COAL-FIELDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 667 
the mines of the ‘ London and South-African Coal-mining Company,” 
of which the late Mr. G. W. Stow was the manager. These are 
the mines from which a great deal of coal has been taken, over 200 
miles, to the Diamond-fields, but they are now stopped, owing to bad 
trade. The beds at Taaibosch Spruit (4200 feet) are described by 
Mr. Stow as follows (‘ Report,’ 1879, p. 11) :— 
ft.) “An. 
Silt, clay, and gravel. 
2 Decomposed carbonaceous shale. 
2 Black carbonaceous shale, with leaf-impressions (some 
Paleéozamia). 
6 Dull coal. 
O Bright coal. 
9 Dull coal. 
O Bright coal. 
0 SBright and dull coal interlaminated. 
4 Bright coal. 
At Boschbank the beds are very different (op. cit. p. 12), but 
‘between the two localities there is an extensive outcrop of igneous 
rock forming a stony ridge,” which may indicate a local fault, and 
thus account for the difference in contiguous areas. ‘The total 
thickness of the combined coal-seams found here is from 3 feet 
6 inches to 3 feet 9 inches, and black carbonaceous shale 5} feet, 
considerable portions of which would be found to be rich as oil- 
shale.” 
Coal is asserted to have been found upon the farm “ Bloemhof” 
in this district, the property of Mr. C. C. Kloppe. 
Near where the Rhinoster river falls into the Vaal, at about 
3800 feet, are the coal-mines of the Orange Free State Coal and 
Iron Company; the seams are thick and of good quality. Beneath 
the coal there is a thick bed of shale, so carbonaceous that it burns 
freely ; there is also a bed of clay-iron-stone, or ‘“ black-band- 
ore,” which should be valuable in this close connexion with. coal. 
Coal has been found on Knook’s and several other farms in this 
neighbourhood. 
There is said to be an outcrop of coal on Wolver Spruit, which 
runs into the Vaal from the north, not far from the junction of the 
Valsch river, and a few miles above Commando Dritt. 
Just west of Commando Drift, at about 3650 feet, soft black 
shales, often micaceous, are seen in the banks of the river beneath 
fine and coarse false-bedded sandstones. At the time of my visit 
the water was high, so that the seam or seams of coal stated to 
occur in the bed of the river could not be seen; but I have no 
doubt of the presence of the mineral. 
Coal crops out in a “spruit” near Hoffman’s Drift, a few miles 
further down the river, and must pass in under a “‘ krantz” 70 feet 
high, of fine and coarse sandstone, with a well-defined bed containing 
fossil-wood near the summit. 
Dark micaceous shales occur beneath similar sandstones, capped 
by the bed with fossil wood, at Leuw Krantz, a high precipice 
some few miles down the river. Further down, about the same 
