nUBIDGE — SOL'TII-AFllICAN EOCKS. 
51 
isolated masses of slate preserved their dip unaltered in the midst of 
granite which appeared to have a dip in the same direction. Passing 
north-westward towards jS"amaqualand, I saw the slate near Heer- 
lozement so little altered and so like some of the fossiliferous rocks of 
the Eastern Province that I much regretted tkat my engagements did 
not permit of a closer examination of it. At Olifant's river the rocks, 
-Still with the same strike as in Cape Town, viz. nearly m.agnetic north 
(north 30° west), had assumed a micaceous andtalcose character, and 
on the northern bank of the river were much impregnated with iron. 
Pour or five miles beyond Kokonap I saw the slate for the last time 
till I met it at the Orange river, and here it abounded in a peculiar 
form of cyanite which I afterwards found in great abundance in the 
gneiss and mica-schist of De Kiet, near Hondeklip Bay. Some 
grassy country intervened between this spot and the next where 
rocks were visible. These were felspathic in great variety. I could 
not get a satisfactory observation of their dip for some days' journey, 
perhaps owing to the little experience I had then of rocks of this 
class. There are few things I have more to regret in the way of lost 
opportunities than the want of a careful examination in detail of the 
country within ten miles' radius of the lowermost ford of the Olifant's 
river. It would include a section from the clay-slate to the Upper 
Silurian of Bain which are found in the Cederberg as well as the 
passage of the former into the felspathic rocks of Namaqualand. 
Bain has no hesitation in affirming this change, and I have every 
reason to think that he is correct ; but believing as 1 do in the identity 
of his clay-slate and the Upper Silurian, I cannot but regret that I 
was unabie to make a thorough examination of the country. I believe 
Bain's separation of the clay-slate from tlie Upper Silurian (Devo- 
nian) are drawn here as elsewhere from the position of tlie quartzite 
crossing the slate and underlying the Devonian. Is not this evidence 
identical with that on which metamorphic formations are assigned to 
widely distant epochs in Europe ? 
In addition to the want of time and of experience referred to, I 
have to regret the loss of a note-book in which my observations on 
the rocks in the earlier as well as later part of my journey in Xama- 
qualand were inserted. I cannot therefore tell from my own obser- 
vations how the strike of the rocks which was north 30° west at 
Olifant's river, assumes a nearly east and west strike at Springbok 
A-'ontein. As we pass northwards it takes a more northerly direc- 
tion, and at Oograbis it is north 00° west, and at Annies, on the 
Orange river, it resumes its north 30° west strike with its slaty 
character. I have no hesitation in affirming the passage of the slate 
into felspathic rock here. 
Assuming, then, the metamorphosis of palaeozoic rocks into gneiss, 
mica-schist, etc., I will merely reiterate my firm belief that those of 
Xamaqualand are the changed condition of the great mass of slaty 
beds which extend from the mouth of the Pish river in the east to 
Cape Town, and thence to Olifant's river, and at various points con- 
tain fossils which have been referred to the Devonian epoch by 
geologists of Europe. I again admit that the evidence by which I 
