OF THE TABLE MOUNTAIN. 273 



and stretching from east to west, which is nearly the direction 

 of the mountain. It was not always easy to ascertain, which 

 way these beds inclined. They were often almost vertical, and 

 in some places I found them inclining from the mountain. On 

 looking forward a little higher up, I saw another portion of 

 rock that was also laid bare, and which appeared to be Granite. 

 I had now no doubt of reaching in a few minutes the precise 

 junction of the two rocks, and I ventured to predict to my 

 companion, who was not a little surprised at the pleasure I 

 seemed to feel on this occasion, that we should immediately 

 see veins from the main body of the granite, penetrating into 

 the rock on which we were now standing. In this I was not 

 deceived ; the contact was the finest thing of the kind I ever 

 saw ; the Windy Shoulder * itself not excepted. The number 

 of veins that we could distinctly trace to the main body of the 

 granite was truly astonishing ; and the ramifications, which ex- 

 tended on every side, were of all sizes, from the breadth of 

 two yards to the hundredth of an inch. Masses of killas, cut 

 off entirely from the main body of that rock, floated in the gra- 

 nite, without numbers, especially near the line of contact, and 

 the strata appeared there broken, disordered, and twisted in a 

 most remarkable degree; 



" Near this place I found a mass of killas in a state of de»- 

 composition ; it had crumbled away, and left the granite dykes 

 with many of the slender ramifications standing. The word 

 ramification does not, however, properly express the nature of 

 these smaller dykes ; which are not branches, but plates or thin 

 slender walls. There is nothing here that might not be ex- 

 pected, 



* The spot which Mr Hall refers to, is on the side of Loch Ken in Kirk- 

 cudbrightshire, and is remarkable for veins of Granite, of the same kind with 

 those here described. An account of it will be found in the preceding part of 

 this volume, p. 99. 



