Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1896 — ENGLAND'S VOLCANOES. [ARTICLE]

ENGLAND'S VOLCANOES.

Ttaccs of the Old Reichert Seen in Many PI: ces. , i Sir Archibald Gcjke, !•’. K. 5.,4n a lecture before the Glasgow Geological Society on ‘‘The “Latest Volcanoes in the British .Isles,” says that i >vasDue which had occupied him closely sos the last tweniy; years, and more especially for the last . seven years. These islands of ours were specially fortunate "in the wonderfully complete record which they had within their borders of the history of volcanic action. He supposed there was no area of equal dimensions on the surface of the earth where the* story of volcanic action had been recorded so completely and with such wonderfully voluminous details. From the earliest geological times they had an almost continuous record of volcanic eruption along the western border of the European continent. There were once'aetive volcanoes along the great valley between the Outer Hebrides on the west anil the" mainland of Scotland on the east, and they Extended from the south of Antrim through tlie lino of the Inner Hebrides far north into the Faroe Isles, and beyond them Into Iceland;,’-The present leelandie-vol-cauoes were the lineal-descendants of those which were in action in this country in oldbl-tertiary times. ® The story of volcanoes in this gauntry was to be found by theDide of thE volcanoes in Iceland, and one of the most prominent features of the modem volcanoes in that country was that they •lid not form mountains like Etna or Vesuvius. Their dominant feature was tlie production of great rectilinear Assures,inn there were also cones. Everyone who had sailed aldng the shores of the Clyde was familiar with tlie-dikes that rose up sometimes with singular prominence along the shores of Arrau, Bute, and the Oiimbraes—great wall-I.ke Masses of black rock through the sandstone; These dikes marked some of the fissures produced during the timer of the early tertiary volcanic eruptions. Tito eruptions appeared to have begun with the formation of these fissures. They had Them In Autrim. Mull, Remu, Sauna. Sunday and Skye— The Inner Hebrides were merely fragments of what may have been originally a volcanic plateau extending from Antrim in the south to the north of Skye. The successive outflows of basalt could be. traced In layers in old river channels, and these layers had been repeated at least four times in tlie history of the plateau, as shown in the Islands of .Ganna and Sanda s .v. From the beginning of the story to tlie end the production of fissures seamed to have been the fundamental fact. There was great difficulty in fixing tlie age, but within tin* last few months, in tlie cdurse of their work in the Geological f*arvey. they had come across the evidence which would enable them to spell their way among tlie dikes 1 of the whole Western Highlands. The voleanoes, however, belonged to a very-re-cent period—to a time actually younger than the soft clay on which London is built. That clay wag s .there before tlie volcanoes began to blaze forth. 11l closing, Sir Archibald-referred to the subject of denudation or waste, which fie described as outs of tlie most fascinating departments of geology, and one which gave valuable aid in enabling ■ lieni to detenuino the ago of different strata; and there was. in* said, no place where tlio geologist could study that subject with more profit to himself and benefit to science than along the north shores of the. Faroe Isles, where there were, the finest sen cliffs in Kilfope, some of them ".000 feet in height.— ..Edinburgh Scotsman.