Volcanic Islands Part 5

This ridge consists, as before remarked, of grey feldspathic lavas, and of red, brecciated, argillaceous tuffs, like the beds of the upper coloured series. The grey lavas contain numerous, minute, black, easily fusible specks; and but very few large crystals of feldspar. They are generally much softened; with the exception of this character, and of being in many parts highly cellular, they are quite similar to those great sheets of lava which overhang the coast at Prosperous Bay. Considerable intervals of time appear to have elapsed, judging from the marks of denudation, between the formation of the successive beds, of which this ridge is composed. On the steep northern slope, I observed in several sections a much worn undulating surface of red tuff, covered by grey, decomposed, feldspathic lavas, with only a thin earthy layer interposed between them. In an adjoining part, I noticed a trap-dike, four feet wide, cut off and covered up by the feldspathic lava, as is represented in Figure 9. The ridge ends on the eastern side in a hook, which is not represented clearly enough in any map which I have seen; towards the western end, it gradually slopes down and divides into several subordinate ridges. The best defined portion between Diana's Peak and Nest Lodge, which supports the highest pinnacles in the island varying from 2,000 to 2,700 feet, is rather less than three miles long in a straight line. Throughout this s.p.a.ce the ridge has a uniform appearance and structure; its curvature resembles that of the coast-line of a great bay, being made up of many smaller curves, all open to the south.

The northern and outer side is supported by narrow ridges or b.u.t.tresses, which slope down to the adjoining country. The inside is much steeper, and is almost precipitous; it is formed of the ba.s.set edges of the strata, which gently decline outwards. Along some parts of the inner side, a little way beneath the summit, a flat ledge extends, which imitates in outline the smaller curvatures of the crest. Ledges of this kind occur not unfrequently within volcanic craters, and their formation seems to be due to the sinking down of a level sheet of hardened lava, the edges of which remain (like the ice round a pool, from which the water has been drained) adhering to the sides. (A most remarkable instance of this structure is described in Ellis "Polynesian Researches" second edition where an admirable drawing is given of the successive ledges or terraces, on the borders of the immense crater at Hawaii, in the Sandwich Islands.)

(FIGURE 10. DIKE. (Section showing layers 1, 2 and 3 from top to bottom.)

1. Grey feldspathic lava.

2. A layer, one inch in thickness, of a reddish earthy matter.

3. Brecciated, red, argillaceous tuff.)

In some parts, the ridge is surmounted by a wall or parapet, perpendicular on both sides. Near Diana's Peak this wall is extremely narrow. At the Galapagos Archipelago I observed parapets, having a quite similar structure and appearance, surmounting several of the craters; one, which I more particularly examined, was composed of glossy, red scoriae firmly cemented together; being externally perpendicular, and extending round nearly the whole circ.u.mference of the crater, it rendered it almost inaccessible. The Peak of Teneriffe and Cotopaxi, according to Humboldt, are similarly constructed; he states that "at their summits a circular wall surrounds the crater, which wall, at a distance, has the appearance of a small cylinder placed on a truncated cone. ("Personal Narrative" volume 1 page 171.) On Cotopaxi this peculiar structure is visible to the naked eye at more than two thousand toises' distance; and no person has ever reached its crater.

(Humboldt "Picturesque Atlas" folio plate 10.) On the Peak of Teneriffe, the parapet is so high, that it would be impossible to reach the caldera, if on the eastern side there did not exist a breach." The origin of these circular parapets is probably due to the heat or vapours from the crater, penetrating and hardening the sides to a nearly equal depth, and afterwards to the mountain being slowly acted on by the weather, which would leave the hardened part, projecting in the form of a cylinder or circular parapet.

From the points of structure in the central ridge, now enumerated,--namely, from the convergence towards it of the beds of the upper series,--from the lavas there becoming highly cellular,--from the flat ledge, extending along its inner and precipitous side, like that within some still active craters,--from the parapet-like wall on its summit,--and lastly, from its peculiar curvature, unlike that of any common line of elevation, I cannot doubt that this curved ridge forms the last remnant of a great crater. In endeavouring, however, to trace its former outline, one is soon baffled; its western extremity gradually slopes down, and, branching into other ridges, extends to the sea-coast; the eastern end is more curved, but it is only a little better defined. Some appearances lead me to suppose that the southern wall of the crater joined the present ridge near Nest Lodge; in this case the crater must have been nearly three miles long, and about a mile and a half in breadth. Had the denudation of the ridge and the decomposition of its const.i.tuent rocks proceeded a few steps further, and had this ridge, like several other parts of the island, been broken up by great dikes and ma.s.ses of injected matter, we should in vain have endeavoured to discover its true nature. Even now we have seen that at Flagstaff Hill the lower extremity and most distant portion of one sheet of the erupted matter has been upheaved to as great a height as the crater down which it flowed, and probably even to a greater height. It is interesting thus to trace the steps by which the structure of a volcanic district becomes obscured, and finally obliterated: so near to this last stage is St. Helena, that I believe no one has. .h.i.therto suspected that the central ridge or axis of the island is the last wreck of the crater, whence the most modern volcanic streams were poured forth.

