632 



MADEIRA. 



ments, and the diminution of the influence of the 

 priests, the people have become inattentive to their 

 religious observances. Although the churches are 

 open daily and mass is continued, few worshippers 

 are seen in them. The pic-nic parties, in which 

 the foreign residents so often unite, are accommo- 

 dated without scruple in the village church, and 

 the repast is allowed to be spread at the foot of 

 the altar. The religious ceremonies and proces- 

 sions are actually ridiculed by those who are re- 

 quired by their office to take part in them. 



The changes in the feelings and habits of the 

 people are most observable in the large towns ; 

 they have as yet extended but little to the peasan- 

 try. One often meets with pretty fair specimens 

 of this class among the drivers of the favourite 

 animal, the donkey. These men travel on foot day 

 after day with little food, always however with a 

 pocket full of parched beans, with which and an 

 occasional glass of sour wine from some village 

 wine shop, indicated by the bush, they are content. 

 Few or none of them taste animal food from one 

 year to another ; Indian corn bread, yams, and fish 

 are their staple articles of diet. Even the pig 

 that every cottager rears, goes to pay his rent; 

 and his poultry, if he have any, is demanded by his 

 landlord, or carried to market. Indian corn is so 

 important to them, that its exportation has been 

 often forcibly prevented by the people, until they 

 were supplied at their own price. 



The Azorean peasantry, although miserably poor, 

 are cheerful and industrious. During the summer, 

 night after night they are heard beating the flax on 

 the large stone in front of the door of almost every 

 cottage, until near morning, when a short respite 

 is snatched from toil, to be resumed at the first 

 dawn of light. Yet they are always happy. Their 

 love of music and dancing, in which they are pro- 

 bably not excelled by any people, appears to be to 

 them an unfailing resource. At certain seasons 

 one can hardly pass the door of a cottage, without 

 being arrested by the sounds of the rude guitar or 

 viola. During the dance the man sings his extem- 

 pore effusion of some fifteen or twenty lines, to 

 the accompaniment of the instrument, which is 

 continued by his partner, and by all the others in 

 succession, occasionally enlivened with a melodious 

 snap of the fingers. On the entrance of a stranger 

 he is immediately welcomed in a stanza, and alluded 

 to by each dancer in turn. 



Geology Madeira was several years ago de- 

 scribed by Von Buch, as consisting of beds which 

 have been elevated above the level of the ocean by 

 elastic fluids; but he did not notice any distinct 

 craters. Mr Bennet found two craters, one on the 

 eastern, and the other on the western side of the 

 island, the largest being about four English miles 

 in circumference. Mr Scrope, in his ingenious and 

 valuable work on volcanoes, quotes Madeira as one 

 of the many examples of islands composed chiefly 

 of volcanic products, which have risen from below 

 the sea, solely by subterranean expansion, without 

 having been since augmented in height or bulk by 

 the products of external ejections. Mr Bowdich's 

 account leaves no doubt of the volcanic origin of 

 Madeira, and be has described the tuff, scoriae, 

 pumice, and other volcanic products of which it 

 consists. He found the tuff and scoriae repeatedly 

 alternating with a cellular basalt (lava ?), forming 

 a bed or current the direction of which was indi- 

 cated by that ot the oval or elongated cells. He 

 also describes a compact and columnar variety of 



basalt, in many places covering the other strata, 

 and itself here and there covered by fragments 

 cemented by a yellow tuffa. In the centre of the 

 island this was seen immediately incumbent on lime- 

 stone, which Mr Bowdich considers as the funda- 

 mental rock, and the thickness of which is seven 

 hundred feet. This limestone he refers to the 

 transition series. Both this and all the other rocks 

 are traversed by very numerous dykes of basalt. 

 An elliptical funnel-shaped depression was observed 

 about eighty feet above the sea, which was pro- 

 bably a crater of elevation. From Mr Bowdich's 

 account, it presents every appearance of having 

 been formed by a minor volcanic heave, which 

 threw up vast blocks of the rock it rent from be- 

 neath the ocean, but did not eject any lava or con- 

 tents of its own. 



The island of Porto Santo appeared to the same 

 observer to consist of tertiary sandstone and lime- 

 stone, alternating with the volcanic strata. The 

 lowest visible deposit is a calcareous tuffa, reach- 

 ing to the height of sixteen hundred feet, and tra- 

 versed by vertical dykes of basalt. The sandstone 

 Mr Bowdich considered as of more recent origin 

 than the volcanic deposit ; and in the neighbouring 

 island of Basco he saw the calcareous tuffa covered 

 with beds of limestone a hundred feet above the 

 level of the sea. Count Vargas professes his be- 

 lief that the calcareous rock and basalt are contem- 

 poraneous. But the limestone abounds in shells, 

 which, together with the relative position of the 

 two rocks and other geological appearances, lead 

 to the probable inference of the limestone being of 

 more recent origin. The horizontally of the 

 strata, both in this and some of the other islands, 

 is opposed to the theory of elevation by violent 

 volcanic action beneath a limited area ; but the 

 facts which have within a few years been brought 

 to light, have relieved us from the necessity of re- 

 sorting to this explanation. Our views in regard 

 to volcanic action have been greatly modified, and 

 we have been taught, that a gradual rise of land 

 over a great extent of country has been and is 

 going on. We think that evidence exists of such 

 change in some of these islands. 



The curious and highly interesting circumstances 

 in regard to the elevation of the solid strata of the 

 North of Europe, and in South America, are now 

 familiar to geologists. There is now no doubt of 

 the rise of land on the coast of Chili in 1822, and 

 again in 1835 to the height of ten feet in some 

 places. Indeed Mr Darwin observed evidence of 

 a rise of fourteen feet about sixty miles south of Val- 

 paraiso, in the shells attached to the rock. Similar 

 facts have further shown that the whole coast of the 

 Pacific from Peru to Terra del Fuego has under- 

 gone this change of level. The parallel terraces, 

 as at Coquimbo, which rise to the height of three 

 hundred feet and more, have been found to be 

 covered with seashells, indicating successive eleva- 

 tions. And this has not been effected by sudden 

 and violent action only, but also by insensible de- 

 grees, as is now admitted to be the case in parts of 

 Norway and Sweden, and in the island of Great 

 Britain. The elevation of the coast of South 

 America, which we believe first attracted notice, 

 was attended with a terrific earthquake, but in the 

 North of Europe along the coasts of the Bothnian 

 Gulf the rise has been gradual, and unattended 

 with any volcanic phenomena. Mr Lyell has re- 

 cently examined the marks, cut in the rocks by the 

 Swedish pilots under the direction of the Swedish 



