Geological Aspects of South African Scenery. 059 
Bokkeveld Beds being confined to the flanks of the mountain chains, 
or even to the valleys, while the more quartzitic Witteberg Beds may 
form subsidiary ridges. On the south-western coast of Cape Colony, 
and at intervals eastward to Algoa Bay, the mountain belt virtually 
reaches the coast: the Cape Peninsula itself is an outlying remnant, 
having been cut off by denudation from the hills on the western 
shores of False Bay. 
The South Africa of to-day has lost a considerable portion of the 
mountain belt beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean, for from Algoa 
Bay northward through Natal we have no longer the same marked 
mountain scenery. Where the Table Mountain Beds appear in Natal 
they are lying for the most part horizontally, and though they form 
what are locally termed mountains, these, hke the Cape Peninsula, 
are on the outskirts of the region of extreme pressure, which in 
eastern South Africa probably lies beneath the ocean. 
Between such portions of the mountain belt as still exist in Natal 
and the more typical Langebergen and Zwartebergen of Cape Colony 
the contrast is very marked. In Natal the valleys are not structural 
valleys, but have been produced by the cutting out of great masses of 
the strata. ‘The mountain tops are plateaux, formed of horizontal 
beds, whose edges form the sides of the deep-cut valleys. 
The mountain belt being composed essentially of quartzites, those 
portions of it in the more “arid districts of Cape Colony yield a very 
stern, bare landscape. In the east of Cape Colony and in Natal, 
however, the moister climate renders vegetation abundant, and we 
find the rocks of the mountain belt covered by bush, and even forest. 
Lhe Coastal Zone.—The Coastal Zone varies considerably in character, 
and, as has been already stated, it is in places actually cut out by the 
encroachment of the mountain belt. On the west coast it is perhaps 
most typical, consisting there of the old slates and schists of the 
Namaqualand Series, with bosses of intrusive granite. It presents 
a low undulating landscape, broken by hills of granite, which in places, 
as at Paarl and Robertson, are couspicuous features. 
Along the west and south coasts, bare sand dunes are abundant, 
and some of the older of these have solidified into coherent masses, 
which are again being cut into by the sea. On the north shore of 
False Bay, and near Struys Bay, Cape Colony, there are cliffs 20 to 25 
feet high, formed of these old sand dunes. 
Where the mountain zone has encroached on the coast, as on the 
shore of False Bay, and many places eastward, the Table Mountain 
quartzites form steep sea cliffs. 
The eastern coast of Cape Colony and of a considerable portion of 
Natal is formed by the rocks of the Karroo, which, however, are 
much covered by recent coastal deposits. The lagoon landscape is 
particularly well developed along the Natal coast, owing to the 
heavy banking up of sand bars at the river mouths, while the Zululand 
coast is for the most part a low-lying belt. 
The variation in the scenery produced by differences of climate 
acting on the same geological formations is again well illustrated in 
the coastal zone. The granitic and schistose rocks of the north-west, 
being exposed almost to desert conditions, show a bare and uninteresting 