The great hollow s.p.a.ce or valley southward of the central curved ridge, across which the half of the crater must once have extended, is formed of bare, water-worn hillocks and ridges of red, yellow, and brown rocks, mingled together in chaos-like confusion, interlaced by dikes, and without any regular stratification. The chief part consists of red decomposing scoriae, a.s.sociated with various kinds of tuff and yellow argillaceous beds, full of broken crystals, those of augite being particularly large.

Here and there ma.s.ses of highly cellular and amygdaloidal lavas protrude.

From one of the ridges in the midst of the valley, a conical precipitous hill, called Lot, boldly stands up, and forms a most singular and conspicuous object. It is composed of phonolite, divided in one part into great curved laminae, in another, into angular concretionary b.a.l.l.s, and in a third part into outwardly radiating columns. At its base the strata of lava, tuff, and scoriae, dip away on all sides (Abich in his "Views of Vesuvius" plate 6 has shown the manner in which beds, under nearly similar circ.u.mstances, are tilted up. The upper beds are more turned up than the lower; and he accounts for this, by showing that the lava insinuates itself horizontally between the lower beds.); the uncovered portion is 197 feet in height (This height is given by Mr. Seale in his Geognosy of the island.

The height of the summit above the level of the sea is said to be 1,444 feet.), and its horizontal section gives an oval figure. The phonolite is of a greenish-grey colour, and is full of minute acicular crystals of feldspar; in most parts it has a conchoidal fracture, and is sonorous, yet it is crenulated with minute air-cavities. In a S.W. direction from Lot, there are some other remarkable columnar pinnacles, but of a less regular shape, namely, Lot's Wife, and the a.s.ses' Ears, composed of allied kinds of rock. From their flattened shape, and their relative position to each other, they are evidently connected on the same line of fissure. It is, moreover, remarkable that this same N.E. and S.W. line, joining Lot and Lot's Wife, if prolonged would intersect Flagstaff Hill, which, as before stated, is crossed by numerous dikes running in this direction, and which has a disturbed structure, rendering it probable that a great body of once fluid rock lies injected beneath it.

In this same great valley there are several other conical ma.s.ses of injected rock (one, I observed, was composed of compact greenstone), some of which are not connected, as far as is apparent, with any line of dike; whilst others are obviously thus connected. Of these dikes, three or four great lines stretch across the valley in a N.E. and S.W. direction, parallel to that one connecting the a.s.ses' Ears, Lot's Wife, and probably Lot. The number of these ma.s.ses of injected rock is a remarkable feature in the geology of St. Helena. Besides those just mentioned, and the hypothetical one beneath Flagstaff Hill, there is Little Stony-top and others, as I have reason to believe, at the Man-and-Horse, and at High Hill. Most of these ma.s.ses, if not all of them, have been injected subsequently to the last volcanic eruptions from the central crater. The formation of conical bosses of rock on lines of fissure, the walls of which are in most cases parallel, may probably be attributed to inequalities in the tension, causing small transverse fissures, and at these points of intersection the edges of the strata would naturally yield, and be easily turned upwards. Finally, I may remark, that hills of phonolite everywhere are apt to a.s.sume singular and even grotesque shapes, like that of Lot (D'Aubuisson in his "Traite de Geognosie" tome 2 page 540 particularly remarks that this is the case.): the peak at Fernando Noronha offers an instance; at St. Jago, however, the cones of phonolite, though tapering, have a regular form. Supposing, as seems probable, that all such hillocks or obelisks have originally been injected, whilst liquified, into a mould formed by yielding strata, as certainly has been the case with Lot, how are we to account for the frequent abruptness and singularity of their outlines, compared with similarly injected ma.s.ses of greenstone and basalt?

Can it be due to a less perfect degree of fluidity, which is generally supposed to be characteristic of the allied trachytic lavas?

SUPERFICIAL DEPOSITS.

