AND PORTO SANTO. 33 



not find any rock similar to this in the neighbourhood, and I never 

 met with mesotype but in this fragment. Probably, like leucite, it 

 may only be found in the lower deposits, or those more ancient 

 streams which have flowed immediately from the mouth of the 

 crater. I here found two solitary plants of the weld (reseda 

 luteola), neither used by, nor known to the natives. Turning 

 round to descend into the village of Camera de Lobos (where I 

 remarked thin flakes of carbonate of lime in the yellow tufa), we 

 are struck with the gigantic chff" which towers above it, the whole 

 depth of which, (1600 feet) is one vertical sheet of alternating, 

 shallow strata of basalt, tufa, and scoriee, ribbed from top to 

 bottom wdth narrow dikes of basalt ; but I shall return to this cliff" 

 again, in sailing along the shore to the Fazenda dos Padres, and I 

 will only observe, that it would be an excellent spot for experi- 

 ments on the downward velocity of sound. The opposite sketch, 

 Plate 4, A, was made near the top of the eastern hills, where the 

 appearance of the church steeple makes the towering grandeur of 

 the cliff" the more striking. 



By following the most western of the two roads to the Coural, 

 by Mr. Veitch's Quinta (for there is another still more direct, 

 which does not pass that way), I should not have gone through 

 Camera de Lobos, which I determined to do, in order to ascend 

 and measure the Pao branco, the highest point on which I had 

 observed the vine to be cultivated in this direction. I found it 

 to be 1922 feet above the sea, and about 158 feet lower than the 

 bottom of the Coural das Freiras. In ascending the road to the Pao 

 branco, I found fragments of compact basalt with common pyrites, 

 (fer sulfure, H.) which is also found in the conglomerated frag- 

 ments beneath the basalt at Campanario, mixed with olivine, pre- 

 senting the pseudo-metaUic colours which mark its decomposing 

 state. There is a chalybeate spring at Campanario, and also at 



Machico, where the specimens are much more beautiful. The 



F 



