Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Volcanoes
A pale grey, irregularly and coarsely laminated (This term is open to
some misinterpretation, as it may be applied both to rocks divided into
laminae of exactly the same composition, and to layers firmly attached
to each other, with no fissile tendency, but composed of different
minerals, or of different shades of colour. The term “laminated,” in
this chapter, is applied in these latter senses; where a homogeneous
rock splits, as in the former sense, in a given direction, like
clay-slate, I have used the term “fissile.”), harsh-feeling rock,
resembling clay-slate which has been in contact with a trap-dike, and
with a fracture of about the same degree of crystalline structure. This
rock, as well as the following varieties, easily fuses into a pale
glass. The greater part is honeycombed with irregular, angular,
cavities, so that the whole has a curious appearance, and some
fragments resemble in a remarkable manner silicified logs of decayed
wood. This variety, especially where more compact, is often marked with
thin whitish streaks, which are either straight or wrap round, one
behind the other, the elongated carious hollows.
SECONDLY.
A bluish grey or pale brown, compact, heavy, homogeneous stone, with an
angular, uneven, earthy fracture; viewed, however, under a lens of high
power, the fracture is seen to be distinctly crystalline, and even
separate minerals can be distinguished.
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 (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.), 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.
FOURTHLY.
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