Soft calcareous sandstone occurs in extensive, though thin, superficial beds, both on the northern and southern sh.o.r.es of the island. It consists of very minute, equal-sized, rounded particles of sh.e.l.ls, and other organic bodies, which partially retain their yellow, brown, and pink colours, and occasionally, though very rarely, present an obscure trace of their original external forms. I in vain endeavoured to find a single unrolled fragment of a sh.e.l.l. The colour of the particles is the most obvious character by which their origin can be recognised, the tints being affected (and an odour produced) by a moderate heat, in the same manner as in fresh sh.e.l.ls. The particles are cemented together, and are mingled with some earthy matter: the purest ma.s.ses, according to Beatson, contain 70 per cent of carbonate of lime. The beds, varying in thickness from two or three feet to fifteen feet, coat the surface of the ground; they generally lie on that side of the valley which is protected from the wind, and they occur at the height of several hundred feet above the level of the sea. Their position is the same which sand, if now drifted by the trade-wind, would occupy; and no doubt they thus originated, which explains the equal size and minuteness of the particles, and likewise the entire absence of whole sh.e.l.ls, or even of moderately-sized fragments. It is remarkable that at the present day there are no sh.e.l.ly beaches on any part of the coast, whence calcareous dust could be drifted and winnowed; we must, therefore, look back to a former period when before the land was worn into the present great precipices, a shelving coast, like that of Ascension, was favourable to the acc.u.mulation of sh.e.l.ly detritus. Some of the beds of this limestone are between six hundred and seven hundred feet above the sea; but part of this height may possibly be due to an elevation of the land, subsequent to the acc.u.mulation of the calcareous sand.

The percolation of rain-water has consolidated parts of these beds into a solid rock, and has formed ma.s.ses of dark brown, stalagmitic limestone. At the Sugar-Loaf quarry, fragments of rock on the adjoining slopes have been thickly coated by successive fine layers of calcareous matter. (In the earthy detritus on several parts of this hill, irregular ma.s.ses of very impure, crystallised sulphate of lime occur. As this substance is now being abundantly deposited by the surf at Ascension, it is possible that these ma.s.ses may thus have originated; but if so, it must have been at a period when the land stood at a much lower level. This earthy selenite is now found at a height of between six hundred and seven hundred feet.) It is singular, that many of these pebbles have their entire surfaces coated, without any point of contact having been left uncovered; hence, these pebbles must have been lifted up by the slow deposition between them of the successive films of carbonate of lime. Ma.s.ses of white, finely oolitic rock are attached to the outside of some of these coated pebbles. Von Buch has described a compact limestone at Lanzarote, which seems perfectly to resemble the stalagmitic deposition just mentioned: it coats pebbles, and in parts is finely oolitic: it forms a far-extended layer, from one inch to two or three feet in thickness, and it occurs at the height of 800 feet above the sea, but only on that side of the island exposed to the violent north-western winds. Von Buch remarks, that it is not found in hollows, but only on the unbroken and inclined surfaces of the mountain. ("Description des Isles Canaries" page 293.) He believes, that it has been deposited by the spray which is borne over the whole island by these violent winds. It appears, however, to me much more probable that it has been formed, as at St. Helena, by the percolation of water through finely comminuted sh.e.l.ls: for when sand is blown on a much-exposed coast, it always tends to acc.u.mulate on broad, even surfaces, which offer a uniform resistance to the winds. At the neighbouring island, moreover, of Feurteventura, there is an earthy limestone, which, according to Von Buch, is quite similar to specimens which he has seen from St. Helena, and which he believes to have been formed by the drifting of sh.e.l.ly detritus. (Idem pages 314 and 374.)

The upper beds of the limestone, at the above-mentioned quarry on the Sugar-Loaf Hill, are softer, finer-grained and less pure, than the lower beds. They abound with fragments of land-sh.e.l.ls, and with some perfect ones; they contain, also, the bones of birds, and the large eggs, apparently of water-fowl. (Colonel Wilkes, in a catalogue presented with some specimens to the Geological Society, states that as many as ten eggs were found by one person. Dr. Buckland has remarked ("Geolog. Trans."

volume 5 page 474) on these eggs.) It is probable that these upper beds remained long in an unconsolidated form, during which time, these terrestrial productions were embedded. Mr. G.R. Sowerby has kindly examined three species of land-sh.e.l.ls, which I procured from this bed, and has described them in detail. One of them is a Succinea, identical with a species now living abundantly on the island; the two others, namely, Cochlogena fossilis and Helix biplicata, are not known in a recent state: the latter species was also found in another and different locality, a.s.sociated with a species of Cochlogena which is undoubtedly extinct.

BEDS OF EXTINCT LAND-Sh.e.l.lS.

