48 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
a line of eight miles through Graham's Town and near Salem, at right- 
angles to this direction, it will pass through little but quartzite. If 
we draw a line of the sauie length through the Commadagga beyond 
the Zeurberg, it will pass through nothing but slates, Ecca rock, and 
clay stone porphyry. 
3. On the road' to Graalf Eeinet is a place called AYolve Krool. 
It is a plain, bounded by quartzite hills. Its section is this : — 
Here the Ecca rock contains Tig. i. 
its characteristic fossils, is con- 
formable with the quartzite, and ^ » ^ 
is separated froni the Dicyno-^^^\\ i 1 1^15;? Wl ////// 
don rocks by a nighish moun- 
tain of quartzite and many miles s ^ 4 i fc* 
of slate, porphyry, etc. I could I . .1" 2 . 
add many other reasons for this 1 I g 1 s I § 
belief, but I think these will be^^*^"^ 
sufficient. AVhat is then the true relation of the quartzite to the 
Ecca rock and the slates ? and how is it that at one part of a line of 
strike the rock will be all of a blue slaty fossiliferous character, and 
at another all crystalline quartzite, destitute, or nearly so, of fossils ? 
How is it that in deep sections, natural as well as artificial, such as 
are made by cutting roads or by deep gullies, the slaty rocks are found 
below gradually passing upwards into quartzite ? Of this I could 
give scores of instances, but I will select only one natural one. The 
range of quartzite on the left-hand of the section is crossed by a bye- 
road. This road passes for a mile, or more over well-marked Ecca 
rock, with the high quartzite hills on either hand. The quartzite on 
the right-hand dies out, and the road to Graaff Eeinet passes over 
Ecca rock in the corresponding part of the section. 
I found what I believe to be the key to the explanation of these 
facts in Namaqualand. In passing through Ezel's Poort, between 
Springbok Yontein and Spectakel, I was shown a section which had 
been noted by Dr. Atherstone as remarkable. The gneiss hills were 
covered by horizontal layers of quartzose sandstone, and these were 
continuous on the western side of the hill with like quartzose sand- 
stone dipping at a high angle westward, conformably with the gneiss. 
It was clear that this change of dip was not due to any upheaval, for 
the horizontal sandstones were found undisturbed a few yards distant. 
I soon learnt to regard this juxtaposition of horizontal and inclined 
beds, this continuity of quartzite conformable and unconformable with 
its subjacent rock, as a normal state of things in JS'amaqualand. "When 
I saw high mountains with like structure, I was at first a little stag- 
gered, but soon felt convinced that even on this scale the phenomenon 
was due to the assimilation to each other by a process, common to 
both, of rocks of widely difl'erent ages. 
In the Western Province I made, in a rapid journey from Cape 
Town to Ceres, a selection from the clay-slate to the Upper Silurian 
of Bain. I had reason, as far as I was able, to confirm the truth of 
Mr. Bain's section, while difl'ering from him in the inference I drew 
