Tests of relative age of volcanic rocks — Test by superposition and intrusion — Dike of Quarrington Hill, Durham — Test by alteration of rocks in contact — Test by organic remains — Test of age by mineral character — Test by included fragments — Volcanic rocks of the Post-Pliocene period — Basalt of Bay of Trezza in Sicily — Post-Pliocene volcanic rocks near Naples — Dikes of Somma — Igneous formations of the Newer Pliocene period — Val di Noto in Sicily [397]
- CHAPTER XXXI.
- ON THE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE VOLCANIC ROCKS—continued.
Volcanic rocks of the Older Pliocene period — Tuscany — Rome — Volcanic region of Olot in Catalonia — Cones and lava-currents — Ravines and ancient gravel-beds — Jets of air called Bufadors — Age of the Catalonian volcanos — Miocene period — Brown-coal of the Eifel and contemporaneous trachytic breccias — Age of the brown-coal — Peculiar characters of the volcanos of the upper and lower Eifel — Lake craters — Trass — Hungarian volcanos [408]
- CHAPTER XXXII.
- ON THE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE VOLCANIC ROCKS—continued.
Volcanic rocks of the Pliocene and Miocene periods continued — Auvergne — Mont Dor — Breccias and alluviums of Mont Perrier, with bones of quadrupeds — River dammed up by lava-current — Range of minor cones from Auvergne to the Vivarais — Monts Dome — Puy de Côme — Puy de Pariou — Cones not denuded by general flood — Velay — Bones of quadrupeds buried in scoriæ — Cantal — Eocene volcanic rocks — Tuffs near Clermont — Hill of Gergovia — Trap of Cretaceous period — Oolitic period — New Red Sandstone period — Carboniferous period — Old Red Sandstone period — "Rock and Spindle" near St. Andrews — Silurian period — Cambrian volcanic rocks [422]
General aspect of granite — Decomposing into spherical masses — Rude columnar structure — Analogy and difference of volcanic and plutonic formations — Minerals in granite, and their arrangement — Graphic and porphyritic granite — Mutual penetration of crystals of quartz and felspar — Occasional minerals — Syenite — Syenitic, talcose, and schorly granites — Eurite — Passage of granite into trap — Examples near Christiania and in Aberdeenshire — Analogy in composition of trachyte and granite — Granite veins in Glen Tilt, Cornwall, the Valorsine, and other countries — Different composition of veins from main body of granite — Metalliferous veins in strata near their junction with granite — Apparent isolation of nodules of granite — Quartz veins — Whether plutonic rocks are ever overlying — Their exposure at the surface due to denudation [436]
- CHAPTER XXXIV.
- ON THE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE PLUTONIC ROCKS.
Difficulty in ascertaining the precise age of a plutonic rock — Test of age by relative position — Test by intrusion and alteration — Test by mineral composition — Test by included fragments — Recent and Pliocene plutonic rocks, why invisible — Tertiary plutonic rocks in the Andes — Granite altering Cretaceous rocks — Granite altering Lias in the Alps and in Skye — Granite of Dartmoor altering Carboniferous strata — Granite of the Old Red Sandstone period — Syenite altering Silurian strata in Norway — Blending of the same with gneiss — Most ancient plutonic rocks — Granite protruded in a solid form — On the probable age of the granites of Arran, in Scotland [449]
- CHAPTER XXXV.
- METAMORPHIC ROCKS.