^98 Geology of Scandinavia, 



less curious. MM. Naumann and Keilhau have pointed out a 

 great number of them, and figured several,* but always in 

 drawings on a small scale, which undoubtedly give an idea of 

 the light which science may derive from these localities, but 

 which are not always sufficient to allow of their being compared 

 in a satisfactory manner with the appearances of the same 

 kind which exist in other countries ; as, for instance, in the 

 Alps and the Pyrenees. 



Drawings on a sufficiently large scale, in which these classical 

 localities should be faithfully represented, including partly at 

 least, their picturesque beauties, and in which the entangle- 

 ments of the rocks should be represented, as M. Adolphe 

 Brongniart has done it, by a suitable use of colours, would form 

 most interesting illustrations for the geologist. 



It is now proved that the melaphyres, the porphyries, the 

 sienites, and even the granites, as well as a number of other 

 analogous rocks, have crystallized by cooling. These rocks, 

 consequently, are products of the mysterious laboratories which 

 our globe has possessed at all times. In this point of view they 

 resemble the volcanic products of the present epoch. But this 

 apparent similarity of origin does not go so far as to establish 

 their identity, for there are numerous and important diffi2rences. 

 The time is arrived for science to fix these differences, and it 

 will be chiefly by an attentive, detailed, and even minute exa- 

 mination of the phenomena of penetration, such as we have 

 just been treating of, that we shall be able to discover the in- 

 terpretation and the extent of these differences. 



The beds of gneiss present throughout their whole extent 

 very remarkable contortions and wavings, which are extremely 

 striking as they are seen exposed to view for a great distance, 

 and quite bare, without being concealed by vegetation or fo- 

 rests. " A good artist," writes M. de Buch to me, " would fill 

 a very large portfolio with these phenomena," and it is to be 

 desired that this should be accomplished.f 



• Naumann. Bejtrage zur Kentniss Norwegen's. Lieipzig, 1824. 

 Keilhau. Darstellung der Uebergang's formation in Norwegen. Leipzig, 

 1826. Goea Norwegica, Christiania, 1838. 



t The granular white statuary marble is generally contorted like the gneiss. 

 It is seen at Salthellen, near Sulboefiord, to the south of Bergen, in the six- 