Land-sh.e.l.ls, all of which appear to be species now extinct, occur embedded in earth, in several parts of the island. The greater number have been found at a considerable height on Flagstaff Hill. On the N.W. side of this hill, a rain-channel exposes a section of about twenty feet in thickness, of which the upper part consists of black vegetable mould, evidently washed down from the heights above, and the lower part of less black earth, abounding with young and old sh.e.l.ls, and with their fragments: part of this earth is slightly consolidated by calcareous matter, apparently due to the partial decomposition of some of the sh.e.l.ls. Mr. Seale, an intelligent resident, who first called attention to these sh.e.l.ls, gave me a large collection from another locality, where the sh.e.l.ls appear to have been embedded in very black earth. Mr. G.R. Sowerby has examined these sh.e.l.ls, and has described them. There are seven species, namely, one Cochlogena, two species of the genus Cochlicopa, and four of Helix; none of these are known in a recent state, or have been found in any other country. The smaller species were picked out of the inside of the large sh.e.l.ls of the Cochlogena aurisvulpina. This last-mentioned species is in many respects a very singular one; it was cla.s.sed, even by Lamarck, in a marine genus, and having thus been mistaken for a sea-sh.e.l.l, and the smaller accompanying species having been overlooked, the exact localities where it was found have been measured, and the elevation of this island thus deduced! It is very remarkable that all the sh.e.l.ls of this species found by me in one spot, form a distinct variety, as described by Mr. Sowerby, from those procured from another locality by Mr. Seale. As this Cochlogena is a large and conspicuous sh.e.l.l, I particularly inquired from several intelligent countrymen whether they had ever seen it alive; they all a.s.sured me that they had not, and they would not even believe that it was a land animal: Mr. Seale, moreover, who was a collector of sh.e.l.ls all his life at St.

Helena, never met with it alive. Possibly some of the smaller species may turn out to be yet living kinds; but, on the other hand, the two land- sh.e.l.ls which are now living on the island in great numbers, do not occur embedded, as far as is yet known, with the extinct species. I have shown in my "Journal" ("Journal of Researches" page 582.), that the extinction of these land-sh.e.l.ls possibly may not be an ancient event; as a great change took place in the state of the island about one hundred and twenty years ago, when the old trees died, and were not replaced by young ones, these being destroyed by the goats and hogs, which had run wild in numbers, from the year 1502. Mr. Seale states, that on Flagstaff Hill, where we have seen that the embedded land-sh.e.l.ls are especially numerous, traces are everywhere discoverable, which plainly indicate that it was once thickly clothed with trees; at present not even a bush grows there. The thick bed of black vegetable mould which covers the sh.e.l.l-bed, on the flanks of this hill, was probably washed down from the upper part, as soon as the trees perished, and the shelter afforded by them was lost.

ELEVATION OF THE LAND.

Seeing that the lavas of the basal series, which are of submarine origin, are raised above the level of the sea, and at some places to the height of many hundred feet, I looked out for superficial signs of the elevation of the land. The bottoms of some of the gorges, which descend to the coast, are filled up to the depth of about a hundred feet, by rudely divided layers of sand, muddy clay, and fragmentary ma.s.ses; in these beds, Mr.

Seale has found the bones of the tropic-bird and of the albatross; the former now rarely, and the latter never visiting the island. From the difference between these layers, and the sloping piles of detritus which rest on them, I suspect that they were deposited, when the gorges stood beneath the sea. Mr. Seale, moreover, has shown that some of the fissure- like gorges become, with a concave outline, gradually rather wider at the bottom than at the top; and this peculiar structure was probably caused by the wearing action of the sea, when it entered the lower part of these gorges. (A fissure-like gorge, near Stony-top, is said by Mr. Seale to be 840 feet deep, and only 115 feet in width.) At greater heights, the evidence of the rise of the land is even less clear: nevertheless, in a bay-like depression on the table-land behind Prosperous Bay, at the height of about a thousand feet, there are flat-topped ma.s.ses of rock, which it is scarcely conceivable, could have been insulated from the surrounding and similar strata, by any other agency than the denuding action of a sea- beach. Much denudation, indeed, has been effected at great elevations, which it would not be easy to explain by any other means: thus, the flat summit of the Barn, which is 2,000 feet high, presents, according to Mr.

Seale, a perfect network of truncated dikes; on hills like the Flagstaff, formed of soft rock, we might suppose that the dikes had been worn down and cut off by meteoric agency, but we can hardly suppose this possible with the hard, basaltic strata of the Barn.

COAST DENUDATION.

