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.1“: .
7 -V‘-r--“"7 > I ha” Y‘
BASALTIES. 101
xv-cu p
wviu no...
‘A haunt Inc. a
lnaaiounuu.
d It: consists of a number of cylinders, whose diameters
s ‘ vary from six inches to twenty feet. Some . of these are
1 solid, others hollow, like cannon ; some extended in layers
others like rolls of tobacco compressed; some are like
5- V globes inclosed in the rocks, while others are curved and
1 bent into a variety of forms.
1 ' Basalt was early known to naturalists. Pliny states,‘
: that the largest block of basalt ever seen, was placed by
; Vespasian in the Temple of Peace. It represented the
: figure of the god Nilus, with 16 children playing around,
denoting. as many cubits of the rise ofthe river; and ac-
: cording to the same author, the statue of Memnon in the
. I Temple of Serapis at Thebes, which emitted atremendous
- sound at the rising of the sun, was of the same species of
stone?” By the ancients it was usually called lapis
n A Lydius, the Lydian stone, where it was found in abun-
dance; the moderns call it touchstone, it being useful in
I detecting base coin.
f , There are two very distinct and opposite theories of
the formation of basalt, called the Plutonian and Nep-
tunian, the one attributing its origin to fire, the other to
water. There are other theories not deserving of distinct
titles, being but deductions from these; but there is a
‘third class of naturalists who appear disposed to an
amicable adjustment of the dispute, who allow that both
the elements of fire and water are, or may be, instru-
mental in the production of basalt. The argument ad-
duced in support of the igneous or volcanic origin of
-‘'‘&.-.-‘.i.. . ......... T’.-.--,...‘.. ......--'... ..-...,m I’
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,. ....,
Iuucoq-A
i I nu:-sq....,
""'Wn-..
‘ .nnou..u..
‘ 9‘ sun.
-,........-.-- ..........,......,.--....
‘I This certainly does not correspond with the stone of which the col-
lossnl Egyptian heads and hands in the British Museum are composed, it . WWW
which is evidently red granite. X
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