128 



mistake is not so much to be wondered at, as that ma- 

 ny persons, at the present day, should persist in con- 

 tending that the mammellated and botryoidal hemae- 

 tite are the real products of fire. 



Among the advocates for the existence and opera- 

 tions of subterranean fires, earthquakes, extinct volca- 

 noes, and their yawning craters, in this country, no 

 one seems to be more prominent and strenuous than 

 Mr. Volney.f 



Were we to rely upon the assertions of this author, 

 we might take it for granted, that the principal part of 

 the continent, east of the Mississippi, had been the 

 great theatre of each and all of these physical evils ; 

 for he not only points out the different districts where 

 their effects are represented as being manifest ; but to 

 their operations he attributes the " confusion in which 

 the Atlantic or maritime regions are at present 

 found ;"f a region or district, which, in point of order 

 and regularity, in the course and extent of the great 

 and prominent ridges ; of the uniformity and corres- 

 pondence in the order and succession of the subordi- 

 nate ranges, and of their respective materials, which 

 may be traced in almost uninterrupted parallelisms 

 from one end of the district to the other, may challenge 

 a comparison in any known portion of the globe. 



This, however, is not all. He even attempts to de- 

 fine the courses and limits of these hidden agents of 



* See Volney's Views of North America, page 97 to 101. 

 t Page 99. 



