256 
THE TERTIARY VOLCANOES 
BOOK VIII 
V. THE FAROE ISLANDS 1 
Though these islands lie beyond the limits of the region embraced by 
the present work, I wish to cite them for the singular confirmation and 
extension they afford to observations made among British Tertiary vol- 
canic rocks. Over a united extent of coast-cliffs which may be roughly 
estimated at about 500 English miles, the nearly level sheets of basalts, 
with their occasional tuffs, conglomerates, leaf-beds and coals, can be 
followed with singular clearness. Although the Faroe Islands have been so 
frequently visited and so often described that their general structure is 
sufficiently well known, they present in their details such a mass of new 
material for the illustration of volcanic action that they deserve a far more 
minute and patient survey than they have yet received. They cannot be 
adequately mapped and understood by the traveller who merely sails round 
them. They must be laboriously explored, island by island and cliff 
by cliff. 
While I cannot pretend to more than a mere general acquaintance with 
their structure, I have learnt by experience that one may sail near their 
precipices and yet miss some essential features of their volcanic structure. 
In the summer of the year 1894 I passed close to the noble range of pre- 
cipices on the west side of Stromo, at the mouth of the Vaagofjord, and 
sketched the sill which forms so striking a part of the geology of that district 
(Figs. 312, 328 and 329). But I failed to observe a much more remark- 
able and interesting feature at the base of the same sea-cliffs. The following 
summer, probably under better conditions of light, I was fortunate enough 
to detect with my field-glass, from the deck of the yacht, what looked like 
a mass of agglomerate, and found on closer examination the interesting 
group of volcanic vents described in Chapter xli. The magnificent preci- 
pices of Faroe, which in Myling Head reach a height of 2260 feet, present 
a series of natural sections altogether without a rival in the rest of Europe. 
They are less concealed with verdure than those of Mull and Skye, and 
therefore display their geological details with even greater clearness than 
can be found either in Scotland or in Ireland. I would especially refer to 
the bare precipitous sides of the long narrow islands of Kalso and Kuno, 
as admirable sections wherein the characters of the plateau-basalts are 
revealed as in a series of gigantic diagrams. The scarcity of vegetation, and 
the steepness of the declivities which prevents the abundant accumulation of 
screes of detritus, enable the observer to trace individual beds of basalt with 
the eye for several miles. Thus on the west side of Kuno, one conspicuous 
dark sheet in the lower part of the section can be followed from opposite 
Mygledahl in Kalso to the southern end of the island. There is one con- 
cealed space at the mouth of the corrie behind Kuno village, but the same, 
or at least a similar band of rock at the same level, emerges from the 
detritus on the further side, and may possibly run into the opposite 
1 For references to tlie recent geological literature connected with these islands see the foot- 
note ante, p. 191. 
