382 KEACTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH 



the outline resembles that of Tolima more than that of 

 Cotopaxi, terminates in a plateau from which there 

 rises a very steep cone of ashes. No traces of present 

 activity, as on the volcano of White Island* and that of 

 Tongariro*, have been observed ; nor any connected 

 lava-streams. Masses of a ringing kind of rock lami- 

 nated in very thin scales, and which project, as on one side 

 of the Peak of Teneriffe, in sharp ridges from among 

 scorise of the cone of ashes itself, resemble porphyritic 

 schist (or phonolite). 



A narrow, long-extended, uninterrupted series of 

 island groups over south-east and north-west fissures, 

 as New Caledonia and New Ghiinea, the New Hebrides 

 and Solomon Islands, Pitcairn, Tahiti, and the Paumotu 

 islands, cross the great Pacific Ocean in the southern 

 hemisphere between the parallels of 12 and 27 S., 

 extending in an east and west direction over 5400 geo- 

 graphical miles, from the meridian of the east coast of 

 Australia to Easter Island and the Rock Sala y Gomez. 

 The western portions of this great congeries of islands 

 (New Britain*, the New Hebrides*, Vanikoro* in the 

 Santa Cruz archipelago, and the Tonga* group) show 

 at the present time (the middle of the 19th century) 

 igneous activity. New Caledonia, although surrounded 

 by basaltic -and other volcanic islands, has merely pin- 

 tonic rocks ( 521 ), as is the case in the Azores with Santa 

 Maria ( 522 ) according to Leopold von Buch, and also 

 with Flores and Graeiosa according to Count Bedemar. 

 To this absence of volcanic activity in New Caledonia, 

 where sedimentary formations and beds of coal have 

 lately been discovered, is ascribed the great development 

 of live coral-reefs. The group of the Viti or Feejee 





