The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-03
OLD VOLCANOES IN ENGLAND. 9
Belief That They Caused the Great
bikes Found In Various Sections.

Edinburgh Scotsman.
Sir Archibald Geikie, F. r. s., in
lecture before the Glasgow Geological
society on 1.-THE Latest Volcanoes in
the British Isles" says that the sub
ject is one which had occupied him
closely for the last twenty and more
especially for the last seven years.
These islands Of ours were especially
fortunate in the wonderfully complete
record which they had within their
borders of the history Of volcanic &C
ton. He supposed that there was no
area of equal dimensions on the surface
of the earth where the story of vol
canic action had been recorded so COM
pletely and with such wonderfully vol
luminous 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 active volcanoes along
a great valley between the outer Heb
rides on the west and the mainland of
Scotland on the east. and they ex-
tended from the south Of Antrim
through the line of the inner Hebrides
far north into the Farce isles and be-
yond them into Iceland. The present
Icelandic volcanoes We're the lineal de-
scendants Of those which were in ac-
ton in this country in tertiary times.
The story of volcanoes in this country
was to be found by the side Of vol
canoes in Iceland and one of the most
prominent features of the modern vol
canoes in that country was that they
did not form mountains like Aetna or
Vesuvius. Their dominant feature was
the production Of great rectilinear ifs
sures, but there were also cones.
Everyone who had sailed along the
shores of the Clyde was familiar with
the dikes that rose UP sometimes with
singular prominence along the shores
of Arran, Butte and the Cumnreas,
great, wail-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 be-
gun with the formation Of these ifs
sures. They had them in Antrim, Null,
Rum, Gamma, Sunday and Syke. The
inner Hebrides were merely fragments
of what may have been originally a
volcanic plateau extending from An
trim in the south to the north of Syke.
The successive overfiows Of basalt
could be traced in layers in old river
channels, and these layers had been
repeated at least four times in the his
terry of the plateau, as shown in the
islands Of Gamma and Sunday.
From the beginning of the story to
the end the production Of assure 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 vol
canoes, however. belonged to a very
recent peroid--to 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 re-
ferred to the subject Of denudation
of waste, which he described as one
of the most fascinating departments of
geology and one which gave valuable
aid in enabling them to determine 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 Farce
islands, where there were the finest
sea cliffs in Europe. some Of them
1900 feet in height.