AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 
295 
tumbled further down by every succeeding person who finds it. The 
only iron which I met with in any part of Table Mountain was in 
the form of red oxide, a vein of which I saw passing through the 
sandstone when about two-thirds up the mountain. 
My disappointment in not finding the union of the sandstone 
and granite on Table Mountain was forgotten in the examination 
of a very extensive junction pointed out to me by Captain Wauchope 
in a mountain that faces the sea, in the neighbourhood of Simon’s 
Bay. I shall describe it in this place for the sake of connecting 
those phenomena from which I shall attempt any conclusions 
respecting the formation of the Cape mountains. The sandstone 
forming the upper part of the mountain is of a reddish colour, very 
crystalline in its structure, and approaching in some specimens to 
quartz rock. Immediately beneath the sandstone is a bed of com- 
pact dark red argillaceous sandstone, passing in many places into slate 
of the same colour. This bed rests upon another of very coarse 
loosely combined sandstone, resembling gravel. Under this is an- 
other layer of dark red sandstone, terminating in a conglomerate, 
consisting of decomposed crystals of felspar, and of rounded and 
angular fragments of quartz from the size of a millet-seed to that 
of a plover’s egg, imbedded in a red sandstone base. Beneath the 
conglomerate commences a bed, which I at first mistook for granite, 
and which is composed of the constituents of granite in a decom- 
posed state, intermixed with green steatite, and a sufficient quan- 
tity of the dark red sandstone to give it a reddish hue. The 
felspar of this bed is decomposed, and exactly resembles that in the 
conglomerate above it. The mica seems in a good measure to have 
passed into steatite. The quartz is in small crystals, frequently 
having their angles rounded. This bed is several feet in thickness, 
and gradually terminates in granite, but the precise line of junction 
I was unable ta trace. The appearances then were in the following 
order : 
1. Horizontally stratified sandstone. 
