Coral Reefs; Volcanic Islands; South American Geology — CompleteDarwin, Charles
Science
Coral Reefs; Volcanic Islands; South American Geology — Complete
Darwin, Charles
Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Coral reefs and islands; Geology -- South America; Islands; Volcanoes
Thirdly.—A stone of the same kind with the last, but streaked with
numerous, parallel, slightly tortuous, white lines of the thickness of
hairs. These white lines are more crystalline than the parts between
them; and the stone splits along them: they frequently expand into
exceedingly thin cavities, which are often only just perceptible with a
lens. The matter forming the white lines becomes better crystallised in
these cavities, and Professor Miller was fortunate enough, after
several trials, to ascertain that the white crystals, which are the
largest, were of quartz,[23] and that the minute green transparent
needles were augite, or, as they would more generally be called,
diopside: besides these crystals, there are some minute, dark specks
without a trace of
crystalline, and some fine, white, granular, crystalline matter which
is probably feldspar. Minute fragments of this rock are easily fusible.
[23] Professor Miller informs me that the crystals which he measured
had the faces _P, z, m_ of the figure (147) given by Haidinger in his
Translation of Mohs; and he adds, that it is remarkable, that none of
them had the slightest trace of faces _r_ of the regular six-sided
prism.
Fourthly.—A compact crystalline rock, banded in straight lines with
innumerable layers of white and grey shades of colour, varying in width
from the thirtieth to the two-hundredth of an inch; these layers seem
to be composed chiefly of feldspar, and they contain numerous perfect
crystals of glassy feldspar, which are placed lengthways; they are also
thickly studded with microscopically minute, amorphous, black specks,
which are placed in rows, either standing separately, or more
frequently united, two or three or several together, into black lines,
thinner than a hair. When a small fragment is heated in the blowpipe,
the black specks are easily fused into black brilliant beads, which
become magnetic,—characters that apply to no common mineral except
hornblende or augite. With the black specks there are mingled some
others of a red colour, which are magnetic before being heated, and no
doubt are oxide of iron. Round two little cavities, in a specimen of
this variety, I found the black specks aggregated into minute crystals,
appearing like those of augite or hornblende, but too dull and small to
be measured by the goniometer; in the specimen, also, I could
distinguish amidst the crystalline feldspar, grains, which had the
aspect of quartz. By trying with a parallel ruler, I found that the
thin grey layers and the black hair-like lines were absolutely straight
and parallel to each other. It is impossible to trace the gradation
from the homogeneous grey rocks to these striped varieties, or indeed
the character of the different layers in the same specimen, without
feeling convinced that the more or less perfect whiteness of the
crystalline feldspathic matter depends on the more or less perfect
aggregation of diffused matter, into the black and red specks of
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