Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Volcanoes
In the neighbourhood of Green Mountain, fragments of extraneous rock
are not unfrequently found embedded in the midst of masses of scoriae.
Lieutenant Evans, to whose kindness I am indebted for much information,
gave me several specimens, and I found others myself. They nearly all
have a granitic structure, are brittle, harsh to the touch, and
apparently of altered colours.
FIRST, a white syenite, streaked and mottled with red; it consists of
well- crystallised feldspar, numerous grains of quartz, and brilliant,
though small, crystals of hornblende. The feldspar and hornblende in
this and the succeeding cases have been determined by the reflecting
goniometer, and the quartz by its action under the blowpipe. The
feldspar in these ejected fragments, like the glassy kind in the
trachyte, is from its cleavage a potash-feldspar.
SECONDLY, a brick-red mass of feldspar, quartz, and small dark patches
of a decayed mineral; one minute particle of which I was able to
ascertain, by its cleavage, to be hornblende.
THIRDLY, a mass of confusedly crystallised white feldspar, with little
nests of a dark-coloured mineral, often carious, externally rounded,
having a glossy fracture, but no distinct cleavage: from comparison
with the second specimen, I have no doubt that it is fused hornblende.
FOURTHLY, a rock, which at first appears a simple aggregation of
distinct and large-sized crystals of dusty-coloured Labrador feldspar
(Professor Miller has been so kind as to examine this mineral. He
obtained two good cleavages of 86 degrees 30 minutes and 86 degrees 50
minutes. The mean of several, which I made, was 86 degrees 30 minutes.
Professor Miller states that these crystals, when reduced to a fine
powder, are soluble in hydrochloric acid, leaving some undissolved
silex behind; the addition of oxalate of ammonia gives a copious
precipitate of lime. He further remarks, that according to Von Kobell,
anorthite (a mineral occurring in the ejected fragments at Mount Somma)
is always white and transparent, so that if this be the case, these
crystals from Ascension must be considered as Labrador feldspar.
Professor Miller adds, that he has seen an account, in Erdmann’s
“Journal fur tecnische Chemie,” of a mineral ejected from a volcano
which had the external characters of Labrador feldspar, but differed in
the analysis from that given by mineralogists of this mineral: the
author attributed this difference to an error in the analysis of
Labrador feldspar, which is very old.); but in their interstices there
is some white granular feldspar, abundant scales of mica, a little
altered hornblende, and, as I believe, no quartz. I have described
these fragments in detail, because it is rare to find granitic rocks
ejected from volcanoes with their MINERALS UNCHANGED, as is the case
with the first specimen, and partially with the second. (Daubeny, in
his work on Volcanoes page 386, remarks that this is the case; and
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