INTERIOR LAND CHANGES. 429 



into a hard rock to any extent ; yet the beds of basalt in the district have in several 

 places been corroded by the streams to the depth of from 150 to 160 feet, and the 

 underlying granite rocks have been penetrated. The production of effects of this 

 magnitude, by a cause which is so slow in its operation, requires an amount of time, in 

 comparison with which the historic period is a trifling span ; and hence it follows that 

 the volcanic fires which discharged the liquid masses of these various lavas belong to an 

 era incalculably remote. " Such analogies," says Dr. Smith, " as may be inferred by 

 comparative examinations of the condition of Etna, Vesuvius, and other active volcanoes, 

 carry us to the contemplation of a period which runs back, not to the age of Noah merely, 

 but immeasurably beyond the date of the creation of man, and his contemporary plants 

 and animals." The geological state of Auvergne, in several respects to which we have 

 not adverted, fully warrants the use of this language. Another important and interesting 

 inquiry has been proposed, Whether the volcanic fires that once raged in this district are 

 absolutely extinct, or have periods of returning activity at distant intervals of time ? In 

 reply, it can only be stated, that at Guadaloupe, in Teneriffe, the Azores, and the Grecian 

 archipelago, volcanic eruptions have been renewed after a cessation of from one to four 

 centuries. Vesuvius also, for four centuries, from the twelfth to the sixteenth, was in a 

 state of repose, so that a forest of chestnut trees was growing in the crater prior to the 

 great outbreak of 1531 ; but previous to the first recorded instance of its activity in 79, 

 it had certainly been idle for at least seven or eight hundred years, and perhaps for a 

 much longer period. These intervals are however so short when compared with that 

 which has intervened since Auvergne began to repose, that obviously they supply nc 

 data upon Avhich a conjecture of renewed disturbance can be built. There are springs of 

 hot water in the district, as Mount d'Or and Vichy, where the temperature is from 120 

 to 125, which indicate a subterranean source of heat : yet, apart from the extant memorials 

 of volcanic action, nothing can be inferred from the indication, as it is common to localities 

 where those memorials are not found. 



A third site, displaying remarkable monuments of volcanic combustion in past ages, 

 may be briefly noticed. This is the region of ancient Sardis and Philadelphia, in the 

 west of Asia Minor, which Strabo has called " the burnt," ?/ KaTaKeKav/j.h'rj. Cones of 

 scoriae of different ages, lava-flowings forming plateaux upon the summits of isolated hills, 

 and lava currents worn through by the action of running water, are here the monuments 

 of successive eruptions, between which long intervals have occurred, the last of which 

 cannot have transpired for at least three thousand years, otherwise history would have 

 preserved some record of it. Mr. Hamilton has sketched some of the principal features 

 of the Catecucaumene, or burnt-up region of the geographer, as seen from a neighbouring 

 ridge. " Beginning with the north, on our extreme right was the barren termination of 

 the ridge on which we stood ; to the west of which a black and dome-shaped hill of scoriae 

 and ashes rose about 500 feet above the plain. This was the Karedevlit, or Black Inkstand, 

 the volcano of Koula so near to us that none of the effects of its wild and rugged 

 character were lost, and so steep that to ascend its slope of cinders appeared impossible. 

 In front of us a black and rugged stream of lava extended from right to left, the surface 

 of which, broken up into a thousand forms, looked like the breakers of a sea converted 

 into stone amidst the fury of a gale, and forming, as it issued from the base of the cone, 

 a striking contrast with the rich plain through which it seemed to flow. Beyond, to the 

 N.W., were other volcanic cones, which, from their smooth and cultivated appearance, 

 the vineyards reaching to their summits, must have belonged to a much older period. 

 Further to the left was the town of Koula itself, with its tall and graceful minarets 

 rising above the lava, on the southern point of which it has been built." The Kare 

 devlit referred to, and two other cones, answer precisely to the three funnels, 



