296 GEOLOGICAL APPEARANCES 
2. A bed of compact dark red sandstone passing into slate. 
3. A bed of coarser sandstone, resembling gravel. 
4. A second layer of compact dark red sandstone passing, 
5thly, into a conglomerate, consisting of decomposed crystals of 
felspar and fragments of quartz in a sandstone base. 
6. A bed composed of the decomposed constituents of granite 
and red sandstone, passing, 
7thly, into granite. 
But although the above is the general, it is not the universal order 
of the appearances presented by the mountain. It sometimes hap- 
pens that one, sometimes two, and even more of the series are 
wanting. In one place I found the horizontally stratified sandstone 
resting on the coarser gravelly sandstone ; in another on the con- 
glomerate ; and in another on the bed below it. In fact, In different 
places it came in contact with each of the series. 
The beds of sandstone which pass into slate are altogether 
different, both in colour and structure, from the sandstone forming 
the top of the mountain : they are of a dark red colour, and. very 
earthy in their fracture ; the other is of a reddish gray colour, 
and crystalline in its fracture. Fragments of dark red slate con- 
taining minute plates of mica, are imbedded in the coarse gravelly 
sandstone. 
The bed of coarse gravelly sandstone in some places exactly 
resembles what has been called the old red sandstone conglomerate : 
in it are found large and round fragments of quartz surrounded by 
crystals of shorl. 
I have now described, with all the accuracy of which I am capable, 
the more general and important geological appearances which pre- 
sented themselves to my observation during my two visits to the 
Cape of Good Hope. I have described them without attempting 
to deduce conclusions from them whilst occupied in detailing them, 
that I might give my reader an opportunity of forming his own 
opinions respecting them unembarrassed by any theoretical observ- 
