11 
AZOIC ROCKS OF NORWAY. 
upon them. Occupying the great bulk of Sweden, they are there, even whilst we 
write, undergoing an elaborate survey by several able mineralogists, who following 
the contortions of each separate mass, are now laying down their outlines on what 
may be termed a lithological map of that highly crystalline country 1 . 
It forms no part of our object to describe the varied mineral features of the 
gneissose rocks of Norway, which extend westward to the Ocean and eastward 
into Sweden. We may, however, say that, on the whole, they very much resemble 
the ancient gneiss of Scotland and other countries, and present, in many tracts, an 
almost infinite succession of felspathic, quartzose, micaceous and hornblendic 
laminae, often highly contorted, but in which very determined strikes are perceptible 
over large tracts. They are indeed specially distinguished by the great abundance 
of granitic veins which they contain ; the phenomena which the Scottish philo- 
sophers Hutton, Playfair and their followers took such trouble to indicate in the 
isle of Arran and other localities, being here laid bare in thousands of examples. 
So numerous are the granites, chiefly rose-coloured, which with countless di- 
vergent veins penetrate the gneiss in every direction, that geologists have usually 
given to the mass the name of granitic gneiss. These azoic rocks are also in- 
truded on by numerous bosses and dykes of greenstone, and in some districts 
contain metalliferous veins, including those of the celebrated silver mines of 
Kongsberg and the cobalt mines of Modun. All that we are now concerned to 
state is, that the gneissose masses constitute in themselves the loftiest mountains 
of the whole region, and that in numberless sections, whether exposed on the sea 
shores, on the sides of the fiords or in the interior, they are seen to constitute a 
1 MM. Forsellis, Erdman, Franzen and Troilius have already finished, but not yet published, a geo- 
logical map of various provinces, including Dalecarlia, which through the obliging directions of Baron 
Berzelius, was exhibited and explained to us by M. Erdman. Our readers may have some conception 
of the detailed labours of its authors, when we state, that granites, gneissose rocks, mica schists, horn- 
blende rocks, syenites, greenstones, jaspers, porphyries, &c., as well as many varieties of each of these 
classes, are distinguished on the map by different colours and marks. Not having examined in detail 
the tracts thus illustrated, wc are not able to say to what extent the authors of this map have distin- 
guished the masses of azoic age from certain metamorphic strata which, if like those of the Christiania 
territory, are of palaeozoic age. Their “ flotz ” limestones and sandstones are evidently pakeozoic, and for 
the most part Silurian. Tire chief promontories are, however, occupied by great bands of gneiss, the 
strike of which varies prodigiously, and, subjected to enormous flexures, range in one district east and 
west, in another north and south with many intermediate directions. It is this great and dominant mass 
of crystalline granitic gneiss, that, according to our views, is anterior to everything to which the term 
palseozoic can be applied. 
