Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1897-01-05


main one-New York Mail and Elk
press.
OLD ENGLISH VOLCANOES.
Britain's Great bikes Caused by Their
Eruptions In Early Times.
Sir Archibald Geikie, F. R. S., in
a lecture before the Glasgow Geo.
logical society on "The Latest Vol
canoes In the British Isles" says
that the subject is one which had
occupied him closely for the last 20
and more especially for the last
z years. These islands Of ours
were especially fortunate in the
wonderfully complete record which
they had within their borders of
the history Of volcanic action. He
supposed that there was no area Of
equal dimensions on the surface of
the earth where the story of volcan-
ic action had been recorded SO COM
pletely and with such wonderfully
voluminous details.
From the earliest geological times
they had an almost continuous rec
ord Of volcanic eruption along the
western border of the European
continent There were once active
volcanoes along a great valley be-
tween the outer Hebrides OIL the
west and the mainland of Scotland
on the east, and they extended 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 were the ineal descend
ants 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 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 Etna or Vesuvius. Their
dominant feature was the produce
ton Of great rectilinear assures, but
there were also cones. Every ono
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 Cum
breas, great, wall-like masses Of
black rock through the sandstone
These bikes marked some Of the fis-
sures 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
Syke The inner Hebrides were
merely fragments Of what may have
been originally volcanic plateau
extending from Antrim in the south
to the north of Syke. The success
sive overhows of basalt could be
traced in layers in old river chan
nels, and these layers had been re-
peated at least four times in the his
COIy VI LILO )11CCctA, 40 LIZ" IL LII CuO
islands of Gamma and Sunday.
From the beginning Of the story
to the end the production Of assure
seemed to have been the funda-
mental fact. There was great diff
Guilty in fixing the age, but within
the last few months, in the course
of their work in the geological SUR
vey, they had come across evidence
which would enable them to spell
their way among the dikes Of the
whole western highlands. The vol
canoes, however, belonged to O very
recent period-to 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 val
liable aid in enabling them to deter
mine the age of different strata, and
there was, he said, no place where
the geologist could study that sub
ject 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
ght.-Edinburgh Scotsman.