PART III. 



ARGUMENTS 

 AGAINST THE VOLCANIC ORIGIN OF BASALT, 



DERIVED FROM ITS 



ARRANGEMENT IN THE COUNTY OF ANTRIM, 



AHD FROM OTHER FACTS OBSERVED IN THAT COUNTRY. 

 CELEjXAKE nOMESTICA FACTA. HORACE. 



1 HAVE, in the preceding parts of this Memoir, discussed 

 most of the arguments, that have been .adduced, bj different 

 writers, to support the volcanic origin of basalt : and I have 

 examined the facts, stated by them, to try how far they 

 apply to this question. 



I now return to my own countiy, which seems more co- 

 piously furnished with curious basaltic facts, than any of 

 those upon which foreign Ayriters have dwelt so much. 



The question (to us at least) is important; for it is the 

 origin of the ground we live upon, that we are inquiring 

 into : every particle of the surface of an extensive basaltic 

 area, having merely a thin coat of ihost fertile earth, slightly 

 covering basalt strata, accumulated upon each other to a, 

 great height; and, most frequently, as it were, bursting 

 through this surface, and displaying, in perpendicular fa- 

 fades, the arrangement of the materials that support us, 



M 2 Whether 



