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42 TRAVELS IN 
depredations of time and the force of torrents having carried 
awaj the looser and less compact parts, have disunited their 
summits, but they are still joined at a very considerable ele- 
vation above the common base. The height t)f the first is- 
. 3315, and of the latter 2l60 feet. The Devil's Mountain is 
broken into irregular points ; but the upper part of the Lion's 
Head is a solid mass of stone, rounded and fashioned like a 
work of art, and resembling very much, from some points 
of view, the dome of St. Paul's placed upon a high cone- 
shaped hill. 
These three mountains are composed of a multitude of 
rocky strata piled on each other in large tabular masses. 
Their exact horizontal position denotes the origin of the mass 
to be neptunian and not volcanic ; and that since its first 
formation no convulsion of the earth has happened in this 
part of Africa sufficient to have disturbed the nice arrange- 
ment of its parts. The strata of these postdiluvian ruins, 
not being placed in the order of their specific gravity, might 
lead to the conclusion that they were deposited in successive 
periods of time, were it not for the circumstance of their 
lying close upon each other without any intermediate veins 
of earthy or other extraneous materials. The stratification of 
the Cape peninsula, and indeed of the whole colony, is ar- 
ranged in the following order : 
The shores of Table Bay, and the substratum of the plain 
on which the tov/n is built, compose a bed of a blue compact 
schistus, generally placed in parallel ridges in the direction of 
north-west and south-cast, but frequently interrupted by large 
