Vol. 59.] SEDIMENTARY DEPOSITS OF SOUTHERN RHODESIA. 273 



extends along the railway to below Palapye Station : here flag- 

 stones and limestones are seen in the river-banks. 



At Mapani Pan, 8 miles to the south, a small seam of coal 

 was discovered, during the sinking of a well for water, in the coarse 

 white sandstones and grits. This led to a borehole being put down 

 to a depth of 778 feet. No other coal was found, but the formation 

 is carbonaceous, and yielded the following section : — 



Thickness, in feet. 



Sandstones and grits 113 



Sandy shales 415 



Black shales 211 



Olive-coloured mudstone ... 31 



Conglomerate 8 



Red granite Basement. 



Eroin this point the sediments extend westward in the direction 

 of the Great Desert, and characteristic flat-topped hills occur at 

 JSuanin and Serui. The large hill at the back of the Palapye native 

 settlement (Chopong) is formed of higher strata of white quartzite, 

 overlying loose-grained and current-bedded sandstones dipping 

 5° northward. From the foot of these hills the country is flat 

 towards the north, but at a distance of a few miles a prominent 

 range, known as the Palapye Koppies, stands up at a height 

 of 300 feet. These are the remnant of a denuded intrusive dyke, 

 extending some 6 miles south-westward, which has crushed and 

 folded the softer sediments, and is the cause of the gradual in- 

 duration of the shales and sandstones, that becomes more noticeable 

 as one proceeds from the station to these hills. 



Prom Palapye the sandstones extend to the flat-topped Selika 

 Hills, and range across the Limpopo into the Transvaal. 



If we prolonged the southern portion of the main section across 

 the territory from the Zambesi, we should notice that no sediments 

 are met with, until Umsingwane Drift on the Pioneer Road is 

 crossed. This is 150 miles from the watershed, and whereas sand- 

 stones commence immediately to the north of the highest part of 

 the country, the southern slopes are completely bereft of them until 

 this point is reached. 



These beds are seen at first to be fine-grained and felspathic, 

 grey, red, and purplish in colour, and they form a small hill east 

 of Umsingwane Drift. The area is not more than a square mile, and 

 river-erosion has eaten considerably into the outlier, and replaced 

 it with alluvium. On the east the sediments thin out against the 

 metamorphic rocks, and on the south disappear under the belt of 

 volcanic ejectamenta which, commencing near Macloutsie, extends 

 eastward across the country to beyond the Bubu River, a distance 

 of at least 200 miles. There are also areas of these rocks far away 

 towards Sabi, the breadth of the belt being from 20 to 30 miles. 

 Port Tuli, the military base of the forces that entered Mashonaland 

 in 1889, is in the central area of this volcanic region : indeed the fort 



