64 Cretaceous Rocks of Pondoland 



where he indicates this dip, there is an outcrop of quartzite which has 

 a monoclinal fold traceable well inland. This level nature of the 

 strata and the fact that their contact with overlying rocks is nowhere 

 visible makes it impossible to say whether we have seen all the beds 

 which were originally deposited. Messrs. Rogers and Schwarz 

 consider that the cretaceous are faulted down to the Table Mountain 

 Series, while du Toit thinks they are unconformable. 



My own observations will not allow me to express a definite 

 opinion on this point, though I am inclined to agree with the last- 

 named. I am the more disposed to favour this theory from the fact 

 that on the Natal side of the Umtamvuna, at the mouth of the 

 Nkandandhlovu River, there are similar strata clearly unconformable 

 on the Archean granites and schists which form the base of the 

 exposed beds. At the Impenjati, a few miles further north, the same 

 fact may be observed, and a few hundred yards up that river may be 

 seen in situ an indurated black shale apparently identical with the 

 pebbles of lydianite found in the lowest cretaceous bed now 

 exposed. 



There is plenty of scope for further investigation in this locality. 

 More time and careful records will, I believe, prove a succession of 

 strata ; though the species so far described appear to place the whole 

 series within the upper portion of the Upper Cretaceous System, 

 equivalent to the Turonian to Campanian stages of Europe. 



It is of interest to note that the Pondoland fossils are very nearly 

 related to, and sometimes identical with cretaceous species of India 

 found in the Trichinopoli District. One species quite common in our 

 rocks, viz. : Pecten quinquecostatus, appears to be cosmopolitan in its 

 distribution, and there are several other genera and probably species 

 in which no difference can be found from individuals gathered from 

 the Senonian beds of Europe. 



The reason for the constant succession of calcareous sands and 

 shelly limestones, the former much the thicker of the two, is also a 

 moot point. The only conditions under which I can imagine these 

 beds to have been laid down would be similar, for instance, to those 

 now prevailing at the mouth of the La Plata or in the Delta of the 

 Ganges. The Pondoland fossils are clearly of littoral species. The 

 vegetable, as also reptilian remains, are evidence of nearness of land. 

 No wood specimens have yet been identified, but unless the condition 

 of the waters varied completely from time to time it is impossible to 



