1859.] SCEOPE CONES AND CEATEES, 521 



ample, in the Island of Nisida and the Capo di Miseno. The latter is 

 here reproduced (fig. 7), as also a view of Graham Island (fig. 8) taken, 

 just before its final disappearance, by M. Joinville in September 1831, 

 in which may be seen the same internal dip of the beds that composed 

 the nucleus of the cone, which, from their proximity to the vent, 

 were no doubt more firmly compacted by heat than the outer strata, 

 and from this cause no less than from their central position were 

 likely to resist longest the destructive action of the waves. Such, too, 

 is exactly the structure of the small crateriform island on the coast 

 of St. Michael in the Azores, near Yillafranca, described by Mr. 

 Darwin (' Yolcanic Islands,' p. 108); and other instances will, no 

 doubt, occur to every one who is conversant with volcanic districts. 



Now it seems quite impossible to reconcile this circular anticlinal 

 dip with the theory of upheaval ; for, even if it were conceivable that 

 horizontal beds may be tilted uniformly round a central opening 

 (although I cannot admit even this where the ring is entire and no 

 fractures appear through its ridge), it is wholly inconceivable that 

 such a process could generate a solid annular bank with a regular 

 double or anticlinal dip all round. This insuperable difficultj^ is, 

 however, quietly passed over by the upheavalists by the employ- 

 ment of the convenient phrase, " local convolutions of the elevated 

 strata." 



With similar facility — not to use any stronger phrase — M. Du- 

 frenoy meets the obvious objection made to his theory of the sudden 

 upheaval of the Monte JSTuovo, that the Roman buildings standing 

 close to its base have remained perfectly vertical and their cornices 

 perfectly horizontal, by the bold supposition that, after all, the Monte 

 Nuovo perhaps existed long before the Roman era, and was only 

 sprinkled over with a hght coat of ashes by the ei-uption of 1538*; 

 although, according to the unanimous testimony of all contemporary 

 observers, it was then first seen to be formed, upon the previously 

 flat shore, by eruptions of large stones, scoriae, mud, and ashes from 

 the spot— eruptions which were so abundant during two consecutive 

 days and nights, that the finer particles actually covered the ground 

 to a distance of seventy miles f, — a phenomenon therefore that could 



* Memoires, &c. p. 278. So also Von Buch's ' lies Canaries,' p. 347. 



t Letter of Francesco del Wero. — See Lyell, ' Principles,' p. 369. In the 

 volume (now in the British Museum, the gift of Sir W. Hamilton,) printed at 

 Naples in the very year of the eruption, Signor Marco Antonio Falconi, an eye- 

 witness of it, thus writes : — " Stones and ashes were thrown up, with a noise like 

 the discharge of great artillery, in quantities which seemed as if they would 

 cover the whole earth ; and in four days their fall had formed a mountain in the 

 valley between Monte Barbara and the Lake Averno, of not less than three miles 

 in circimaference, and almost as high as Monte Barbaro itself, — a thing incredible 

 to those who have not seen it, that in so short a time so considerable a mountain 

 should have been formed." Another account in the same volume, by Pietro 

 Jacobeo di Toledo, describing the same fact, adds, " Some of the stones were 

 larger than an ox. They were thrown up, the larger ones, about a cross-bow's 

 shot in height from the opening, and then fell down, some on the edge of the 

 mouth, some back into it. The mud ejected [ashes mixed with water] was 

 at first very liquid, then less so, and in such quantities that, with the help of the 

 afore-mentioned stones, a mountain was raised a thousand paces in height, on 

 the third day. I went to the top of it and looked down into its mouth, in the 



