218 DR JAMES GEIKIE ON 
I. InTRODUCTION. 
In this paper I give an account of observations made during a visit in 1879 
to the Ferée Islands in company with my friend Mr Amunp HELLAnD of 
Christiania. The principal object of our journey was to examine the glacial 
phenomena of the islands, but we studied so far as we could the various rock- 
masses of which the group is composed, and constructed a geological sketch- 
map to show the line of outcrop of coal, the disposition of the strata, the 
direction of dykes, and the trend of the glaciation. I have only to add, that 
all the obseryations recorded in the followmg pages were made in concert with 
my friend, and I am glad to say that we were quite at one in our general 
conclusions.”* 
The earliest references to the geology of the Ferde Islands are met with in 
a general description of the group by Lucas Jacosson Dersest (1673), but, as 
might have been expected, they are of no scientific value. He makes brief 
reference to the occurrence of coal in Suderée, stating that it is found in only 
one place “ to which one can with difficulty come ;” from which it is probable 
that he had in view some of the outcrops in the precipitous sea-cliffs. 
In 1800 appeared a general account of the islands by Jorgen LANpT, a 
resident Danish clergyman, in which the physical features of the islands are 
well described.{ The author was no geologist, but he notes some of the more 
characteristic aspects of the rocks, and was clearly of opinion that some of 
these at least had been in a state of fusion. He also gives some account of 
the many large angular perched blocks which are so plentifully sprinkled over 
the islands. It was LANpT’s description of the igneous rocks which induced 
Sir Gzorce MackenziE to visit the islands. Sir GrorGE was accompanied by 
Mr Tuomas ALLAN, and each subsequently gave an account of his own obser- 
vations; the papers appearing in an early volume of the Transactions of this 
Society.§ 
Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE limits his remarks on the “trap” of the Ferées to 
such characters as seemed to him to demonstrate the igneous origin of that 
class of rocks. He distinguishes between the “tuff” or “tuffa” and the 
“trap ;” shows how they are interbedded; and gives the general inclination of 
* Mr Hewwann’s paper has been published since the present memoir was read, See ‘‘Om Fero- 
ernes Geologi,” in the Danish Geografisk Tidskrift, 1881. 
+ Feroz et Feroa Reserata, &c., Kiobenhafn, 1673. 
+ Forsog tilen Beskrivelse over Feroerne, Kiobenhavn, 1800. An English translation of Lanpt’s 
work appeared in 1810. 
§ “An Account of some Geological Facts observed in the Farée Islands” (Macxenzin), Trans. 
Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. vii. p, 213; and “ An Account of the Mineralogy of the Farée Islands” (ALLAN), 
op. cit. p. 229. 
