SOUTHERN AFRICA. 387 
1 have frequently had occasion to notice the abundance of 
iron ore that occurs in almost every part of Southern Africa, 
some of which is so rich in metal as to contain from seventy 
to eighty per cent., and to observe that the total want of fuel 
rendered it useless. Here, however, in the vicinity of the 
forests, that objection is removed ; and the ores might, in all 
probability, be melted to advantage, as all kinds of iron work 
are prodigiously dear at the Cape. We were told that, in 
the neighbourhood of the Knysna, another large mass of 
native iron had been discovered, similar to that which I men- 
tioned to have seen in the plains of the Zuure Veldt, and 
which I then supposed the Kaffers to have carried thither 
from the sea shore. I paid little attention to the report at 
that time, nor did we go out of our way to look at it ; but 
since my return to the Cape, the discovery of a third mass, in 
an extraordinary situation, the very summit of Table Moun- 
tain, excited a stronger degree of curiosity. I imagined the 
first to have been the flat part of an anchor, although it was 
destitute of any particular shape ; but in this of Table Moun- 
tain, which might weigh from one hundred and fifty to one 
hundred and sixty pounds, there appeared some faint traces 
of the shape of the flook, or the broad part of the arm which 
takes hold of the ground. It was found half buried in sand 
and quartz pebbles, every part, as well under as above 
ground, much corroded, and the cavities filled with pebbles, 
which, however, did not appear to be component parts of the 
mass, not being angular, but evidently rounded by attrition. 
As, in the first instance, I suppose the Kaffers to have carried 
the mass into the situation where it was discovered ; so also, 
3d 2 
