SANDBERGER — PALAEOZOIC FOSSILS, S. AFRICA. 3 



leagues apart, and the line connecting them is approximately the 

 hy])othenuse of a triangle enclosing the Districts of the Cape, Swel- 

 lendam, and George. The palseozoic formation, therefore, forms 

 probably the greatest portion of this part of the colony *. 



The specimens that were given to Prof. Krauss, and to which* he 

 cannot assign a locality, consist of a brownish-grey, hard, fine-grained 

 sandstone, sometimes softer [of a lighter colour ?] from the presence 

 of a yellow ochre. The latter closely resembles hthologically our 

 Spirifer-sandstoneof Pfaffendorf, Kemmanau, Buch, Holzappel, Man- 

 derbach, and that of the Kahleberg on the Hartz. The former is 

 more like the unweathered sandy beds of Lahnstein and Braubach, 

 and especially hand-specimens of the Oriskany sandstone from New 

 York. The dark sandstone contains Spirifer- macropterus, Goldfuss, 

 var. mucronatus'\ , nobis, in great numbers, partly as casts, partly 

 with the shell preserved, and sometimes above an inch in length. The 

 yellowish sandstone, on the other hand, abounds with casts of Cho- 

 netes sarcinidatus, Schlth. sp. = Leptcena lata, Sow., and Leptcena 

 laticosta, Conr., which are typical forms of the Lower Division of the 

 Rhenish System. In one specimen we observed the very tumid cast 

 of a Pelecypodous Mollusc ; in another, Tentaculites annulatus . 

 There are no traces of Trilobites. 



Agreeing with the dark sandstone in lithological character is a 

 specimen, marked No. 6.5, from Stofpad River, George District ; this, 

 however, contains only indeterminate casts of Bivalves, which cer- 

 tainly are not Spirifers. From the same locality, and also from 

 Kromme River, are hand-specimens of yellowish or grey quartzose 

 micaceous schist, underlying the series in which Brachiopods here 

 and there occur ; fossils, however, appear to be very rare, just as in 

 rocks of similar lithological character with us. No. 46, from Pot 

 River, Swellendam District, is a still more quartzose grey schistose 

 rock, passing into sandstone ; it contains no fossils, but a large 

 cubic crystal of iron-pyrites converted into oxide of iron. k. specimen 

 marked " Plattenberg Bay, in the neighbourhood of Capt. Harker's 

 Farm," is similar in general character ; it has, however, a reddish- 

 grey colour, and the schistose structure is more indistinct. No. bl 

 is a dark-grey fine-grained limestone, with a splintery fracture, here 

 and there traversed with calc-spar : it altogether resembles many va- 

 rieties of the Stringocephalus-limestones of Nassau, ex. gr. of Diez, 

 Schuzbach, and Limburg. It appears to contain no fossils. In 

 this rock is the famous Congo Cave, George District. From the 

 Bosjesveld up to the Karroo Plains, in the valley of the Breede 

 River, Swellendam District, the above-described schists exhibit a 



* The extent of the East and West band of the palaeozoic rocks here indi- 

 cated is laid down in the Geological Map of South Africa accompanying Mr. 

 Bain's paper on the Geology of the Cape, read before the Society Nov. 17, 1852, 

 but not yet pul)lished. The Abstract of this Paper in the ' Literary Gazette ' of 

 Dec. 18, 1852 (No. 1874, p. 932), gives a general view of the distribution of the 

 fossibferous and unfossilifcro\is rocks of this portion of Africa. — [Tkansl.] 



t Detailed description and figures of this interesting variety will be given in 

 o\ir large work abo\'e referi-ed to. 



VOL. IX. PART II. C 



