ALBEMARLE ISLAND.
This island consists of five, great, flat-topped craters, which, together with the one on the adjoining island of Narborough, singularly resemble each other, in form and height. The southern one is 4,700 feet high, two others are 3,720 feet, a third only 50 feet higher, and the remaining ones apparently of nearly the same height. Three of these are situated on one line, and their craters appear elongated in nearly the same direction. The northern crater, which is not the largest, was found by the triangulation to measure, externally, no less than three miles and one-eighth of a mile in diameter. Over the lips of these great, broad caldrons, and from little orifices near their summits, deluges of black lava have flowed down their naked sides.
FLUIDITY OF DIFFERENT LAVAS.
Near Tagus or Banks’ Cove, I examined one of these great streams of lava, which is remarkable from the evidence of its former high degree of fluidity, especially when its composition is considered. Near the sea-coast this stream is several miles in width. It consists of a black, compact base, easily fusible into a black bead, with angular and not very numerous air-cells, and thickly studded with large, fractured crystals of glassy albite, varying from the tenth of an inch to half an inch in diameter. (In the Cordillera of Chile, I have seen lava very closely resembling this variety at the Galapagos Archipelago. It contained, however, besides the albite, well-formed crystals of augite, and the base (perhaps in consequence of the aggregation of the augitic particles) was a shade lighter in colour. I may here remark, that in all these cases, I call the feldspathic crystals, “albite,” from their cleavage-planes (as measured by the reflecting goniometer) corresponding with those of that mineral. As, however, other species of this genus have lately been discovered to cleave in nearly the same planes with albite, this determination must be considered as only provisional. I examined the crystals in the lavas of many different parts of the Galapagos group, and I found that none of them, with the exception of some crystals from one part of James Island, cleaved in the direction of orthite or potash-feldspar.) This lava, although at first sight appearing eminently porphyritic, cannot properly be considered so, for the crystals have evidently been enveloped, rounded, and penetrated by the lava, like fragments of foreign rock in a trap-dike. This was very clear in some specimens of a similar lava, from Abingdon Island, in which the only difference was, that the vesicles were spherical and more numerous. The albite in these lavas is in a similar condition with the leucite of Vesuvius, and with the olivine, described by Von Buch, as projecting in great balls from the basalt of Lanzarote. (“Description des Isles Canaries” page 295.) Besides the albite, this lava contains scattered grains of a green mineral, with no distinct cleavage, and closely resembling olivine (Humboldt mentions that he mistook a green augitic mineral, occurring in the volcanic rocks of the Cordillera of Quito, for olivine.); but as it fuses easily into a green glass, it belongs probably to the augitic family: at James Island, however, a similar lava contained true olivine. I obtained specimens from the actual surface, and from a depth of four feet, but they differed in no respect. The high degree of fluidity of this lava-stream was at once evident, from its smooth and gently sloping surface, from the manner in which the main stream was divided by small inequalities into little rills, and especially from the manner in which its edges, far below its source, and where it must have been in some degree cooled, thinned out to almost nothing; the actual margin consisting of loose fragments, few of which were larger than a man’s head. The contrast between this margin, and the steep walls, above twenty feet high, bounding many of the basaltic streams at Ascension, is very remarkable. It has generally been supposed that lavas abounding with large crystals, and including angular vesicles, have possessed little fluidity; but we see that the case has been very different at Albemarle Island. (The irregular and angular form of the vesicles is probably caused by the unequal yielding of a mass composed, in almost equal proportion, of solid crystals and of a viscid base. It certainly seems a general circumstance, as might have been expected, that in lava, which has possessed a high degree of fluidity, AS WELL AS AN EVEN-SIZED GRAIN, the vesicles are internally smooth and spherical.) The degree of fluidity in different lavas, does not seem to correspond with any APPARENT corresponding amount of difference in their composition: at Chatham Island, some streams, containing much glassy albite and some olivine, are so rugged, that they may be compared to a sea frozen during a storm; whilst the great stream at Albemarle Island is almost as smooth as a lake when ruffled by a breeze. At James Island, black basaltic lava, abounding with small grains of olivine, presents an intermediate degree of roughness; its surface being glossy, and the detached fragments resembling, in a very singular manner, folds of drapery, cables, and pieces of the bark of trees. (A specimen of basaltic lava, with a few small broken crystals of albite, given me by one of the officers, is perhaps worthy of description. It consists of cylindrical ramifications, some of which are only the twentieth of an inch in diameter, and are drawn out into the sharpest points. The mass has not been formed like a stalactite, for the points terminate both upwards and downwards. Globules, only the fortieth of an inch in diameter, have dropped from some of the points, and adhere to the adjoining branches. The lava is vesicular, but the vesicles never reach the surface of the branches, which are smooth and glossy. As it is generally supposed that vesicles are always elongated in the direction of the movement of the fluid mass, I may observe, that in these cylindrical branches, which vary from a quarter to only the twentieth of an inch in diameter, every air-cell is spherical.)
