PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE CAPE COLONY. 269 



wana system of India has been often made the subject of remark ; 

 and an intermittent boulder-bed in the Talchir, the lowest sub- 

 division of the Goudwanas, has been parallelled with the Dwyka 

 Conglomerate. The presence of a basement-conglomerate is far too 

 common an occurrence to be made in itself a ground for correlation ; 

 and now that the Dwyka Conglomerate is known to be no part of 

 the Karoo Beds, bat to be separated from them by a strong uncon- 

 formity and some 4000 feet of Ecca Beds, this part of the parallel 

 falls to the ground. 



The similarity, so far as their few fossils go, between the Karoo 

 and the Lower Gondwana, however, still holds good ; the point is 

 discussed in Messrs. Medlicott's and Blanford's ' Geology of India ' 

 (vol. i. p. 121). One statement made by them, that " true Carbon- 

 iferous deposits, with Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, &c., underlie the 

 Karoo series uncouformably," requires confirmation. They prob- 

 ably mean the Quartzites of the Zwartebergen ; but the existence of 

 Carboniferous fossils from these beds rests upon evidence too vague 

 to be altogether satisfactory. 



Discussion. 



The President said it was a great advantage that so good a strati- 

 graphical geologist as Prof. Green had visited South Africa, and 

 cleared up some of the difficulties connected with the geology of that 

 area. Mr. Smith Woodward's contribution was also valuable. 



Prof. Rupert Jones remarked that this was almost the first per- 

 sonal account given to the Society of South- African geology. He 

 remarked on Dr. Rubidge's section of the Witteberg Quartzite at 

 Ceres. Lepidodendro^i had been found in this quartzite in the 

 Eastern Province, but not in the Karoo Beds. The " Dwyka 

 Conglomerate " ought, he thought, to retain its old name of " Ecca 

 Conglomerate." The confirmation of the previously reported un- 

 conformity of the Ecca Beds was valuable. The occurrence of 

 Dicynodont fossils, derived from the Karoo Beds, scattered over the 

 Ecca Beds, was well explained by the Author. It is doubtful 

 whether any of these fossils come from the Author's " Kimberley 

 Shales." Plants, however, certainly occur, as they do also in the 

 Ecca Beds. Eishes had been found by Mr. Stow in the Cave Sand- 

 stone. The non-publication of his great sections was to be 

 regretted. 



Mr. Blanpord noticed that the term Karoo would be better 

 applied to the whole system from Ecca to Stormberg than restricted 

 to a subdivision not found on the Karoo plains. He pointed out some 

 of the resemblances between South- African and Indian beds, espe- 

 cially the similarity of the Talchir and Ecca Conglomerates to a 

 decomposed basalt, the laminated character of the coals, the absence of 

 underclays, and the erosion of the coal-seams ; and he contended that 

 the beds were of fluviatile rather than of lacustrine origin. With 

 regard to Mr. Smith Woodward's paper, the occurrence of a Chithro- 

 lepis in the Stormberg Beds and in Australia tended rather to increase 



