THE GEOLOGY OF THE FAROE ISLANDS, 219 
the strata as towards south-east at an angle of about 4° or 5°. He was of 
opinion that the bedded traps had been ejected from submarine volcanoes. 
Mr ALLAn’s paper is chiefly mineralogical, but he also gives some geological 
details. Both he and Mackenziz noticed the dykes that here and there inter- 
sect the strata, but only Mr AuiAn describes the irregular masses of “green- 
stone ” which are unconformable to the regular bedded trappean rocks among 
which they occur. He also insists upon the igneous formation of all the traps, 
but does not commit himself to MACKENzIr’s submarine-volcano theory. The 
circumstances under which the traps were formed seem to him as inexplicable 
as ever, but he evidently leans to the view of their subaerial origin. He 
describes the smoothed appearance of the sides of the mountains, and particu- 
larly refers to a place at Eide in Osterde where “the rock is scooped and 
scratched in a very wonderful degree, not only on the horizontal surface, but 
also on a vertical one of 30 to 40 feet high, which had been opposed to the 
current, and presented the same scooped and polished appearance with the 
rest of the rock, both above and below.” These phenomena he recognises to 
be the same as the smoothed and dressed rocks near Edinburgh. 
MackeEnziz’s and ALLAN’s papers were supplemented by Mr W. C. TrEvEL- 
YAN, who, in a letter to Dr BrewstTer,* gives descriptions of the geology of 
Myggenes and Suderde—two of the islands which Mackenzie and ALLAN 
were unable to visit. His short description of the coal-beds of Suderée is 
correct so far as it goes, but, curiously enough, he says the beds dip south- 
east, while the section given by him shows them dipping to the north. The 
letter is accompanied by some excellent sketch-sections, exhibiting the 
appearances presented by certain irregular masses of basalt. 
A few years later Dr ForcHHAMMER, who does not appear to have known of 
MAckenziz’s and ALLAN’s papers, visited the islands at the instance of the 
Danish Government, and afterwards published a very able description of their 
geognosy,t accompanied by an admirable geological map. His observations 
and views, however, I shall refer to more particularly in the sequel. He makes 
no reference to the phenomena of smoothed rocks which so impressed ALLAN. 
The next geological notice of the Feerde Islands occurs in a series of articles 
by Ropert CuHampBers, entitled “Tracings in Iceland and the Ferée Islands.” f 
He spent only some two or three days among the group, but recognised marks 
of glaciation at various places, as I shall afterwards point out. 
Since the date of his visit, the islands have frequently been referred to in 
books of travel, but none of these has added anything to what was already 
* “On the Mineralogy of the Farée Islands” Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. ix. p. 461. 
+ “Om Ferjernes geognostiske Beskaffenhed,” Det kongl. danske Vidensk. Selsk. Skrifter, 1824. 
See also Karsten’s Archiv. fiir Mineralogie ; vol. ii. p. 197. 
+ Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, 1855. 
