I 
ANNALS MEDEDELINGEN 
OF THE VAN HET 
CRETACEOUS CEPHALOPODA FROM PONDOLAND 
By Dr E. C. N. van Hoepen, M.L 
With II plates and 22 text-figures. 
In September of 1919 the Transvaal Museum sent an expedition to Pondoland 
under the charge of the writer, with the object to investigate the cretaceous 
deposits which were known to occur at the mouth of the Umzamba river, and 
those to the north and to the south of this locality. 
The northernmost patch of cretaceous beds was discovered near the mouth 
of the Hlangeni-nkulu, on the Natal coast. The rock, outcropping at sea-level, 
is a hard, shelly, sandy limestone. For collecting purposes this rock is very 
unpromising. The only other locality visited is that of the Umzamba mouth. 
About ten minutes walk northwards from the mouth of the Umzamba the first 
outcrops of the cretaceous formation are found. They form here high cliffs, 
which in some places may be 100 feet high. The clifis become lower and lower 
towards the north and they disappear at a distance of about 500 yards from 
their southern end. These cliffs are underlain by a hard, sandy, shelly limestone, 
which extends horizontally into the sea. These hard limestones can only be 
examined at low tide. They prove to be essentially similar to the hard lime- 
stones at the mouth of the Hlangeni-nkulu. Hereby I do not wish to indicate, 
that the limestones in these two localities are on exactly the same horizon, for 
the simple reason, that petrographically identical layers occur, as far as could 
be ascertained, throughout the whole thickness. Stratigraphically, however, 
the beds at the Hlangeni-nkulu resemble the lower beds at the Umzamba in 
the fact, that the shelly limestones at the northern locality are separated by 
thin banks of so-called soft material, just as the lower shelly limestones at the 
Umzamba. The shelly limestones at the Umzamba above the horizontal sea- 
shelf may have a thickness of a foot or perhaps two feet, but they are separated 
by banks of “soft material” which have a thickness of from six to seven feet 
and perhaps more. There seems to be a kind of transition between the lower 
and the upper beds. The so-called “soft material” is only superficially soft. 
The banks consist of a flint-hard, blue, compact, very sandy limestone. The 
sand in this rock, however, seems to be predominant and it might be more 
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