DOMAIN I. SIDEROUS. 17 



MODE II. BASALT. 



Texture coarse, generally mixed with grains Characters, 

 of quartz or felspar ; it has sometimes a crys- 

 talline appearance, hut the crystals are minute, 

 so that it appears earthy. 



Hardness basaltic. Fracture rather even. 

 Fragments rather sharp. 



Weight siderose. 



Lustre shining. Opake. 



Colour iron grey, sometimes greenish. 



This celebrated substance is one of the traps, 

 or rather a grunstein> of the Swedes and Ger- 

 mans; and is by the Wernerian school con- 

 sidered as of three remote formations, the pri- Formations. 

 mitive, transitive; and stratiform, also called 

 Jloetz, or horizontal. 



The basaltic monuments of the ancients are Basalt proper, 

 allowed by Dolomieu and Faujas, two chief 

 supporters of the Volcanic sj^stem, not to be of 

 a volcanic nature ; and of course the restriction 

 of the name to pretended compact lavas is not 

 only objectionable, but highly absurd, as trans- 

 ferring a well-known term to a substance widely 

 different. Compact lava is so uncommon a sub- 

 stance, that there was no specimen of it in the 

 great collection of prince Biscari, at Catania $ 



VOL. i. c 



