ment of its parts. The strata of these postdeluvian ruins, not being placed in the order of their specific gravity, might lead to the conclusion that they were deposited in successive periods of time, were it not for the circumstance of their lying close upon each other without any intermediate veins of earthy or other extraneous materials. The stratification of the Cape peninsula, and indeed of the whole colony, is arranged in the following order:

The shores of Table Bay, and the substratum of the plain on which the town is built, compose a bed of a blue compact schistus, generally placed in parallel ridges in the direction of north-west and south-east, but frequently interrupted by large masses of a hard flinty rock of the same colour, belonging to that class of aggregated stones, proposed by Mr. Kirwan to be called granitelles. Fine blue flags, with whitish streaks, are procured from Robben Island, in the mouth of Table Bay, which are used for steps, and for paving the terraces in front of most of the houses.

Upon the schistus lies a body of strong clay, coloured with iron, from a pale yellow to deep red, and abounding with brown foliated mica. Embedded in the clay are immense blocks of granite, so loosely cemented together that the constituent parts are easily separable by the hand. The mica, the sand, and indeed the whole bed of clay, seem to have been formed from the decomposition of the granite. Between the Lion's Head and the sea are vast masses of these aggregated stones entirely, exposed. Most of them are rent and falling asunder from their own weight: others are completely hollowed out, so as to be nothing more than a crust or shell; and they have almost invariably a small

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aperture on that side of the stone which faces the bottom of the hill or the sea-shore. Such excavated blocks of coarse granite are very common on the hills of Africa, and are frequently inhabited by runaway slaves.

Resting on the granite and clay is the first horizontal stratum of the Table Mountain, commencing at about five hundred feet above the level of the sea. It is siliceous sand stone of a dirty yellow colour. Above this is a deep brown sand-stone, containing calciform ores of iron, and veins of hematite running through the solid rock. Upon this rests a mass, of about a thousand feet in height, of a whitishgrey shining granular quartz, mouldering away in many places by exposure to the weather, and in others passing into sand-stone. The summit of the mountain has entirely undergone the transition into sand-stone; and the skeletons of the rocks, that have hitherto resisted the ravages of time, are surrounded by myriads of oval-shaped and rounded pebbles of semitransparent quartz that were once embedded in them. Those pebbles having acquired their rounded form by friction, when the matrix, in which they are still found buried, had not assumed the form and consistence of stone; and the situation of this stratified matrix on blocks of primæval granite, clearly point out a grand revolution to have taken place on the surface of the globe we inhabit. No organized remains, however, of the Old World, such as shells buried in the rock, petrefactions of fishes, or impressions of plants, appear on the sides of the Table Mountain, as has been asserted.

To those whom mere curiosity, or the more laudable desire of acquiring information, may tempt to make a visit to the summit of the Table Mountain,

the best and readiest access will be found directly up the face next to the town. The ascent lies through a deep chasm that divides the curtain from the left bastion. The length of this ravine is about three-fourths of a mile; the perpendicular cheeks at the foot more than a thousand feet high, and the angle of ascent about forty-five degrees. The entrance into this deep chasm is grand and awful. The two sides, distant at the lower part about eighty yards from each other, converge within a few feet at the portal, which opens upon the summit, forming two lines of natural perspective. On passing this portal, a plain of very considerable extent spreads out, exhibiting a dreary waste and an insipid tameness, after quitting the bold and romantic scenery of the chasm. And the adventurer may perhaps feel strongly disposed to ask himself, if such be all the gratification he is to receive for having undergone so great a fatigue in the ascent. The mind, however, will soon be relieved at the recollection of the great command given by the elevation; and the eye, leaving the immediate scenery, will wander with delight round the whole circumference of the horizon. On approaching the verge of the mountain

"The fishermen that walk upon the beach
"Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark.
"Diminish'd to her cock.

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"The murmuring surge,

"That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
"Cannot be heard so high."

All the objects on the plain below are, in fact, dwindled away to the eye of the spectator into littleness and insignificance. The flat-roofed houses.

of Cape Town, disposed into formal clumps, appear like those paper fabrics which children are accustomed to make with cards. The shrubbery on the sandy isthmus looks like dots, and the farms and their inclosures as so many lines, and the more finished parts of a plan drawn on paper.

On the swampy parts of the flat summit, between the masses of rock, are growing several sorts of handsome shrubs. The Cenaa mucronata, a tall, elegant, frutescent plant, is peculiar to this situation; as is also that species of heath called the Physodes, which, with its clusters of white flowers glazed with a glutinous coating, exhibits in the sunshine a very beautiful appearance. Many other heaths, common also on the plains, seemed to thrive equally well on this elevated situation as in a milder temperature. The air on the summit, in the clear weather of winter, and in the shade, is generally about fifteen degrees of Fahrenheit's scale lower than in Cape Town. In the summer season the difference is much greater, when that well-known appearance of the fleecy cloud, not inaptly called the Table Cloth, envelopes the summit of the mountain.

A single glance at the topography of the Cape and the adjacent country, will be sufficient to explain the cause of this phenomenon, which has so much the appearance of singularity. The mountainous peninsula is connected with a still more mountainous continent, on which the great ranges run parallel to, and at no great distance from, the sea-coast. In the heat of the summer season, when the south-east monsoon blows strong at sea, the water taken up by evaporation is borne in the air to the continental mountains, where, being condensed, it rests on their summits in the form of a thick cloud.

This cloud, and a low dense bank of fog on the sea, are the precursors of a similar, but lighter, fleece on the Table Mountain, and of a strong gale of wind in Cape Town from the south-east. These effects may be thus accounted for: The condensed air on the summit of the mountains of the continent rushes, by its superior gravity, towards the more rarefied atmosphere over the isthmus, and the vapour it contains is there taken up and held invisible, or in transparent solution. From hence it is carried by the south-east wind towards the Table and its neighbouring mountains, where, by condensation from decreased temperature and concussion, the air is no longer capable of holding the vapour with which it was loaded, but is obliged to let it go. The atmosphere on the summit of the mountain becomes turbid, the cloud is shortly formed, and, hurried by the wind over the verge of the precipice in large fleecy volumes, rolls down the steep sides towards the plain, threatening momentarily to deluge the town. No sooner, however, does it arrive, in its descent, at the point of temperature equal to that of the atmosphere in which it has floated over the isthmus, than it is once more taken up and "vanishes "into air-to thin air." Every other part of the hemisphere shows a clear blue sky, undisturbed by a single vapour.

Though it has been usual to consider the year at the Cape as consisting of two periods, called the good and the bad monsoon, yet, as these are neither regular in their returns, nor certain in their continuance, the division into four seasons, as in Europe, should appear to be much more proper. The spring, reckoned from the beginning of September, to that of December, is the most agreeable season. The summer, from December to March, is the