ROCK SPECIMENS. 
ccliii 
and frequently confluent, so as to form a nearly compact, horn-stone-like 
mass, similar to the variety of hard sandstone from Egypt, which has been 
often employed in that country for purposes of statuary and architecture. In 
external characters it agrees exactly with one of the oldest formations of fletz 
sandstone, the bunt-sandstein of Werner; and the slaty grey sandstone, of 
which specimens were found, may possibly be the sandstein-sckiefer of the 
same geologist, which is said to be a characteristic concomitant of this 
second sandstone. 
There is nothing particularly remarkable in the specimens from Byam 
Martin’s Island : they are few in number, consisting of two varieties of granite, 
both with bright-red feldspar, red close-grained sandstone passing into com- 
pact, and a ferruginous sandstone, together with small fragments of flint slate. 
The rock specimens from Melville Island, though little can be said 
respecting the relative situation of most of them (they being chiefly rolled 
pieces, or casual fragments,) yet form a more complete series than the others, 
and some of them are by no means uninteresting. There are two or three 
varieties of granite, gneiss, and syenite ; the latter (from Winter Harbour, 
and the north shore of the island,) of a larger grain and with red feldspar, 
contains much green epidote, and is very like that which occurs in several 
parts of the island of Jersey*. In another variety from Winter Harbour, 
which contains some disseminated iron pyrites, the hornblende appears in a 
more compact state, and in the shape of irregular veins and threads. Another 
variety from the same place is rather remarkable from its exhibiting here and 
there small cavities, drused by minute quartz crystals, and coated by scaly 
red ironstone. In another specimen, small grains of ironstone, attracted by 
the magnet, were seen, and, upon examination, found to be titaniferous. The 
few pieces of hornblende rock from this island, seem to be detached from 
boulders found in Winter Harbour ; among them is also a specimen of a 
slaty compound of hornblende, mica, and red feldspar. 
* See my description of it in Plees's Account of Jersey-, p. 233. 
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