DOMAIN XII. VOLCANIC. 



of lavas, all stones which do not appear, 

 either from their external characters or 

 local circumstances, ever to have been 

 softened by heat; and consequently all 

 those detached pieces which are ejected at 

 the beginning of an eruption without fusion, 

 and many others which volcanic collectors 

 enumerate among compact lavas, merely 

 from having found them in the vicinity of 

 volcanoes. Thus M. Dolomieu, Lipari 85, 

 reckons among volcanic stones one, in the 

 interior of which he distinctly perceived a 

 leaf of sea-weed. Few indeed are the 

 stones contained in his catalogue, which 

 can be deemed really volcanic : and p. 70, 

 of the same treatise, he tells us, that the 

 lava which burst from the sides of Etna, in 

 1669, had for its basis a granite, no way 

 altered ; but when he expressly treats of 

 the products of Etna, he tells us, L'Etna 

 paroit n avoir jamais traitt le granite. The 

 mistakes of this great man, for such I cer- 

 tainly hold him, have had so wide a spread, 

 and have misled so many who have not 

 had an opportunity of viewing volcanic 



