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General View of the mode of Formation of Iceland. 



M. Sartorius von Waltershausen says : — In the history of 

 the development of our planet, there has doubtless been 

 a time in which Iceland did not exist. Where now volca- 

 noes, covered with solid glaciers, and mountains composed 

 of alternate beds of tuffa and of trap, rise above the regions 

 of the clouds, there formerly the ocean only existed. At the 

 bottom of the sea lay horizontal beds, formation above for- 

 mation, even up to the chalk and the tertiary formations,* 

 together with their organic remains. 



By a gradual but unequal act of consolidation of the inte- 

 rior of the earth, while still in a state of igneous fusion, by 

 an irregular addition of new parts, in the act of solidifica- 

 tion to the inner side of the already rigid crust of the earth, 

 or by other circumstances lying altogether beyond our know- 

 ledge, there were caused in the bottom of the sea very slow 

 secular movements, upheavings and depressions, which pro- 

 duced, as a first result, waved rock-formations. 



The re-action from within outwards gradually became 

 greater ; a part of the bottom of the sea rose up in the form 

 of a plateau, preserving the horizontal character of its beds, 

 whilst another part, on the contrary, remained behind ; great 

 flexures must consequently have taken place, and a bursting 

 of the crust became inevitable. 



* An analogy with the geology of other countries, and certain observations 

 i'ender it probable that both chalk and tertiary rocks are found in a stratified 

 condition immediately beneath the neptunian formations of Iceland. That the 

 chalk may be found at no very great depth may be concluded from the fact that 

 common flints and fragments of slaty sandstone are to be found on the strand of 

 llanfarharm, unless these had been carried thither by ice, currents, or other 

 causes. This sandstone very much resembles that of the Appenine formation 

 from the mountains of Linguagrossa and Oastilione, the northern part of which 

 surrounds ^tna. The occurrence of tertiary formations in lower grounds 

 seems to be proved by th e conchyliferous tufi'as of different districts, which 

 contain the most recent organic remains. In the deeper invisible formations 

 one might, therefore, expect tertiary formations of an older kind in the various 

 transitions to the chalk. These, however, are only conjectures drawn from 

 the geognostic circumstances of other countries ; we have nothing in the shape 

 of satisfactory direct observations. 



