18 i GEOLOGY. 



rest on the lower rocks was in the Meshek valley. Here 

 the geology is greatly confused, the Antalo limestones and 

 their associates being much disturbed and contorted. 

 Above them are seen inclined basaltic beds belonging to 

 the Ashangi group, capped by the horizontal Magdala 

 traps. The Ashangi beds appeared to be unconformable 

 upon the sandstones and limestones beneath them, but 

 the intricacy of the geology was too great, in a country 

 much covered by bush and tree jungle, to enable this to 

 be determined with certainty in a single morning, all the 

 time that could be devoted to its examination. A 

 priori, there is of course a probability that these inclined 

 beds might belong to the same series as the limestones, in 

 which, as has been shown, beds of basalt are interstra- 

 tified, especially towards the top ; but the sections seen 

 at Meshek were opposed to this view. Still, it cannot 

 be considered as absolutely disproved. 



Nothing, however, can be considered as ascertained 

 concerning the age of these traps, except that they are 

 not older than oolitic. In mineral character, they 

 strikingly resemble the great trappean series of Western 

 India ; the resemblance even extending to such minute 

 peculiarities as the frequent occurrence of agate or zeolite 

 covered with green earth, and the existence of a peculiar 

 porphyritic basalt with tabular crystals of felspar. The 

 age of the Indian traps has of late been shown to be 

 almost certainly, in great part at least, upper cretaceous ; 

 but resemblance of mineral character is hardly suflBcient 

 alone to connect rocks in countries so widely distant 

 from each other as Abyssinia and Bombay. Still, as 



