I 



PHTSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THK CAPE COLONY. 263 



which puzzled me very much at the time when they were noticed, 

 became intelligible when I came afterwards to learn that there was 

 such a subdivision. 



On my journey from Grahamstown to King William's Town the 

 geology, to a point some way beyond the Keiskama River, was as 

 plain as could be — abundant sections in Ecca Beds, and a country 

 traversed by parallel ridges with dip-slopes and escarpments, and 

 thickly clothed in bush and scrub. At the point mentioned, how- 

 ever, we entered a totally different country — broad, rolling, grassy, 

 treeless plains, slightly varied by low, rounded hills, in which all 

 the sections seen were in beds corresponding exactly in character 

 with the rocks I afterwards came to know as Kimberley Shales on 

 the north. Some distance before reaching King William's Town we 

 passed on to Ecca Beds again. I have little doubt now that we 

 crossed here an outlier of Kimberley Shales, and have introduced 

 such an outlier in Section 4 (fig. 7). 



Again, on the railroad journey from King W^illiam's Town to 

 Q,ueenstown, I noticed a tract between Blaney Junction and Kee 

 Road with just the same physical features, and showing in occasional 

 sections just the same kind of rocks as I afterwards came to look 

 upon as distinctive of Kimberley Shales ; and on the strength of this 

 I have introduced an outcrop of this subdivision on the south side 

 of the great hill-range formed of Karoo Beds, which Section 4 just 

 runs up to. 



I had one more chance of testing my views, viz. on the south 

 side of the Nieuwveldt mountains to the north of Beaufort West. 

 I must confess that after having been jolted in a " coach " through a 

 sleepless night across the hills, the comparative luxury of a railway 

 truck was more provocative of sleep than of geological observation ; 

 but I did notice that, after we got clear of the hills, the ground ran 

 down with a smooth, gentle slope, and the sections seen on it were 

 in shales like the Kimberley Shales, and that still further to the 

 south we passed on to decided Ecca Beds. 



I feel therefore that though the evidence I could collect is not 

 so conclusive as I could wish, what there is is decidedly in favour 

 of the Kimberley Shales being present on the southern slope of the 

 Nieuwveldt and Camdeboo Range, and of their being a distinct 

 thing from the Ecca Beds. 



In the section north of Aberdeen, given in fig, 3 (p. 261), there are 

 no Kimberley Shales, but their absence may be due to their being here 

 overlapped by the Karoo Beds in the manner suggested in Section 1 

 (fig. 4, facing p. 270). 



A further confirmation of my reading would be furnished if it 

 could be shown that any of the deep river-valleys which traverse 

 the plains of Kimberley Shales on the north cut down into Ecca 

 Beds. I cannot bring any positive proof that they do ; but I have 

 a strong suspicion that Ecca Beds come out in the valley of the 

 Orange River to the north of Hope Town. I saw in Hope Town 

 flagstones, which I was told came from quarries between the town 

 and the river, that were totally unlike any beds I ever came across 

 in the Kimberley Shales, but resembled very closely flagstones ob- 



