Principles of Geology: Being an Inquiry how Far the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface are Referable to Causes Now in Operation, Volume 2 |
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afterwards ancient animals appear augite basalt beds Calabria causes century changes chasms cliffs coast composed cone considerable continued convulsions crater currents deep deposits depth distance district earth earthquakes ejected elevation eruption estuaries Etna fissures flowed fluid geological geologist globe gradually Graham Island ground Gulf heat height Herculaneum hill hundred feet hybrid Iceland igneous igneous rocks inhabitants Ischia island Isle Journ Lake Lamarck land lapilli lava mass matter melted miles modern Monte Nuovo mountain nature observed ocean original period phenomena Phil plain plants Polistena Pompeii produced pumice Puzzuoli quantity races region remained rents rise river rocks sand Santorin scoriæ Serapis shells shocks shores Sicily side soil Solfatara solid Somma species strata stream subsidence subterranean supposed surface thickness thousand feet thrown tides tion town trachyte tract Trans tuff valleys vapour vents Vesuvius violent volcanic volcanic cones waves whole
Popular passages
Page 285 - Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow — Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Page 197 - Gharee ; its breadth from north to south is conjectured to be in some parts sixteen miles, and its greatest ascertained height above the original level of the delta is ten feet, — an elevation which appears to the eye to be very uniform throughout.
Page 204 - They described the undulation of the earth as resembling waves, increasing in elevation as they advanced, and when they had attained a -certain fearful height, the earth would burst, and vast volumes of water, and sand, and pit-coal were discharged, as high as the tops of the trees.
Page 437 - On this difference of ten degrees in the facial angle the superior beauty of the European depends; while that high character of sublime beauty, which is so striking in some works of...
Page 13 - ... We have before enumerated the ravages of the ocean on the eastern shores of Sleswick ; and as we find memorials of a series of like catastrophes on the western coast of that peninsula, we can scarcely doubt that a large opening will, at some future period, connect the Baltic with the North Sea. Jutland was the Cimbrica Chersonesus of the ancients, and was then evidently the theatre of similar calamities ; for Florus says, " Cimbri, Theutoni, atque Tigurini, ab extremis Galliae profugi, cum terras...
Page 386 - Blumenbach judiciously observes, "that no general rule can be laid down for determining the distinctness of species, as there is no particular class of characters which can serve as a criterion.
Page 187 - The phenomena observed there are most important. "It appeared," says Captain Fitz Roy, who visited Santa Maria twice, the first time at the end of March, and afterwards in the beginning of April, " that the southern extremity of the island had been raised eight feet, the middle nine, and the northern end upwards of ten feet.
Page 77 - The crater was five miles in circumference, and about a thousand paces deep ; its sides were covered with brushwood, and at the bottom there was a plain on which cattle grazed. In the woody parts, wild boars frequently harboured. In one part of the plain, covered with ashes, were three small pools, one filled with hot and bitter water, another salter than the sea, and a third hot, but tasteless.
Page 83 - Vesuvius, covered its whole cone, part of the mountain of Somma, and the valley between them. The falling matter being nearly as vivid and inflamed as that which was continually issuing fresh from the crater, formed with it one complete body of fire, which could not be less than two miles and a half in breadth, and of the extraordinary height above-mentioned, casting a heat to the distance of at least six miles around it.
Page 84 - ... and the appearance of which has led many to suppose that it proceeded thus from the mountain ; itself being composed of materials less soluble than the rest of the lava, lighter, and of course liable to float continually on the surface. There is however no truth in this. All lava at its first exit from its native volcano flows out in a liquid state, and all equally in fusion.