It is near eleven years since that in travelling through Howison’s Poort,* one of the most picturesque of the many fine mountain passes through the quartzite ranges of the eastern province of the Cape Colony, my attention was drawn to a geological fact to which observation in other parts of the Colony has since led me to attach no little importance. In the construction of the main road from Port Elizabeth to Graham’s Town, many deep cuttings have been made in the solid quartzite rock. In many instances the rock seen in these works lost its crystalline character gradually, and assumed that of a hard blue sandstone, and at length nearly resembled the blue fossiliferous shales and sandstones of the Ecca.