COAL-FIELDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 671 
in the Oudsthorn, thus approaching the southern extremity of the 
continent. 
fhe most northern point in the Transvaal at which coal has yet 
een observed is on the Letsobo river, where Carl Mauch disco- 
vered a seam 2 feet in thickness. 
Hiibner * records the occurrence of slightly upheaved sand- 
stones, with imperfectly preserved remains of plants (which very 
likely belong to the Karoo formation), south-east of Shoshoug—that 
is, between the Serorume and Limpopo rivers; also, much further 
north, in lat. 20° S. and long. 29° E., of rather brittle, horizontally- 
stratified sandstones, which show petrified woods. 
*‘ Are these latter perhaps of the same age as the sandstones 
which Livingstone found at Pungo Andongo (lat. 9° 40’ S., and long. 
15° 30’ E.) at almost the same altitude, viz. 4000 feet, and in which 
he found petrified palms, or those near Tete (lat. 16° 10’ 8., long. 
33° 35’ EH.) at an altitude of 1500 feet, which show horizontal layers 
of coal covered by strata of petrified palms and Conifers ?” (Jeppe, 
‘Notes on the Transvaal’). If this be so, it would indicate an 
extension of the main high-level coal-field a long way towards the 
interior, with a coal-field at a lower level on the east, in an exactly 
similar relative position to that on the seaward side of the Drakens- 
berg. 
In conclusion, a few inferences may be briefly drawn from the 
above notes. 
1. The coal-bearing rocks, although broken and disturbed in 
many places, are, upon the whole, nearly horizontal, the base of the 
formation resting on a slightly inclined plane, upheaved in some 
places, let down in others, by the intrusion of dykes, the influence 
of which has extended to no great distance. This is proved by the 
almost perfect coincidence of the coal outcrops and the boundary of 
the coal-bearing series with the centour-lines of the country. 
2. The shght divergence of these lines from the contours shows 
that the basal plane is inclined somewhat more in the northern than 
in the southern part of the area, forming a gentle anticlinal from 
east to west across the centre ; also that it is depressed westwards 
towards the Vaal river: but the divergence from horizontality is 
so shght that it may be due either to upheaval or to inequality of 
deposition. 
The sections described show that :— 
On the east the coal crops out from Newcastle to the north- 
east corner of the High Veldt, at an elevation of from 4000 
to 5000 feet. 
* See Petermann’s ‘ Mittheilungen.’ 
