The general result of the study of the microscopic structure of the Cambrian tuffs of St. David's may be briefly summed up as follows:—
1. These pyroclastic deposits are almost wholly composed of fragments of eruptive rocks, sometimes rounded, but usually angular or subangular. In the more granular varieties very little matrix is present; it consists of fine debris of the same materials. No detached microlites have been noted, such as are common among modern volcanic ashes; but there are abundant ejected crystals. In these respects the Cambrian tuffs resemble those of the other Palæozoic systems. A mingling of grains of quartz-sand may indicate the intermixture of ordinary with volcanic sediment.
2. They may be divided into two groups—one composed mainly of fragments of diabase or other similar basic rocks, the other of felsite. The former group has doubtless been derived from the explosion of such rocks as the diabase-sheets of the district. The felsitic tuffs have not been observed to contain any fragments of the microcrystalline quartz-porphyries of St. David's. They have been derived from true fine-grained felsites or rhyolites. There are various intermediate varieties of tuff, due to the mingling in various proportions of the two kinds of debris.
3. They are marked by the presence of some characteristic features of the volcanic vents of later Palæozoic time, and in particular by presenting the following peculiarities: (a) lapilli of a minutely-cellular pumice with spherical cells; (b) lapilli with well-developed flow-structure; (c) lapilli consisting of a pale green serpentinous substance resembling altered palagonite and probably originally glass; (d) lapilli derived from the destruction of older tuffs; and (e) lapilli consisting of ejected crystals, especially of felspars, sometimes entire, often broken.
4. They frequently show that they have undergone metamorphism, by the development of a pale greenish micaceous mineral between the lapilli, the change advancing until the fine tuffs occasionally pass into fine silky schists.
In my study of the St. David's district, I was unable to observe any evidence that the basic and siliceous tuffs characterize two distinct periods of volcanicity. From the foregoing analyses it appears that some of the oldest visible tuffs which are seen between Pen-maen-melyn and Pen-y-foel contain only 48·11 per cent of silica; while a specimen from Porth-lisky yielded 72·63 per cent of that ingredient. Specimens taken even from adjacent beds show great differences in the percentage of silica, as may be seen in the analyses Nos. III. and V.
This alternation of basic and siliceous fragmental materials has its parallel in the neighbouring eruptive rocks, some of which are olivine-diabases containing only 45 per cent of silica, while others are highly siliceous quartz-porphyries. But all the siliceous eruptive rocks, so far as I have been able to discover, are intrusive, and belong, I believe, to a later period than that of the volcanic group; in no single instance do they appear to me to be true superficial lava-flows. On the other hand, the basic eruptive rocks occur both as contemporaneous sheets and as intrusive masses. The presence of both siliceous and basic lavas in the Cambrian volcanic reservoirs, however, is proved by the character of the tuffs. It would appear from the evidence at present known, that while the basic lavas were most abundant in the vents during the volcanic period recorded by the rocks of St. David's, furnishing the material for most of the fragmental eruptions, and issuing in occasional superficial streams of molten rock, the siliceous lavas did not flow forth at the surface, though their debris was copiously discharged in the form of dust and lapilli.
The rise of both basic and acid lavas at different periods in the same or adjoining vents, so familiar in recent volcanic phenomena, thus appears to have also characterized some of the oldest examples of volcanic action. An interesting parallel may be traced between the succession of events at St. David's and that which occurred in the volcanic group of the Lower Old Red Sandstone of the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh, of which a detailed account will be given in [Chapter xx.] of this volume. It is also worthy of remark that in the latest of the volcanic episodes in British geology a remarkable similarity to the St. David's volcanic group may be observed. Some of the older Tertiary agglomerates are full of pieces of acid rocks (felsites, rhyolites or granophyres), while the lavas poured out at the surface were mainly basalts.
In the volcanic group of St. David's the tuffs contain evidence that ordinary sedimentation was not entirely interrupted by the volcanic discharges. Thus, in the Allan valley, west from the Cathedral, one of the schistose tuffs is full of well-rounded pebbles of white quartz. Occasional shaly bands indicate the deposit of mud with the tuffs.
Excluding the granites and porphyries (which are described at [p. 155]), two kinds of eruptive rocks are associated with the volcanic group. One of these is certainly intrusive and of late date, viz. dykes and veins of diabase, to be afterwards referred to. The other kind occurs in long parallel sheets, some of which, if not all, are true contemporaneous lava-streams, erupted at intervals during the accumulation of the volcanic group. They form prominent crags to the west of St. David's, such as Clegyr Foig, Rhosson, and the rocky ground rising from the eastern shores of Ramsey Sound. Their dip and strike coincide with those of the tuffs above and below them. It is possible that some of these sheets may be intrusive sills intercalated along the bedding of the tuffs; and in one or two cases I have observed indications of what, on further and more careful exploration, may prove to be disruption across the bedding.