The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-03-16
ENG1aND's OLD ro1cAyons.
The Cause of the Great bikes Found
Throughont The Kingdom.
(From the EdInburg Scotsman. }

tfrom the EdfnDurg Scotsman.}
Sir Archibald Geikie, r. r. s., in a
lecture before the Glasgow Geological
society on 1.-THE --latest Volcanoes in the
British Isles" says that the subject
was one which had occupied him close
| ly for the last twenty and more espec-
tally for the lastsscven years. These
Islands of ours were especially fortu-
nate in the wonderfully complete rec
ord which they had within their bor-
ders of the history of volcanic action.
He supposes 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 detail,
| From the earliest geological times
| they had an almost continuous record
iof volcanic eruption along the western
border of the European continent
There were once active volcanoes along
| a great valley between the outer He
brides on the west and the mainland of
Scotland on the east. and they extend
| ed from the south of Antrim through
| the line of the inner Hebrides far north
| into the Farce isles and beyond them
| into Iceland. The present Icelandic
volcanoes We're the lineal descendants
of those which were in action in this
country in tertiary times.
| The story of volcanoes in this country
was to be found by the side Of volca-
noes 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 Etna or
/ Vesuvius. Their dominant feature was
the production of great rectilinear fis-
sures, but there were also cones. Eve
ry one who had sailed along the shores
of the Clyde was familiar with the
bikes that rose up sometimes with sin
gular prominence along the shores Of
Arran, Butte and the Cumbreas-great,
wall-lil<e masses of black rock through
the sandstone. These bikes marked
some of the assures produced during
the time of the early tertiary 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 We're merely frag-
ments of what may have been original
ly volcanic plateau extending from
Antrim in the south to the north of
Skye, The successive overfiows of ba-
salt could be traced in layers in old riv
er channels, and these layers had been
repeated at least four times in the his
tory of the plateau, as shown in the is
lands of Gamma and Sunday.
From the beginning of the story to
the end. the production of assures
seemed to have been the fundamental
fact. There was great difficulty in fix
| ing 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, belonged to a
very recent periodic 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 or
waste, which he described as one of the
most fascinating departments of geolo-
gy, 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 the Farce is
lands, where there were the finest sea
cliffs in Europe, some of them two
thousand feet in height.