many places, are 

 too poor to yield a profit, and no other metalliferous deposits of any 

 importance are known. 



In the concluding chapter the author gives detailed descriptions of 

 microscopic sections of the crystalline rocks from various localities. 



G. J. H. 



