Vol. 50.] OF SOUTH-EASTERN AFBICA. 553 



The Molteno Beds on the High-veld plateau (c) are composed 

 almost entirely of sandstone ; there the upper, shaly portion of the 

 series is wanting. 



The coal occurs at a much greater altitude than that of the 

 Terrace. Near Lake Chrissie a coal-seam crops out about 6000 feet 

 above sea-level, while the coal of Natal and Zululand is only about 

 4000 feet. This would lead to the supposition that a great fault 

 intervenes ; and in all probability that is the case, though the exact 

 locality of the fault has not yet been traced. 



The Molteno Beds thicken northward towards the Transvaal ; 

 from 1000 feet in the Drakensberg near Pietermaritzburg, Natal, 

 to 2000 feet at Newcastle in the same colony. The best coal 

 discovered on the Terrace is in the Division of Dundee, in the 

 northern portion of Natal. 1 



Small patches of Molteno Beds occur along the coast-line of Natal 

 and Zululand. These dip seaward at an augle of about 20°, while 

 the same series inland lies approximately horizontal. 



These Molteno Beds of the coast, which occur at sea-level, are 

 4000 feet lower than the lowest inland beds, having been displaced 

 by a great downthrow, traceable by a distinct line of faulting in 

 the immediate neighbourhood. A large bed of good anthracite has 

 recently been discovered near St. Lucia Bay on the east coast. 



(5) Beaufort or Karoo Beds. 



Unfortunately for the student of South African geology, no uni- 

 form classification of the South African rock-systems has been 

 decided upon. Names have been given to the strata, to suit 

 the views of the observer who has described or identified them. 

 Sometimes the same division is known under two or three different 

 names ; and a great deal of confusion is the result. 



Looking through Prof. Green's communication to this Society, 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xliv. (1888), I find he has omitted the 

 'Beaufort Beds' from his classification, and substituted ' Karoo Beds' 

 and ' Kimberley Shales.' The latter I have failed to identify in 

 South-eastern Africa ; but the Karoo Beds, as described by him at 

 p. 261 op. cit., occur, and are exposed on the edge of the Terrace, 

 forming crags along the sides of the hills. The characteristic sphe- 

 roidal weathering is very marked, and consequently these crags are 

 readily mistaken for flat igneous sheets, to which they bear a close 

 resemblance, when viewed from a distance. 



The coarse gritty sandstones of the Molteno Beds pass gradually 

 downward into finer-grained, laminated, arenaceous shales, and 

 then into the buff-coloured, fine-grained sandstones which compose 

 these Beaufort or Karoo Beds. 



Weathering brings out the spheroidal structure of this rock ; the 

 separate masses, when broken up, showing concentric circles of 

 differently coloured sandstone. Though the Karoo Beds are appa- 

 rently 200 or 300 feet thick in the southern portion of the Terrace, 



1 See F. W. North's Eeport on the Coalfields of Natal, Pept. of Miaes, 1881. 