The enormous cliffs, in many parts between one and two thousand feet in height, with which this prison-like island is surrounded, with the exception of only a few places, where narrow valleys descend to the coast, is the most striking feature in its scenery. We have seen that portions of the basaltic ring, two or three miles in length by one or two miles in breadth, and from one to two thousand feet in height, have been wholly removed. There are, also, ledges and banks of rock, rising out of profoundly deep water, and distant from the present coast between three and four miles, which, according to Mr. Seale, can be traced to the sh.o.r.e, and are found to be the continuations of certain well-known great dikes. The swell of the Atlantic Ocean has obviously been the active power in forming these cliffs; and it is interesting to observe that the lesser, though still great, height of the cliffs on the leeward and partially protected side of the island (extending from the Sugar-Loaf Hill to South West Point), corresponds with the lesser degree of exposure. When reflecting on the comparatively low coasts of many volcanic islands, which also stand exposed in the open ocean, and are apparently of considerable antiquity, the mind recoils from an attempt to grasp the number of centuries of exposure, necessary to have ground into mud and to have dispersed the enormous cubic ma.s.s of hard rock which has been pared off the circ.u.mference of this island. The contrast in the superficial state of St. Helena, compared with the nearest island, namely, Ascension, is very striking. At Ascension, the surfaces of the lava-streams are glossy, as if just poured forth, their boundaries are well defined, and they can often be traced to perfect craters, whence they were erupted; in the course of many long walks, I did not observe a single dike; and the coast round nearly the entire circ.u.mference is low, and has been eaten back (though too much stress must not be placed on this fact, as the island may have been subsiding) into a little wall only from ten to thirty feet high. Yet during the 340 years, since Ascension has been known, not even the feeblest signs of volcanic action have been recorded. (In the "Nautical Magazine" for 1835 page 642, and for 1838 page 361, and in the "Comptes Rendus" April 1838, accounts are given of a series of volcanic phenomena--earthquakes--troubled water--floating scoriae and columns of smoke--which have been observed at intervals since the middle of the last century, in a s.p.a.ce of open sea between longitudes 20 degrees and 22 degrees west, about half a degree south of the equator. These facts seem to show, that an island or an archipelago is in process of formation in the middle of the Atlantic: a line joining St. Helena and Ascension, prolonged, intersects this slowly nascent focus of volcanic action.) On the other hand, at St. Helena, the course of no one stream of lava can be traced, either by the state of its boundaries or of its superficies; the mere wreck of one great crater is left; not the valleys only, but the surfaces of some of the highest hills, are interlaced by worn-down dikes, and, in many places, the denuded summits of great cones of injected rock stand exposed and naked; lastly, as we have seen, the entire circuit of the island has been deeply worn back into the grandest precipices.

CRATERS OF ELEVATION.

There is much resemblance in structure and in geological history between St. Helena, St. Jago, and Mauritius. All three islands are bounded (at least in the parts which I was able to examine) by a ring of basaltic mountains, now much broken, but evidently once continuous. These mountains have, or apparently once had, their escarpments steep towards the interior of the island, and their strata dip outwards. I was able to ascertain, only in a few cases, the inclination of the beds; nor was this easy, for the stratification was generally obscure, except when viewed from a distance. I feel, however, little doubt that, according to the researches of M. Elie de Beaumont, their average inclination is greater than that which they could have acquired, considering their thickness and compactness, by flowing down a sloping surface. At St. Helena, and at St. Jago, the basaltic strata rest on older and probably submarine beds of different composition. At all three islands, deluges of more recent lavas have flowed from the centre of the island, towards and between the basaltic mountains; and at St. Helena the central platform has been filled up by them. All three islands have been raised in ma.s.s. At Mauritius the sea, within a late geological period, must have reached to the foot of the basaltic mountains, as it now does at St.

Helena; and at St. Jago it is cutting back the intermediate plain towards them. In these three islands, but especially at St. Jago and at Mauritius, when, standing on the summit of one of the old basaltic mountains, one looks in vain towards the centre of the island,--the point towards which the strata beneath one's feet, and of the mountains on each side, rudely converge,--for a source whence these strata could have been erupted; but one sees only a vast hollow platform stretched beneath, or piles of matter of more recent origin.

These basaltic mountains come, I presume, into the cla.s.s of Craters of elevation: it is immaterial whether the rings were ever completely formed, for the portions which now exist have so uniform a structure, that, if they do not form fragments of true craters, they cannot be cla.s.sed with ordinary lines of elevation. With respect to their origin, after having read the works of Mr. Lyell ("Principles of Geology" fifth edition volume 2 page 171.), and of MM. C. Prevost and Virlet, I cannot believe that the great central hollows have been formed by a simple dome-shaped elevation, and the consequent arching of the strata. On the other hand, I have very great difficulty in admitting that these basaltic mountains are merely the basal fragments of great volcanoes, of which the summits have either been blown off, or more probably swallowed up by subsidence. These rings are, in some instances, so immense, as at St. Jago and at Mauritius, and their occurrence is so frequent, that I can hardly persuade myself to adopt this explanation. Moreover, I suspect that the following circ.u.mstances, from their frequent concurrence, are someway connected together,--a connection not implied in either of the above views: namely, first, the broken state of the ring; showing that the now detached portions have been exposed to great denudation, and in some cases, perhaps, rendering it probable that the ring never was entire; secondly, the great amount of matter erupted from the central area after or during the formation of the ring; and thirdly, the elevation of the district in ma.s.s. As far as relates to the inclination of the strata being greater than that which the basal fragments of ordinary volcanoes would naturally possess, I can readily believe that this inclination might have been slowly acquired by that amount of elevation, of which, according to M. Elie de Beaumont, the numerous upfilled fissures or dikes are the evidence and the measure,--a view equally novel and important, which we owe to the researches of that geologist on Mount Etna.

