446 DOMA.IN XII. VOLCANtC. 



in miniature, what basaltic balls are on a large 

 scale. These little globules are opake, but the 

 coats which form them are perfectly transparent. 



" There are two other varieties of globules in 

 the same sand, entirely different from these: 

 they are less regularly spherical, and have some 

 flat faces : their texture is perfectly solid and 

 compact, and their fracture vitreous. 



" Some are of a white and transparent glass, 

 which seems free from bubbles: their size does 

 not exceed that of a hazel-nut. 



< c The others are opake, and formed of an 

 amel mottled with red and black veins; these 

 are as large as a small egg. Being at Irkutsk in 

 1785, I received from Mr. Bensing, formerly 

 commandant of Okhotsk, a considerable number 

 of these globules, with a sample of the sajid 

 which contains them. 



" To judge by analogy, it might be said that 

 basaltic balls were, from the beginning, formed 

 by layers, as they now appear; for the laminar 

 texture of the globules of Okhotsk, seems in no 

 wise owing to any kind of alteration : their thin 

 coats continue, to the centre, of a perfectly pure 

 glass."* 



* Patrin, v. 2Q2. Ferrara, p. 211, 212, may also be consulted 

 for the obsidians of Lipari. He observes, p. 2Q9, that they are of 

 infinite variety, and all formed of felspar melted in an intense heat. 



