The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-10-03
ENGLAND's OLD VOLCANOES
The Cause of the Great bikes Found
Throughout the Kingdom,
From the Edlnburgh Scotsman.


From the Edinburgh Scotsman.
Sir Archibald GeilSie, f. r. S, in lee
ture before the Glasgow Geological socie-
ty on The Latest Vocanoes In the British
Isles says that the subject was one
which had occupied him closely for tho
last twenty and more especially for the
last seven years. These islands of ours
were specially fortunate in the wonder
fully complete record which they had
within their borders of the history of vol
canic action. He supposed there was no
area OF equal dimensions on the surface of
the earth where the story of volcanic ac-
ton had been recorded so completely and
with such wonderfully voluminous de-
tails.
From the earliest geological times they
had an almost continuous record of vol
canic eruption along the western border
of the European continent. There were
once active volcanoes along a great valley
between the outer Hebrdes on the west
and the mainland OF Scotland on the east
and they examined from the south of An
trim through the line of the inner Hebrides
far north into the Farce isles and beyond
them into Iceland The present Icelandc
volcanoes were the lineal descendants of
those which We're in action in this country
In tertiary times.
The story of volcanoes in this country
was to he found by the side of volcanoes
in Iceland, and one of the most prominent
features of the modern volcanoes in that
country was that they did not form noun
tains like Aetna or VesuVius Their dom
inant feature was the production Of great
rectilnear assures but there were also
cones. Every one who had sailed along
the shores of the Clyde was familiar with
the bikes that rose up sometimes with
singular prominence along the shores of
Arran, Butte and the Cumbreas-great,
wall-like masses of black rock through the
sandstone. These bikes marked some of
the assures produced during the time of
the early volcanic eruptions.
The eruptions appeared to have begun
with the formation of these assures. They
had them in Antrim Null, Rum Gamma,
Sunday and Skye. The inner Hebrides
were merely fragments of what may have
been originally a volcanic plateau extend
ing from Antrim I'm the south to the north
of Skye. The successive overfiows of ba-
salt could be traced in layers in old river
channels and these layers had been repeat
ed at least four times in the history of the
plateau, as shown in the islands Of Gamma
and Sunday.
From the beginning of the story to the
end the production of fissure seemed to
have been the fundamental fact. There
was great difficulty in fixing the age, but
within the last few months. in the course
OF their work in the geological survey.
they had come across evidence which
would enable them to spell their way
among the bikes of the whole western
highlands. The volcanoes, however, be-
longed to a very recent periodic a time
actually younger than the soft clay on
which London is built. That clay was
there before the volcanoes began to blaze
forth. In closing Sir Archibald referred to
the subject of denudation Of waste, which
he described as one of the most fascinat-
ing departments Of geology and one which
gave valuable aid in enabling them to de-
termine the age of different strata, and
there was. he said, no place where the
| geologist could study that subject with
more profit to himself and benefit to
| science than along the north shores of the
| Farce Islands, where there were the finest
sea cliffs in Europe, some of them 1000 feet
1 in hight