A conjecture, including the above circ.u.mstances, occurred to me, when,-- with my mind fully convinced, from the phenomena of 1835 in South America, that the forces which eject matter from volcanic orifices and raise continents in ma.s.s are identical,--I viewed that part of the coast of St.

Jago, where the horizontally upraised, calcareous stratum dips into the sea, directly beneath a cone of subsequently erupted lava. (I have given a detailed account of these phenomena, in a paper read before the Geological Society in March 1838. At the instant of time, when an immense area was convulsed and a large tract elevated, the districts immediately surrounding several of the great vents in the Cordillera remained quiescent; the subterranean forces being apparently relieved by the eruptions, which then recommenced with great violence. An event of somewhat the same kind, but on an infinitely smaller scale, appears to have taken place, according to Abich ("Views of Vesuvius" plates 1 and 9), within the great crater of Vesuvius, where a platform on one side of a fissure was raised in ma.s.s twenty feet, whilst on the other side, a train of small volcanoes burst forth in eruption.) The conjecture is that, during the slow elevation of a volcanic district or island, in the centre of which one or more orifices continue open, and thus relieve the subterranean forces, the borders are elevated more than the central area; and that the portions thus upraised do not slope gently into the central, less elevated area, as does the calcareous stratum under the cone at St. Jago, and as does a large part of the circ.u.mference of Iceland, but that they are separated from it by curved faults. (It appears, from information communicated to me in the most obliging manner by M. E. Robert, that the circ.u.mferential parts of Iceland, which are composed of ancient basaltic strata alternating with tuff, dip inland, thus forming a gigantic saucer. M. Robert found that this was the case, with a few and quite local exceptions, for a s.p.a.ce of coast several hundred miles in length. I find this statement corroborated, as far as regards one place, by Mackenzie in his "Travels" page 377, and in another place by some MS. notes kindly lent me by Dr. Holland. The coast is deeply indented by creeks, at the head of which the land is generally low. M.

Robert informs me, that the inwardly dipping strata appear to extend as far as this line, and that their inclination usually corresponds with the slope of the surface, from the high coast-mountains to the low land at the head of these creeks. In the section described by Sir G. Mackenzie, the dip is 120. The interior parts of the island chiefly consist, as far as is known, of recently erupted matter. The great size, however, of Iceland, equalling the bulkiest part of England, ought perhaps to exclude it from the cla.s.s of islands we have been considering; but I cannot avoid suspecting that if the coast-mountains, instead of gently sloping into the less elevated central area, had been separated from it by irregularly curved faults, the strata would have been tilted seaward, and a "Crater of elevation," like that of St. Jago or that of Mauritius, but of much vaster dimensions, would have been formed. I will only further remark, that the frequent occurrence of extensive lakes at the foot of large volcanoes, and the frequent a.s.sociation of volcanic and fresh-water strata, seem to indicate that the areas around volcanoes are apt to be depressed beneath the level of the adjoining country, either from having been less elevated, or from the effects of subsidence.) We might expect, from what we see along ordinary faults, that the strata on the upraised side, already dipping outwards from their original formation as lava-streams, would be tilted from the line of fault, and thus have their inclination increased. According to this hypothesis, which I am tempted to extend only to some few cases, it is not probable that the ring would ever be formed quite perfect; and from the elevation being slow, the upraised portions would generally be exposed to much denudation, and hence the ring become broken; we might also expect to find occasional inequalities in the dip of the upraised ma.s.ses, as is the case at St. Jago. By this hypothesis the elevation of the districts in ma.s.s, and the flowing of deluges of lava from the central platforms, are likewise connected together. On this view the marginal basaltic mountains of the three foregoing islands might still be considered as forming "Craters of elevation;" the kind of elevation implied having been slow, and the central hollow or platform having been formed, not by the arching of the surface, but simply by that part having been upraised to a less height.

CHAPTER V.--GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO.

Chatham Island.

Craters composed of a peculiar kind of tuff.

Small basaltic craters, with hollows at their bases.

Albemarle Island; fluid lavas, their composition.

Craters of tuff; inclination of their exterior diverging strata, and structure of their interior converging strata.

James Island, segment of a small basaltic crater; fluidity and composition of its lava-streams, and of its ejected fragments.

Concluding remarks on the craters of tuff, and on the breached condition of their southern sides.

