Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 27.djvu/152

 it soon rises again to the high plateaux of the Town Hill and Zwartkop (about 5000 feet high). In a very few steps it forms the long and mighty range of the Draakensberge, which form the great watershed line between the rivers of the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. We find in this range the Mont aux Sources (12000 feet above the level of the sea), a knot of mountains, which sends spurs in five directions, forming the Witteberge and the Quathlamba Mountains. All these great steps and plateaux run parallel to the coast, and consist of more or less broad belts of country. The small belt on the seashore shows tropical vegetation. The sugar-cane, the coffee, and now recently the tea shrub, and the greatest variety of tropical fruits find here suitable climate and ought to be sources of immense riches to the country if properly managed. When we ascend the first terrace, the change in the landscape is at once remarkable, and the vegetation has quite a different character. The sugar-cane and exotic creepers disappear, and their place is taken by more European plants ; but the coffee-shrub and many a fruit-tree strange to the eye of the newly arrived European still remain. At a still higher point these remains of subtropical vegetation also disappear, and nothing is visible to the eye but vast plains of " veldt," stretching for miles, covered with coarse-looking grass, and only interrupted by ant-hills and deep holes made by the ant-bear (the worst foe of those most industrious insects). Nothing more cheerful meets the eye in these vast tracts than small hills and grass — grass everywhere — only occasionally a lonely cattle-farm with the surrounding never missing gum-trees, which give the place a still more lonely and cheerless appearance. This belt is about thirty miles broad, and runs through Kaffirland, Natal and the Zulu country. The succeeding, third district is the most salubrious one, whose climate agrees best with the constitution of Europeans. The soil is covered with a luxuriant grass vegetation, which supports a strong and fine race of cattle. The higher the ground ascends, the more fruitful it becomes ; and on the elevated plains, in the district where the yellowwood-tree flourishes, wheat and almost all our European fruits will grow magnificently. Here the winter, although not so severe as in northern Europe, is more like the climate we are accustomed to, and is therefore a real paradise to emigrants, who not only find a country where their labours receive their best reward, but also a more genial climate than the coast-district affords. Natal's rivers flow to the Indian ocean and supply the colony with abundance of water, which makes its soil superior to that of the " old colony," with its vast plains, " karoos," and dreary " veldts."

II. Geology.

The geological structure of the country is shown by the map and section on Plate II., in the preparation of which the author has supplemented the results of his own researches by those of Dr. Sutherland and M. Franz Groger.

1. Granite and Gneiss. — Granite in South Africa does not form the centre of the country or the most prominent of the elevations.