426 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



in our planet, and still bursting forth, in many places, with destructive 

 energy, had, in times long past, exerted agencies still more extensive — 

 covering provinces with ruins, and operating, even in the bed of the 

 primeval oceans. The speculation seemed to claim quite as much af- 

 finity with poetical, as with philosophical conceptions, and it was not 

 till the middle of the last century, that the subject of extinct volcanos 

 began to be investigated with accuracy and skill. 



It will be sufficient to name the much disputed country of Auvergne, 

 Velay, and Viverais, in France, which has been often visited and ex- 

 amined by able geologists, and we believe, that within a few years 

 past, no one of them has left that region, without being convinced 

 that it is of volcanic origin. This district lies upon the river Rhone, 

 nearly in the angle formed by it with the Mediterranean, and covers a 

 square area of forty or fifty leagues in diameter. 



Craters, regularly formed, often entire, sometimes with the thin and 

 scorified edge of the lip in fine preservation, and occasionally of vast 

 dimensions ; here, black, rugged and scathed with fire- — there, over- 

 grown with trees, and there, filled with water, forming lakes ; cur- 

 rents of lava, lying where they flowed from the crater, or where 

 they burst from the side or foot of the ruptured mountain, extend- 

 ing many miles, and many leagues, traceable directly to their source, 

 winding along the gorges and the sinuosities of the vallies, now and 

 then diverted from their course by rocks, hills, and other obstacles; 

 sometimes damming up rivers, whose beds they have crossed or 

 obstructed, and thus forming lakes of considerable dimensions ; ex- 

 hibiting all the varieties of lithoid lava, from that which is compact 

 and rock-like, to that which, in an incipient, or in a prevailing degree, 

 is porous and vesicular; crowned or mixed with slag, scoriae, pumice, 

 olivine, and other exuviae of known and active volcanos ; displaying 

 frequently a structure, now spherical, ovoidal and concentric ; now 

 prismatic and columnar, and fronting streams, and bounding valleys, 

 with ranges of columns, equalling or rivalling the regularity of the 

 famous colonnades of Fingal's Cave and the Giant's Causeway; these 

 are a few of the most striking features of these countries, which are 

 so affluent in proofs of igneous origin, that there is nothing needed, 

 but to select, carefully and judiciously, those facts which will be the 

 most decisive, especially with respect to minds not familiar with such 

 contemplations. 



The volcanos of the Auvergne, &c. are regarded as of different 

 ages; some appear to have been active before the formation of the 

 present valleys, and some since ; where the currents of lava have 



