Sir R. I. Murchison on the Vents of Hot Vapour in Tuscany. 59 



and myself contend, that the amorphous, variolitic gabbro must have 

 been erupted in a molten state, whether we consider its composition 

 and unbedded condition, or the part it has played in protruding 

 through, overturning, breaking, and altering the pre-existing strata. 

 And although my deceased friend Pilla has to a certain extent pub- 

 lished this opinion, he has not sufficiently illustrated his views, and I 

 am therefore the more anxious to do him justice, and to adduce some 

 of the reasons he assigned when we visited the tract together. The 

 opinion of an attentive and lively observer of igneous action like Pilla, 

 a Neapolitan by birth, who during many years was occupied in exa- 

 mining Vesuvius, is surely entitled to nuich consideration in deter- 

 mining such a question ; even had not the physical and geological 

 relations of the phaenomenon seemed p. „ 

 to me quite conclusive. Between °* 

 Castel Anselmo and Civita Castel- 

 lina 1 inspected natural sections, of 

 one of which I here give a sketch "a "":'-■"■ 



(see fig. 3), where the gabbro had "> «■ Alheresc. a. Gabbro rosso. 



not only penetrated the alberese limestone, but had thrown it off in 

 shreds, contorted fragments, and folds on the sides of the eruption. 

 Now, the red gabbro which had manifestly thus acted was entirely 

 an imbedded, amorplious, felspathic mass, for the most part made 

 up of spheroidal concretions having a variolitic structure, i. e. with 

 small pustular or globular surfaces in each of the folds or concentric 

 layers into which the large nodules exfoliate. This variolitic surface 

 was specially pointed out to me by Pilla as a proof of the rock having 

 been in complete fusion ; inasmuch as the same forms occur frequently 

 in ancient plutonic rocks and in the modern volcanic products of 

 Vesuvius. The rock is, besides, often cellular and amygdaloidal as 

 well as veined, like some of our earthy Scottish traps, occasionally 

 containing crj'stals of carbonate of lime, analcime, and also the pe- 

 culiar mineral caporcianite, a variety of stilbite. Chemically con- 

 sidered, this rock is little else than a variety of greenstone. In other 

 words, it is one of tliose products, accompanying greenstone and 

 serj)entine, which has been much imjjregnated" by iron, and which 

 under the blowpipe melts as easily as wax. This is the "gabbro rosso," 

 whicli I consider to be a true eruptive rock, and which rises up into an 



VV. ^Ig- 4. Civita Castellina. E. 





'■, r, Gal)bro rosso, 

 e, c. fSubnpcnnine. 



amorphous mountain mass (c)at ("ivita Castellina, where it performs, 

 as above mentioned, llie part of an intrusive agent. It there tln-ows 

 off on its eastern summit the alberese limestone («), but also seems to 

 overlaj) other masses of tiii> same (4) which are in a liighlv fractured 

 and mineralized condition, as seen in fig. 1. From the natural section 



