294 
THE TERTIARY VOLCANOES 
BOOK VIII 
basalts of the plateau. Favoured by an unusually calm sea, I was enabled 
to boat into every nook and round every buttress and islet of this part of 
the coast-line. 
The basalt-plateau here presents to the western ocean a nearly vertical 
escarpment which must reach a height of at least 1000 feet (see Fig. 328), 
and displays a magnificent section of the bedded lavas. The lower part of 
this section shows chiefly the banded structure already described, the layers 
of different consistency being etched out by the weather in such a way as to 
give them the look of stratified rocks. In the upper part of the precipice 
