1871.] JONES— WITZENBERG DEVONIAIf FOSSILS. 29 



suggestion that the great schistose formation of the Cape Colony is 

 of Devonian age. 



Mr. AVyley makes the "Witzenherg Flats a synclinal basin of the 

 " Table-Mountain Sandstone," underlying Devonian schists (' Notes 

 of a Journey in two directions across the Colonj'-,' &c., folio, Cape 

 Town, 1859, p. 3). But the sections given by Bain*, Eubidgef, 

 and Hochstetter J disprove the existence of such a syncline. The 

 basement schists, regarded by Bain as of Silurian age, have been 

 already assigned on stratigraphical grounds to the Bolikeveld series 

 by Rubidge and Hochstetter. 



A further point of interest in the Tulbagh district is the occur- 

 rence of coal, referred to by Mr. C. L. Griesbach (Geol. Soc. Quart. 

 Journ. 1871, No. 106, p. 57). As far as the Witzenherg Yalley is 

 concerned, wc learn from a Cape Newspaper of November 4, 1869, 

 that the following section was obtained in a shaft made in search 

 of coal at Geelboschrug, on the flats between the Witzenherg and the 

 Schurfteberg : — 



"Alluvium, 1 foot* yellowish clay, 2 feet; ironstone and quartz, 

 with some lead and copper, 8 in. ; white clay, 12 in. ; iron bank, 

 4 in. ; white clay, 5 ft. ; iron bank, 1 in. ; white clay, 12 in. ; iron- 

 stone, 4 in. ; white clay, 24 in. ; iron bank, 5 in. ; red clay (zoza), 

 30 in. ; brownish clay, with sulphwr, 6 in. ; iron lode (red), 6 in. ; 

 iron deposit, yellow and black, 8 in. ; yellow clay with ironstone, 

 6 in. ; coloured clay, 12 in. ; iron bank, 4 in. ; black clay, with 

 pyrites, sphaerosiderite, and red ironstone in lumps and plateaux, 

 10 feet opened." ( = 30 feet). 



At 50 feet " highly carbonized wood " was stated to have been 

 found. The beds were said to have a dip of 45° to the west. 



This section fills the hiatus in the upper part of Mr. Hay ward's 

 section above given. These beds cannot represent the true Coal- 

 measures ; far more probably they are mere alluvial deposits, origi- 

 nating in the wreck of the local "Devonian" strata; but they cer- 

 tainly fill all the space, between the Devonian substrata and the 

 surface, in which coal could be found ; and, as the great " Table- 

 Mountain Sandstone " (here denuded) covers the fossiliferous shales 

 in the neighbouring Bokkeveld, we cannot expect that true Coal- 

 measures would be found resting directly on the fossiliferous mud- 

 stones of the Witzenherg valley. 



Palaeozoic coal-measures have been found on the Kowie Eiver§ 

 {Albany), on the other side of the Colony, 450 miles east of Ceres, 

 on the strike of some of these western so-called " Devonian" beds ; 

 and possibly the Wittebergen, between Ceres and the Karoo, may 

 contain the old Coal-measiTres along this line of strike, although 

 neither Bain norWyley|| was successful in finding them on the 



* Trans. Geol. Soc. ser. 2, vol. tu. pi. 21. 



t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1859, toI. xt. p. 196 ; Geologist, 1862, vol. v. 

 pp. 49, 367. 



X 'Reiss der Novara,' Geol. Abtheil. vol. ii. p. 21. 



§ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. p. 51. 



I Mr. Wyley regarded the "Karoo Beds "as being the equivalent of the 



