STOW SOTTTH-APEICAN GEOLOGY. 521 



high mounds of sand, such as those before alluded to, with immense 

 masses of shells imbedded in their upper portions. 



Some of the shells, although identical with those now living on 

 different parts of the coast, are not now as numerous on this particular 

 part of the coast as they were when the shell-mounds now under 

 consideration were deposited ; they are, however, still very numer- 

 ous in other, but somewhat distant, bays. 



Some have supposed that these accumulations, at such elevations, 

 are somewhat similar to the " kitchen-middens " of Denmark ; and 

 they wish to account for this immense accumulation of shells by 

 imagining that they are the remains of the feastirigs of some an- 

 cient races who at some time inhabited the sea-coast. But, after a 

 careful study of the locality, I cannot arrive at the same conclusion. 

 These shells, judging from their appearance, must have been deposited 

 by the sea where they are now found. The quartzite has been (as 

 before mentioned) worn away until it forms a long steep slope of 

 some two or three hundred yards. The rush of the tidal waves over 

 the surface of this rock (and they have left evidence of their action) 

 would sweep every thing off it ; and their recoil, carrying the shells 

 and sand to the lower levels, would deposit them there in compara- 

 tively quiet water, and thus form the stratum we now find. 



Between this spot and Port Elizabeth, there are a number of 

 places where this same band of shells is exposed ; but in these 

 instances there is a deposit of sand many feet thick above it. At 

 the spot to which I am now confining my remarks, however, this 

 upper deposit has been denuded, or blown away, leaving the large 

 masses of shells I have described exposed on the surface. Here 

 and there they look, at first sight, as if they had been placed in 

 piles ; hence, no doubt, the mistaken opinion about them ; but on 

 examining these detached heaps, they are found to be parts of the 

 original deposit, the surrounding and intermediate portions having 

 been worn away, and the shells having become broken and pulverized 

 by atmospheric influences. There can be little doubt that at one time 

 the exposed portions of this shell- deposit were covered, as before 

 suggested, with a thick layer of sand ; for in many parts very large 

 quantities of fossilized roots, stems, and branches are spread over 

 the shells. Specimens of these must, from their perfect state of pre- 

 servation, have grown on the spot, and could not have been washed 

 from a distance. In some instances, where the sand is left, they 

 are still partially enveloped in it. The probable cause of the change 

 they have undergone has been that the water which permeated 

 through the sandy and shelly soil in which they grew, became so 

 charged with lime that, when the roots &c. decayed, the carbonate 

 of lime itself was deposited, as in a mould, in the spaces left ; and 

 these casts, when the sandy matrix was removed, either by strong 

 winds, which so often prevail along the coast, or by other causes, 

 have been laid bare. I have found the same on the coast to the 

 east of the Great Eish River. 



Numbers of teeth and bones are frequently discovered imbedded 

 in this shell-deposit near the Shark's River. The position in which 



