41 



I add, to the countries abounding with basalt in co- 

 humis, among which scoria is not found, the county of 

 Antrim, which I have carefully examined. 



The Historian of the Academy is not more fortunate m 

 his second i>osidon on this subject, though he puts it 

 with more confidence, and more generally. He says, /' all 

 " known volcanos are accompanied by masses of basalt." 



The reader will scarcely expect, that it is to the friends 

 of Mr. Desmarest, and to the advocates for the volcanic 

 origin of basalt alone, I will have recourse, for the 

 contradiction of this unfounded assertion. 



Mr. Strange, our resident at Venice, at the time this 

 theory came in fashion, publishes a geological letter m 

 Viaggi di Tozzetti, in which he says, " basalt prisms are 

 " admitted, da piu bravi chlmici et Jisici moderni, to be 

 " volcanic crystallizations;" and that such pillars have been 

 discovered in the Veronese, in the Euganean Hills, and 

 also above Valdagno; whence he expresses some surprise, 

 that these prisms should, be, as it were, peculiar to the 

 Venetian territory; in the rest of Italy found at Bolsena 

 alone; and not at aJl in the kingdom of Naples, though 

 abounding with so many volcanic phanomena. 



The next authority I shall quote, in contradiction to 

 this general assertion, is that of Sir William Hamilton; 

 who lets no opportunity escape him, of proving his at- 

 tachment to Mr. Desmarest's theory. Our Baronet had 

 examined Vesuvius more frequently, and with 'more care, 



than any other person ever, did; and, not finding any ba- 

 salt 



