GEOLOGY. 321 



Newfoundland and Ireland, having been submitted to microscopical examin- 

 ation by Prof. Bailey of West Point, show evidence of the existence of a 

 volcanic deposit on certain portions of the ocean-bed. In reference to these 

 Prof. Bailey says : 



The occurrence of what appear to be volcanic products in the bed of the 

 ocean for a distance of about twenty-two degrees of longitude, or about a 

 thousand miles, is an extraordinary fact, and one which deserves careful 

 scrutiny. That any one familiar with the microscopic appearance of volcanic 

 ashes, &c., would pronounce these matters to be of volcanic origin I have no 

 doubt These volcanic products consist of pumice, obsidian, crystals of 

 hornblende single and in groups and other igneous products penetrated 

 by crystals. As, however, the ingenious suggestion was made to me that 

 these igneous products might be derived from the fires of the ocean 

 steamers, along or near whose pathway these soundings were made, it 

 became important that these furnace products should also be studied. An 

 examination was accordingly made of specimens of such matters as are 

 thrown overboard from the ash pits of the steamers Asia and Baltic. Careful 

 examination of the specimens showed that they contained a group of products 

 which could not possibly be confounded with the supposed volcanic matters. 

 In fact, there was no relation between the two classes of bodies, except that 

 both were evidently the results of intense heat upon different mineral matters. 

 Among the furnace products of the steamer Baltic, were numerous single and 

 aggregated glass spheres of minute, or even microscopic size, which, if they 

 should ever be found in the ocean soundings, would be very puzzling with- 

 out this clue to their origin. The question of the original source of these 

 volcanic products is one of great interest. How far these plutonic tallies 

 may have travelled, and in what direction whether from the Azores, the 

 Mediterranean, or from Iceland involves a study of currents and an examin- 

 ation of soundings which have yet to be made. 



In regard to this discovery, Lieutenant Maury, in his report to the Secretary 

 of the Navy, thus comments : The Gulf Stream seems to have strewed the 

 bed of the ocean for more than a thousand miles across with these 4i plutonic 

 tallies," as Professor Bailey styles them. They enable us to mark better than 

 any means heretofore afforded have done the extreme limits of the annual 

 vibrations made by the channel in which the waters of the Gulf Stream flow. 

 The fact that nothing of the kind has been detected in the specimens brought 

 up by the Coast Survey from the bottom of the Gulf Stream further to the 

 south, seems to indicate that these cinders could not have come from the volca- 

 noes of Central America, which have been known to cast their ashes as far as 

 Cuba, The drift of the ocean would not have brought them from Iceland or 

 any of the British Islands, and lodged them where Brooke's lead found them. 

 It appears to be most probable that they came from the extinct volcanoes of 

 the Western Islands. The size of the vitreous particles appears to warrant 

 the conclusion, that they are too heavy to be carried far by the winds, or to 

 be borne long by the water. 



It is barely possible they may have come from JEtn& and Vesuvius, and 

 been brought out by the under currents from the Mediterranean. Specimens 



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