and other Volcanic Cones in the Canaries. 2 1 



verted question of high theoretical interest, and in a work 

 brought out under the sanction of the Admiralty, I think it 

 right to point out the mistakes into which the author has fallen, 

 and the insufficiency of the evidence on which he relies. 



At p. 553 of the new edition of the Report above alluded to 

 (dated Februaiy 1859), the following passage occurs : — 



" The question of the submarine origin of TenerifFe no longer 

 depends only on the general structure of its lava-beds, or on 

 analogies from the fossiliferous strata of the adjacent islands of 

 Grand Canarj^ and Palma, but has now the additional and most 

 unanswerable ai'gument of fossil shells having lately been dis- 

 covered about the slopes of the crater." 



And again in the same page : — 



" The proof of fossil shells, so long demanded, has now been 

 supplied; aud with them must be accepted the fact of the slopes 

 on which they rest having been once submarine, though now sub- 

 aerial. The Great Crater, then, having incontestably suffered 

 elevation, was that elevation necessarily connected with its 

 present form and character V &c. 



When I first read these passages, I naturally concluded that 

 some new discovery had been made of marine fossils on the slopes 

 of the great outer cone of Teneriffe, or " crater," as it is tei-raed 

 in the Report above cited ; but having never seen or heard of 

 such a fact myself when in the island, I wrote to Prof. Smyth to 

 know where and at what height above the sea, and under what 

 geological circumstances, he or his informants had detected these 

 shells. In reply he could give me no information on any one 

 of these three heads, " he had merely given the statement on 

 report, and not from his own observations." It appears, then, 

 that he had simply learnt that marine fossil shells had been met 

 with somewhere in the island of Teneriffe, a fact well known 

 before his visit in 1856, and before Air. Hartung and I were 

 there in 1854. These shells, however, did not occur "on the 

 slopes of the crater," but in the suburbs of Santa Cruz, along the 

 shore to the north-east of the town, a part of the island which is 

 geographically and geologically independent, not only of the 

 Peak, which is more than twenty miles distant, but also of that 

 volcanic chain which extends many miles from the flanks of the 

 great cone, ti'ending in a north-easterly direction. The separa- 

 tion of the Santa Cruz rocks from the chain to which the Peak 

 belongs, will be understood by a glance at the maps of Von 

 Bach and Captain Vidal, and by reference to the view of Santa 

 Criiz which Vidal has given in the margin of his map. The 

 tiifaceous breccias and sandstones containing marine shells near 

 Santa Cruz do not conform " to the slope" of any crater or cone. 

 So far as they can be seen, they appear to be nearly horizontal, 