Mineralogical composition of the rocks of the archipelago.

Elevation of the land.

Direction of the fissures of eruption.

(FIGURE 11. MAP 3. GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO.

Showing Wenman, Abingdon, Bindloes, Tower, Narborough, Albemarle, James, Indefatigable, Barrington, Chatham, Charles and Hood's Islands.)

This archipelago is situated under the equator, at a distance of between five and six hundred miles from the west coast of South America. It consists of five princ.i.p.al islands, and of several small ones, which together are equal in area, but not in extent of land, to Sicily, conjointly with the Ionian Islands. (I exclude from this measurement, the small volcanic islands of Culpepper and Wenman, lying seventy miles northward of the group. Craters were visible on all the islands of the group, except on Towers Island, which is one of the lowest; this island is, however, formed of volcanic rocks.) They are all volcanic: on two, craters have been seen in eruption, and on several of the other islands, streams of lava have a recent appearance. The larger islands are chiefly composed of solid rock, and they rise with a tame outline to a height of between one and four thousand feet. They are sometimes, but not generally, surmounted by one princ.i.p.al orifice. The craters vary in size from mere spiracles to huge caldrons several miles in circ.u.mference; they are extraordinarily numerous, so that I should think, if enumerated, they would be found to exceed two thousand; they are formed either of scoriae and lava, or of a brown-coloured tuff; and these latter craters are in several respects remarkable. The whole group was surveyed by the officers of the "Beagle." I visited myself four of the princ.i.p.al islands, and received specimens from all the others. Under the head of the different islands I will describe only that which appears to me deserving of attention.

CHATHAM ISLAND. CRATERS COMPOSED OF A SINGULAR KIND OF TUFF.

Towards the eastern end of this island there occur two craters composed of two kinds of tuff; one kind being friable, like slightly consolidated ashes; and the other compact, and of a different nature from anything which I have met with described. This latter substance, where it is best characterised, is of a yellowish-brown colour, translucent, and with a l.u.s.tre somewhat resembling resin; it is brittle, with an angular, rough, and very irregular fracture, sometimes, however, being slightly granular, and even obscurely crystalline: it can readily be scratched with a knife, yet some points are hard enough just to mark common gla.s.s; it fuses with ease into a blackish-green gla.s.s. The ma.s.s contains numerous broken crystals of olivine and augite, and small particles of black and brown scoriae; it is often traversed by thin seams of calcareous matter. It generally affects a nodular or concretionary structure. In a hand specimen, this substance would certainly be mistaken for a pale and peculiar variety of pitchstone; but when seen in ma.s.s its stratification, and the numerous layers of fragments of basalt, both angular and rounded, at once render its subaqueous origin evident. An examination of a series of specimens shows that this resin-like substance results from a chemical change on small particles of pale and dark-coloured scoriaceous rocks; and this change could be distinctly traced in different stages round the edges of even the same particle. The position near the coast of all the craters composed of this kind of tuff or peperino, and their breached condition, renders it probable that they were all formed when standing immersed in the sea; considering this circ.u.mstance, together with the remarkable absence of large beds of ashes in the whole archipelago, I think it highly probable that much the greater part of the tuff has originated from the trituration of fragments of the grey, basaltic lavas in the mouths of craters standing in the sea. It may be asked whether the heated water within these craters has produced this singular change in the small scoriaceous particles and given to them their translucent, resin-like fracture. Or has the a.s.sociated lime played any part in this change? I ask these questions from having found at St. Jago, in the Cape de Verde Islands, that where a great stream of molten lava has flowed over a calcareous bottom into the sea, the outermost film, which in other parts resembles pitchstone, is changed, apparently by its contact with the carbonate of lime, into a resin-like substance, precisely like the best characterised specimens of the tuff from this archipelago. (The concretions containing lime, which I have described at Ascension, as formed in a bed of ashes, present some degree of resemblance to this substance, but they have not a resinous fracture. At St. Helena, also, I found veins of a somewhat similar, compact, but non- resinous substance, occurring in a bed of pumiceous ashes, apparently free from calcareous matter: in neither of these cases could heat have acted.)

To return to the two craters: one of them stands at the distance of a league from the coast, the intervening tract consisting of a calcareous tuff, apparently of submarine origin. This crater consists of a circle of hills some of which stand quite detached, but all have a very regular, qua- qua versal dip, at an inclination of between thirty and forty degrees. The lower beds, to the thickness of several hundred feet, consist of the resin- like stone, with embedded fragments of lava. The upper beds, which are between thirty and forty feet in thickness, are composed of a thinly stratified, fine-grained, harsh, friable, brown-coloured tuff, or peperino.

