COTEMPORANEOUS BEDS.—When the lava emitted by a crater is sufficiently liquid, it spreads out horizontally, forming a volcanic sheet or bed. If such an eruption is submarine, or the lava flow is subsequently covered by the sea, sedimentary deposits are formed over it; and beds of lava which thus come to lie conformably between sedimentary strata are known as _cotemporaneous sheets_ or _beds_, because they belong, in order of time, in the position in which we find them, being, like any member of a stratified series, newer than the underlying and older than the overlying strata. Cotemporaneous lava-flows are sometimes repeated again and again in the same district, and thus important formations are built up of alternating igneous and aqueous deposits. Evidently, the student who would read correctly the record of igneous activity in the past must be able to distinguish intrusive and cotemporaneous beds. The principal points to be considered in making this distinction are: (1) The intrusive bed is essentially a dike, dense and more or less crystalline in texture, altering, and often enclosing fragments of, both the underlying and overlying strata, and frequently jogging across or penetrating the sediments. (2) The cotemporaneous bed, on the other hand, being essentially a lava-flow, is much less dense and crystalline, being usually distinctly scoriaceous or amygdaloidal, especially at the borders, and the underlying strata alone showing heat action, or occurring as enclosures in the lava; for the overlying strata are newer than the lava, and often consist largely, at the base, of water-worn fragments of the lava. AGES OF DIKES.—The ages of dikes may be estimated in several ways. They are necessarily newer than any stratified formation which they intersect or of which they enclose fragments; but any formation crossing the top of a dike must usually be regarded as newer than the dike, especially if it contains water-worn fragments of the dike rock. The relative ages of different dikes are determined by their relations to the stratified formations; and still more easily by their mutual intersections, on the principle that when two dikes cross each other, the intersecting must be newer than the intersected dike. It is sometimes possible, in this way, to prove several distinct periods of eruption in the same limited district. The textures of dikes also often afford reliable indications of their ages; for, as we have already seen, the upper part of a dike, cooling rapidly and under little pressure, must be less dense and crystalline than the deep-seated portion, which cools slowly and under great pressure.