242 



of considerable extent, the Peak exhibits never- 

 theless all the characters of a mountain placed 

 on a solitary islet. As at St. Helena, the lead 

 finds no bottom f- at a little distance from the 

 ports of Santa Cruz, Orotava, and Garachico. 

 The ocean, as well as the continents, has it's 

 mountains and it's plains ; and, if we except the 

 Andes, the volcanic cones are formed every 

 where in the regions of the Globe. 



As the Peak rises amid a system of basalts 

 and old lava, and as the whole part which is vi- 

 sible above the surface of the waters exhibits 

 burnt substances, it has been supposed, that this 

 immense pyramid is the effect of a progressive 

 accumulation of lavas ; or that it contains in it's 

 centre a nucleus of primitive rocks* Both of 

 these suppositions appear to me improbable. Ii 

 think that there as little existed mountains of 

 granite, gneiss, or primitive calcareous stone, 

 where we at present see the tops of the Peak, 

 of Vesuvius, and of Etna, as in the plains where 

 almost in our own time has been formed the vol- 

 cano of Jorullo, which is more than a third of 

 the height of Vesuvius, On examining the 

 circumstances which accompanied the forma- 

 tion of the new island in the Archipelago of the 



very liquid lava of the Isle of Bourbon,. See the interesting, 

 memoir of Mr. de Heuriau, I. c. vol. Jx, p. 441. 



* Voy. de PIsis, vol. i, p. 287 ; Voy. de JViarchand, t. i, 

 p. 542. 



