Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Volcanoes
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
hornblende and oxide of iron.
FIFTHLY.
A compact heavy rock, not laminated, with an irregular, angular, highly
crystalline, fracture; it abounds with distinct crystals of glassy
feldspar, and the crystalline feldspathic base is mottled with a black
mineral, which on the weathered surface is seen to be aggregated into
small crystals, some perfect, but the greater number imperfect. I
showed this specimen to an experienced geologist, and asked him what it
was; he answered, as I think every one else would have done, that it
was a primitive greenstone. The weathered surface, also, of the banded
variety in Figure 4, strikingly resembles a worn fragment of finely
laminated gneiss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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