Hills, at an elevation of twenty feet, at leaft, above the general
furface of the ifthmus, when the workmen were driving a level
in fearch of coal, a copious ftream of water was colleded within
it, in the month of February, which is the very dryeft feafon
of the year. And on boring, for the fame purpofe, on Wyn-
berg, they came to a rill of water at the depth of twenty feet
below the furface.
I have already noticed, in my journey to the Namaaqua
country, that clear fubterraneous ftreams were every where to
be found, in that diftrid, under the fandy beds of the rivers.
Water in abundance has always been found by digging wells in
Cape Town. Indeed it would be an abfurdity to fuppofe that,
in a country where mountains abound, and thofe mountains
for more than two-thirds of the year hid in denfe clouds, there
could be any fcarcity o f water. Peculiar circumftanees, relating
to iituation or furface, may conceal that water, but it will always
be difcovered at or near the fea-coaft.
When the late Admiral Sir Hugh Chriftian ordered a well to
be funk atSaldanha Bay, by direding his attention.rather to
the convenience o f conveying the water to the flopping, than to
the certainty of obtaining it, he was led into an error in fixing
Upon the fpot for the experiment, which was fo high above the
level o f the bay, and where the ground was one folid mads of
compad granite, that, after boring and blowing up with gunpowder,
for feveral months with little or no propped of fuo
■cefs, the operation was obliged to be abandoned. 0n the
oppofite-fide <of the bay, where the ftiore is little elevated above
the
the high water mark, feveral fprings have fpontaneoufly burft
out of the earth, but for want of being properly opened, fo that
the water may run off freely, they are fuffered to ftagnate, and
become, as might be expeded from the foil and climate, a little
brackiih. All circumftanees here are fully as favourable as at
Madras, where the pureft and beft water is found clofe to the
fea fhore.
Thefe confederations are fo obvious, that I fliould have
thought it unneceffary to have dwelt a moment upon the fub-
jed, were I not perfuaded that a very general opinion prevailed
with regard to the difficulty, if not the impoffibility, of fup-
plying the feveral bays of the colony with freih water. I fWl
only fuggeft, as another conclufion * that may be drawn from
what has been faid, that the great depth of the commencement
of the granite bafe below the furface may, perhaps, better account
for the moft confiderable rivers of Northern Africa lofing
themfelves in the fand, before they reach the £ea, than by fup-
pofing the interior parts of this continent to be lower than the
level o f the ocean ; a eonjedure that has been held, but which
ftrongly militates againft the general order obferved throughout
the univerfe.
I have already «xpreffed my doubts with regard to the Cape
peninfula having originally been feparated from the continent of
Africa, according to the general opinion of writers, who, drawing
their conduirons from a fuppofed retreat of the fea to prevail
univerfally, have not .given themfelves the trouble to examine
any fnrthar grounds for inch a ooajodure. The more I
have