The division of rocks which we may next consider are the volcanic, or those which have been produced at or near the surface whether in ancient or modern times, not by water, but by the action of fire or subterranean heat. These rocks are for the most part unstratified, and are de¬ void of fossils. They are more partially distributed than aqueous formations, at least in respect to horizontal exten sion. Among those parts of Europe where they exhibit characters not to be mistaken, I may mention not only Sici¬ ly and the country round Naples, but Auvergne, Velay, and Vivarais,now the departments of Puy de Dome, Haute Loire, and Ardeche, towards the centre and south of France, in which are several hundred conical hills having the forms of modern volcanoes, with craters more or less perfect on many of their summits.
By this erosion, and by earthquakes, their internal structure has occasionally been laid open to view, in fissures and ravines; and we then behold not only many successive beds and masses of porous lava, sand, and scoriae, but also perpendicular walls, or dikes , as they are called, of volcanic rock, which have burst through the other materials. Such dikes are also observed in the structure of Vesuvius, Etna, and other active volcanoes. They have been formed by the pouring of melted matter, whether from above or below, into open fissures, and they commonly traverse deposits of volcanic tuff, a substance produced by the showering down from the air, or incumbent waters, of sand and cinders, first shot up from the interior of the earth by the explosions of volcanic gases.
Besides the parts of France above alluded to, there are other countries, as the north of Spain, the south of Sicily, the Tuscan territory of Italy, the lower Rhenish provinces, and Hungary, where spent volcanoes may be seen, still preserving in many cases a conical form, and having craters and often lava-streams connected with them. There are also other rocks in England, Scotland, Ireland, and almost every country in Europe, which we infer to be of igneous origin, although they do not form hills with cones and craters. Thus, for example, we feel assured that the rock of Stafla, and that of the Giant’s Causeway, called ba¬ salt, is volcanic, because it agrees in its columnar structure and mineral composition with streams of lava which we know to have flowed from the craters of volcanoes. We find also similar basaltic and other igneous rocks associated, with beds of tuff in various parts of the British Isles, and forming dikes , such as have been spoken of; and some of the strata through which these dikes cut are occasionally altered at the point of contact, as if they had been exposed to the in¬ tense heat of melted matter.
The absence of cones and craters, and long narrow streams of superficial lava, in England and many other countries, is principally to be attributed to the eruptions having been submarine, just as a considerable proportion of volcanoes in our own times burst out beneath the sea. But this question must be enlarged upon more fully in the chapters on Igne¬ ous Rocks, in which it will also be shown, that as different sedimentary formations, containing each their characteristic fossils, have been deposited at successive periods, so also vol¬ canic sand and scoriae have been thrown out, and lavas have flowed over the land or bed of the sea, at many different epochs, or have been injected into fissures; so that the igne¬ ous as well as the aqueous rocks may be classed as a chrono¬ logical series of monuments, throwing light on a succession of events in the history of the earth.
