Z)r. F. H. Hatch — Geological History of South Africa. 99 



some of us that the Transvaal coal horizon corresponds rather to the 

 Ecca Beds. 



The present Director of the Transvaal Survey, however, has 

 adopted Dr. Molengraaff's view that the Ecca Series is not repre- 

 sented at Vereeniging, the Dwyka Conglomerate being immediately 

 followed by the Beaufort Series or Upper Karroo, as he terms it."^ 

 But, as militating against this view, I would point out that the 

 Transvaal Coal-measures, while containing plant remains that are 

 common both to the Ecca and to the Beaufort Series (such as 

 Glossopteris, ScMzoneura, and Phyllotlieca) , have also yielded 

 abundant specimens of two species which at the Cape have only 

 been found in the Ecca Beds. I refer to Noeggerathiopsis Hislopi, 

 which occurs both in the Middelburg Coalfield (Boschfontein) ^ 

 and at Vei'eeniging, and to Gangamopteris cyclopteroides, which 

 occurs at Vereeniging.^ Cardiocarpus,^ which is associated with 

 Gangamopteris and Glossopteris in Ecca Sandstone near Worcester, 

 also occurs at Vereeniging. Moreover, to regard the Vereeniging 

 Beds as of Beaufort (Upper Karroo of the Survey) age must 

 involve the assumption of a considerable unconformity between 

 the Dwyka Conglomerate and these beds, unless indeed we are 

 to believe that tlie deposition of the glacial conglomerate took place 

 at a much later date in the Transvaal than in the Cape Colony. 



A minor matter to which the attention of the Survey might be 

 drawn is the nomenclature to be adopted for the Karroo System, 

 for if the coal sandstones are to be regarded as corresponding 

 to the Beaufort Beds of the Cape, then it will be much preferable 

 to retain the name of Middle Karroo Series for them, since the term 

 Upper Karroo is applied only to the Stormberg Beds at the Cape. 



Another difference of opinion between the Survey and some of 

 us exists as to the unconformity beneath the Witwatersrand Beds ; 

 and whether the latter form an independent system, or are but 

 a portion of a more comprehensive system in which the granite 

 is intrusive. The Director of the Survey is apparently not prepared 

 at present to admit that there is in the Transvaal an older system 

 than the Witwatersrand. He is not satisfied with the evidence 

 that has been advanced that the Mont Mare schists are older than 

 the Witwatersrand, nor that the Witwatersrand Beds are younger 

 than the granite on which they rest.^ In taking up this position 

 he ignores the evidence as to the relative age of the granite and the 

 Witwatersrand Beds furnished by Dr. Corstorphine ^ and the late 



1 Kynaston, " Geology of the Transvaal and Orange Eiver Colony " : Science in 

 South Africa (1905), p. 298. 



2 Seward: Q.J.G.S., 1897, p. 322. 



^ JFeistmantel, " Uebersichtliche Darstellung der geologisch - palfeontologischen 

 Verhaltnisse Siid - afrikas " : Abhandlungen d. kbnigl. bohm. Ges. d. "Wiss., 

 Folge vii, Band 3 ; Prague, 1889. 



* Seward: Q.J.G.S., 1897, p. 322. 



^ Transvaal Geological Survey Eeport, 1904, p. 18. 



^ G. S. Corstorphine, " The Geological Relation of the Old Granite to the Wit- 

 watersrand Series" : Trans. Geol. Soc. S. Afr., vol. vii (1904), pp. 9-12. 