CRATERS OF TUFF.
About a mile southward of Banks’ Cove, there is a fine elliptic crater, about five hundred feet in depth, and three-quarters of a mile in diameter. Its bottom is occupied by a lake of brine, out of which some little crateriform hills of tuff rise. The lower beds are formed of compact tuff, appearing like a subaqueous deposit; whilst the upper beds, round the entire circumference, consist of a harsh, friable tuff, of little specific gravity, but often containing fragments of rock in layers. This upper tuff contains numerous pisolitic balls, about the size of small bullets, which differ from the surrounding matter, only in being slightly harder and finer grained. The beds dip away very regularly on all sides, at angles varying, as I found by measurement, from twenty-five to thirty degrees. The external surface of the crater slopes at a nearly similar inclination, and is formed by slightly convex ribs, like those on the shell of a pecten or scallop, which become broader as they extend from the mouth of the crater to its base. These ribs are generally from eight to twenty feet in breadth, but sometimes they are as much as forty feet broad; and they resemble old, plastered, much flattened vaults, with the plaster scaling off in plates: they are separated from each other by gullies, deepened by alluvial action. At their upper and narrow ends, near the mouth of the crater, these ribs often consist of real hollow passages, like, but rather smaller than, those often formed by the cooling of the crust of a lava-stream, whilst the inner parts have flowed onward;—of which structure I saw many examples at Chatham Island. There can be no doubt but that these hollow ribs or vaults have been formed in a similar manner, namely, by the setting or hardening of a superficial crust on streams of mud, which have flowed down from the upper part of the crater. In another part of this same crater, I saw open concave gutters between one and two feet wide, which appear to have been formed by the hardening of the lower surface of a mud stream, instead of, as in the former case, of the upper surface. From these facts I think it is certain that the tuff must have flowed as mud. (This conclusion is of some interest, because M. Dufrenoy “Mem. pour servir” tome 4 page 274, has argued from strata of tuff, apparently of similar composition with that here described, being inclined at angles between 18 degrees and 20 degrees, that Monte Nuevo and some other craters of Southern Italy have been formed by upheaval. From the facts given above, of the vaulted character of the separate rills, and from the tuff not extending in horizontal sheets round these crateriform hills, no one will suppose that the strata have here been produced by elevation; and yet we see that their inclination is above 20 degrees, and often as much as 30 degrees. The consolidated strata also, of the internal talus, as will be immediately seen, dips at an angle of above 30 degrees.) This mud may have been formed either within the crater, or from ashes deposited on its upper parts, and afterwards washed down by torrents of rain. The former method, in most of the cases, appears the more probable one; at James Island, however, some beds of the friable kind of tuff extend so continuously over an uneven surface, that probably they were formed by the falling of showers of ashes.
Within this same crater, strata of coarse tuff, chiefly composed of fragments of lava, abut, like a consolidated talus, against the inside walls. They rise to a height of between one hundred and one hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the internal brine-lake; they dip inwards, and are inclined at an angle varying from thirty to thirty-six degrees. They appear to have been formed beneath water, probably at a period when the sea occupied the hollow of the crater. I was surprised to observe that beds having this great inclination did not, as far as they could be followed, thicken towards their lower extremities.
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.)