262 PEOF. A. H. GEEEN ON THE GEOLOGY AND 



Berg, close on the northern flank of the Wittebergen, north of Willow- 

 more. The capping of this hill showed in such a marked way the 

 striping characteristic of hills formed of Karoo Beds that it seemed 

 to me just possible that an outlier of Karoo Beds still survived 

 there. I could not verify my conjecture by climbing to the top, but 

 I hope some local geologist will do so (see north-eastern end of Sec- 

 tion 3, fig. 6, p. 270). 



To the north of the belt of elevated ground we have been just 

 desciibing there stretch away interminable plains, composed of 

 Kimberley Shales. It was here that I first became alive to the im- 

 portance of this subdivision, though, as will be seen shortly, I had 

 previously had suspicions of its existence. Mr. Dunn has, in his 

 last Report* on the geology of the Cape Colony, advanced the view 

 that the Kimberley Shales of the north are identical with the Ecca 

 Beds ; with this view I cannot agree, and I think I shall best show 

 why, if I give the steps by which I was led to my present opinion. 

 I left Middleburgh, which is well in the heart of a country of Karoo 

 Beds, by coach for Kimberley, crossed the Kikvorsch Berg, and ran 

 down into the basin of the Orange River. As we descended, a 

 gradual change came over the aspect of the country ; we passed 

 from a hilly district of most pronounced Karoo tj^pe, first to ground 

 much flatter, but diversified by detached eminences formed of Karoo 

 Beds, and then to a country composed entirely of broad, rolling, 

 grassy flats, in which the only approach to hills were low ridges 

 formed by the outcrop of trap sheets and dykes. The flats were 

 much obscured by superficial deposits, but wherever I found a section 

 in bedded rocks they were grey or dark shales with some harder 

 and more sandy beds, but no sandstones ; not unfrequently the 

 shales contained bands of clayey limestone of a " cement-stone " 

 character. There could be no question that these shales came out 

 from underneath the Karoo Beds, and I named them provisionally 

 " Kimberley Shales." This type of country continued all the way 

 to Kimberley. Prom Kimberley I made an excursion to Winburg, 

 in the Orange Pree State. To within about 15 miles to the west of 

 Brandfort our road was over rolling grassy flats, and all the sections 

 seen were in beds agreeing exactly in character with the Kimberley 

 Shales ; hills, formed of Karoo Beds, then rose out of the flats, and 

 some 10 miles east of Brandfort the Karoo Beds were overlain by 

 rocks agreeing in character with the Stormberg Beds. Again, on 

 my return journey from Kimberley by Hope Town and Yictoria 

 West, Kimberley Shales were continaous for some distance to the 

 south of Hope Town, and then were overlain by Karoo Beds. This 

 division, then, is certainly persistent over a very large area on the 

 north of the Nieuwveldt and Camdeboo Range ; if it is, as I believe, 

 a thing distinct from the Ecca Beds, it ought to crop out along the 

 southern slope of that range. 



Here unluckily my opportunities for observation were limited, 

 and most of them occurred before I had suspected the existence of 

 the Kimberley Shales as a distinct subdivision ; but certain facts, 



* Report on a supposed extensive deposit of Coal underlying the Central 

 Districts of the Colony. Cape Town : 1886. 



