ORIGIN OF BASALT. 277 



IV. 



j4rgiiments against the P'olcanic Origin of Basalt, derived from 

 its Arrangement in the County of Aniri??i, and from other 

 Facts ob^e^ved in that Country. By the 7?et'. William 



, Richardson, late Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. 



Celcbrare domestica faeu. — Horace. 



JL HAVE, in the preceding parts of this Memoir *, discussed Facts and ob- 

 most of the ar";iiments that have been adduced, by different servations re- 



. r- I 1 1 T 1 specting the 



writers, to support the volcanic origin of basalt: and I have basalt in the 



examined th^ facts stated by them, to try how far they apply <^o"nty of An- 



. -^ ^ y rr J jj.-j^^ . adduced 



to this question. to show that it 



I now return to my own country, which seems more co- is ""'volcanic, 

 piously furnished with curious basaltic facts than any of those 

 upon which foreign writers have dwelt so much. 



The question (to us at least) is important; for it is the 

 origin of the ground we live upon that we are inquiring into : 

 evel-y particle of the surface of an extensive basaltic area, 

 ba,ving merely a thin coat of most fertile earthy slightly cover- 

 ing basalt strata, accumulated upon each other to a great 

 lieight ; and most frequently, as it were, bursting through this 

 surface, and displaying, in perpendicular fa<jades, the ar- 

 rangement of the materials that support us. 



Whether these materials, so arranged, be formed by the 

 hand of nature, in her original construction of the world; and 

 thus our basaltic strata (in the language of naturalists) be en- 

 titled to the appellation of primary : or whether this construc- 

 tion of our country is to be considered as produced by mighty- 

 agents, covering our quondam surface with new and secondary 

 stata, poured forth from the bowels of the earth, is surely an 

 interesting question in the natural history of our country. And 

 as every writer who has taken up the question of the volcanic 

 origin of basalt, and maintained the affirmative, has recurred 



* From the Irish Transactions, Vol. X. The two formei parts con- 

 sist of An Examination of Desmarest's Memoir in the Acad. Par. 17'71, 

 and of the principal philosophers who have followed his theory. 



Z 3 to 



