BANKS’ COVE.
(FIGURE 13. A SECTIONAL SKETCH OF THE HEADLANDS FORMING BANKS’ COVE, showing the diverging crateriform strata, and the converging stratified talus. The highest point of these hills is 817 feet above the sea.)
This harbour occupies part of the interior of a shattered crater of tuff larger than that last described. All the tuff is compact, and includes numerous fragments of lava; it appears like a subaqueous deposit. The most remarkable feature in this crater is the great development of strata converging inwards, as in the last case, at a considerable inclination, and often deposited in irregular curved layers. These interior converging beds, as well as the proper, diverging crateriform strata, are represented in Figure 13, a rude, sectional sketch of the headlands, forming this Cove. The internal and external strata differ little in composition, and the former have evidently resulted from the wear and tear, and redeposition of the matter forming the external crateriform strata. From the great development of these inner beds, a person walking round the rim of this crater might fancy himself on a circular anticlinal ridge of stratified sandstone and conglomerate. The sea is wearing away the inner and outer strata, and especially the latter; so that the inwardly converging strata will, perhaps, in some future age, be left standing alone—a case which might at first perplex a geologist. (I believe that this case actually occurs in the Azores, where Dr. Webster “Description” page 185, has described a basin-formed, little island, composed of STRATA OF TUFF, dipping inwards and bounded externally by steep sea-worn cliffs. Dr. Daubeny supposes “Volcanoes” page 266, that this cavity must have been formed by a circular subsidence. It appears to me far more probable, that we here have strata which were originally deposited within the hollow of a crater, of which the exterior walls have since been removed by the sea.)