(Those geologists who restrict the term of "tuff" to ashes of a white colour, resulting from the attrition of feldspathic lavas, would call these brown-coloured strata "peperino.") A central ma.s.s without any stratification, which must formerly have occupied the hollow of the crater, but is now attached only to a few of the circ.u.mferential hills, consists of a tuff, intermediate in character between that with a resin-like, and that with an earthy fracture. This ma.s.s contains white calcareous matter in small patches. The second crater (520 feet in height) must have existed until the eruption of a recent, great stream of lava, as a separate islet; a fine section, worn by the sea, shows a grand funnel-shaped ma.s.s of basalt, surrounded by steep, sloping flanks of tuff, having in parts an earthy, and in others a semi-resinous fracture. The tuff is traversed by several broad, vertical dikes, with smooth and parallel sides, which I did not doubt were formed of basalt, until I actually broke off fragments.

These dikes, however, consist of tuff like that of the surrounding strata, but more compact, and with a smoother fracture; hence we must conclude, that fissures were formed and filled up with the finer mud or tuff from the crater, before its interior was occupied, as it now is, by a solidified pool of basalt. Other fissures have been subsequently formed, parallel to these singular dikes, and are merely filled with loose rubbish. The change from ordinary scoriaceous particles to the substance with a semi-resinous fracture, could be clearly followed in portions of the compact tuff of these dikes.

(FIGURE 12. THE KICKER ROCK, 400 FEET HIGH.)

At the distance of a few miles from these two craters, stands the Kicker Rock, or islet, remarkable from its singular form. It is unstratified, and is composed of compact tuff, in parts having the resin-like fracture. It is probable that this amorphous ma.s.s, like that similar ma.s.s in the case first described, once filled up the central hollow of a crater, and that its flanks, or sloping walls, have since been worn quite away by the sea, in which it stands exposed.

SMALL BASALTIC CRATERS.

A bare, undulating tract, at the eastern end of Chatham Island, is remarkable from the number, proximity, and form of the small basaltic craters with which it is studded. They consist, either of a mere conical pile, or, but less commonly, of a circle, of black and red, glossy scoriae, partially cemented together. They vary in diameter from thirty to one hundred and fifty yards, and rise from about fifty to one hundred feet above the level of the surrounding plain. From one small eminence, I counted sixty of these craters, all of which were within a third of a mile from each other, and many were much closer. I measured the distance between two very small craters, and found that it was only thirty yards from the summit-rim of one to the rim of the other. Small streams of black, basaltic lava, containing olivine and much gla.s.sy feldspar, have flowed from many, but not from all of these craters. The surfaces of the more recent streams were exceedingly rugged, and were crossed by great fissures; the older streams were only a little less rugged; and they were all blended and mingled together in complete confusion. The different growth, however, of the trees on the streams, often plainly marked their different ages. Had it not been for this latter character, the streams could in few cases have been distinguished; and, consequently, this wide undulatory tract might have (as probably many tracts have) been erroneously considered as formed by one great deluge of lava, instead of by a mult.i.tude of small streams, erupted from many small orifices.

In several parts of this tract, and especially at the base of the small craters, there are circular pits, with perpendicular sides, from twenty to forty feet deep. At the foot of one small crater, there were three of these pits. They have probably been formed, by the falling in of the roofs of small caverns. (M. Elie de Beaumont has described ("Mem. pour servir" etc.

tome 4 page 113) many "pet.i.ts cirques d'eboulement" on Etna, of some of which the origin is historically known.) In other parts, there are mammiform hillocks, which resemble great bubbles of lava, with their summits fissured by irregular cracks, which appeared, upon entering them, to be very deep; lava has not flowed from these hillocks. There are, also, other very regular, mammiform hillocks, composed of stratified lava, and surmounted by circular, steep-sided hollows, which, I suppose have been formed by a body of gas, first, arching the strata into one of the bubble- like hillocks, and then, blowing off its summit. These several kinds of hillocks and pits, as well as the numerous, small, scoriaceous craters, all show that this tract has been penetrated, almost like a sieve, by the pa.s.sage of heated vapours. The more regular hillocks could only have been heaved up, whilst the lava was in a softened state. (Sir G. Mackenzie "Travels in Iceland" pages 389 to 392, has described a plain of lava at the foot of Hecla, everywhere heaved up into great bubbles or blisters. Sir George states that this cavernous lava composes the uppermost stratum; and the same fact is affirmed by Von Buch "Descript. des Isles Canaries" page 159, with respect to the basaltic stream near Rialejo, in Teneriffe. It appears singular that it should be the upper streams that are chiefly cavernous, for one sees no reason why the upper and lower should not have been equally affected at different times;--have the inferior streams flowed beneath the pressure of the sea, and thus been flattened, after the pa.s.sage through them, of bodies of gas?)

ALBEMARLE ISLAND.