There are three principal beds of obsidian, of which the thickest forms the base of the section. The alternating stony layers appear to me eminently curious, and shall be first described, and afterwards their passage into the obsidian. They have an extremely diversified appearance; five principal varieties may be noticed, but these insensibly blend into each other by endless gradations.
FIRST.
A pale grey, irregularly and coarsely laminated (This term is open to some misinterpretation, as it may be applied both to rocks divided into laminae of exactly the same composition, and to layers firmly attached to each other, with no fissile tendency, but composed of different minerals, or of different shades of colour. The term "laminated," in this chapter, is applied in these latter senses; where a homogeneous rock splits, as in the former sense, in a given direction, like clay-slate, I have used the term "fissile."), harsh-feeling rock, resembling clay-slate which has been in contact with a trap-dike, and with a fracture of about the same degree of crystalline structure. This rock, as well as the following varieties, easily fuses into a pale glass. The greater part is honeycombed with irregular, angular, cavities, so that the whole has a curious appearance, and some fragments resemble in a remarkable manner silicified logs of decayed wood. This variety, especially where more compact, is often marked with thin whitish streaks, which are either straight or wrap round, one behind the other, the elongated carious hollows.
SECONDLY.
A bluish grey or pale brown, compact, heavy, homogeneous stone, with an angular, uneven, earthy fracture; viewed, however, under a lens of high power, the fracture is seen to be distinctly crystalline, and even separate minerals can be distinguished.
THIRDLY.
A stone of the same kind with the last, but streaked with numerous, parallel, slightly tortuous, white lines of the thickness of hairs. These white lines are more crystalline than the parts between them; and the stone splits along them: they frequently expand into exceedingly thin cavities, which are often only just perceptible with a lens. The matter forming the white lines becomes better crystallised in these cavities, and Professor Miller was fortunate enough, after several trials, to ascertain that the white crystals, which are the largest, were of quartz (Professor Miller informs me that the crystals which he measured had the faces P, z, m of the figure (147) given by Haidinger in his Translation of Mohs; and he adds, that it is remarkable, that none of them had the slightest trace of faces r of the regular six-sided prism.), and that the minute green transparent needles were augite, or, as they would more generally be called, diopside: besides these crystals, there are some minute, dark specks without a trace of crystalline, and some fine, white, granular, crystalline matter which is probably feldspar. Minute fragments of this rock are easily fusible.
FOURTHLY.
A compact crystalline rock, banded in straight lines with innumerable layers of white and grey shades of colour, varying in width from the thirtieth to the two-hundredth of an inch; these layers seem to be composed chiefly of feldspar, and they contain numerous perfect crystals of glassy feldspar, which are placed lengthways; they are also thickly studded with microscopically minute, amorphous, black specks, which are placed in rows, either standing separately, or more frequently united, two or three or several together, into black lines, thinner than a hair. When a small fragment is heated in the blowpipe, the black specks are easily fused into black brilliant beads, which become magnetic,--characters that apply to no common mineral except hornblende or augite. With the black specks there are mingled some others of a red colour, which are magnetic before being heated, and no doubt are oxide of iron. Round two little cavities, in a specimen of this variety, I found the black specks aggregated into minute crystals, appearing like those of augite or hornblende, but too dull and small to be measured by the goniometer; in the specimen, also, I could distinguish amidst the crystalline feldspar, grains, which had the aspect of quartz.