The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 1 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 1 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
Let us now turn our attention to the internal or geological structure
of Cornwall. The highest parts of the central ridge, already alluded
to, are composed of granite, which occurs in the form of four large
insulated patches, so disposed at nearly equal distances from each
other as to resemble a chain of islands extending from Launceston to
the Land’s End, that is in the direction of N.E. and S.W. On the same
ridge, but rather parallel than continuous thereto, is the great
granitic group of Dartmoor in Devon, the whole of which is sometimes
called the Ocrynian Range.
The granitic patch of Dartmoor is by far the most extensive, being
nearly twenty miles in diameter; that of Launceston is ten miles in
length by six or seven in breadth at its widest part; and its most
elevated hills, Rough-tor and Brown-Willy, do not much exceed 1,300
feet in height. The granitic rocks of this patch, like that of
Dartmoor, are not much exposed by artificial excavations, so that
their varieties cannot be easily examined; the _weathered_ blocks,
which on the summit and sides of the hills form tors and detached
masses, consist of the hard or siliceous varieties of the common and
fine-grained granites, such as have withstood the action of the
elements. One of the most curious of these tors is the _Cheese Wring_,
near Liskeard, a pile of single blocks, each being larger than the one
immediately beneath. Proceeding along the ridge towards the Land’s
End, the next, or St. Austel patch of granite will be found, much less
than the last, but more interesting both in a scientific and a
commercial point of view. In addition to the kinds of granite already
noticed, it contains beds of talcose granite, or protogine, which by
its decomposition furnishes that valuable substance _china clay_ or
_kaolin_, many thousand tons of which are annually exported for the
potteries. The third, or Redruth patch of granite, affords many
varieties of this rock, and has been well explored by numerous mines
which have been productive in both tin and copper ores, affording also
to the mineralogist a great variety of rare specimens. But the fourth,
or Land’s End granite, is by far the most important to the geologist,
for the land becoming here very narrow, the sea has produced
cliff-sections, both in the granite, and also at its point of junction
with the slate, exhibiting many interesting phenomena. Among these,
the veins of granite in the slate are beautifully displayed, and have
long been a great attraction to geologists; but the modes in which
these rocks meet and unite, are not less deserving of notice. But for
a detailed description of these curious facts, the reader may be
referred to my “Treatise on Primary Geology.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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