DOMAIN XII. VOLCANIC. 



in the history of mineralogy, as it seems to 

 decide some points which were before 

 doubtful, and throws fresh light on many of 

 the most interesting topics of the science. 

 After a long and patient investigation of 

 all the lavas in Sicily, and the neighbour- 

 ing isles, he has opposed the opinions of 

 Dolomieu; whom he justly regards as a 

 cursory visitor, who would have retracted 

 many of his remarks, if he had simply 

 twice visited the same objects, the first 

 ideas being often corrected by the second. 

 After a sedulous attention of many years, 

 Ferrara denies that there are any prisms 

 whatever, in any lava which has erupted 

 since Sicily emerged from the primeval 

 ocean. But he is at the same time as de- 

 cided in his opinion, that all basaltic co- 

 lumns are the product of primeval sub- submarine 



* t m volcanoes. 



marine volcanoes. This position he does 



1810, 4to. " The Burning Fields of Sicily and the surrounding 

 isles, or a Physical and Mineralogical Description of these Islands, 

 by Abbe F. Ferrara, principal Professor of Natural Philosophy in 

 the Royal University of Catania, Doctor of Philosophy and Medi- 

 cine,, and Member of several literary Societies. Messina, from the 

 Press of the British Army, 1810." pp. 424. 



