272 CLA.HILES TRAVELS. 
of dressing .roeat.^ into these caves ire crept, not only for die 
purpose of restoring the umbrella, but also to profit by the op¬ 
portunity thus offered of unpacking our thermometers, and as- 
certaiDing the temperature of the atmosphere. It was now 
twelve o’clock. The mercury, in a gloomy recess, under 
ground, perfectly shaded, while the scale was placed so as not 
to touch the rock, remained atone hundred degrees of Fah¬ 
renheit. As to making any observation in the sun’s rays, it 
was impossible ; no one of the party had'courage to wait with 
the thermometer a single minute in such a situation. 
Along this route, particularly between Cana and Turan, we 
observed basaltic phenomena. The extremities of columns, 
prismatically formed, penetrated the surface of the soil, so as 
to render oar journey rough and unpleasant. These marks of 
regular, or of irregular crvstallizaHon, generally denote the 
vicinity of a bed of water lying beneath their level. The tra¬ 
veller, passing over a series of successive plains, resembling in 
their gradation, the order of a staircase, observes, as he des¬ 
cends to the inferior stratum whereon the water rests that where 
rocks are disclosed by the sinking of the soil, the appearance 
of crystallization has taken place ; and then the prismatic con¬ 
figuration is vulgarly denominated basaltic . When this series 
of depressed surfaces occurs very frequently, and the prismatic 
form is very evident, the Swedes, from the resemblance such 
rocks have to an artificial flight of steps, call them trap ; a word' 
signifying in their language, a staircase. In this state science 
remains at present, concerning an appearance in nature which 
exhibits nothing more than the common process of crystalliza¬ 
tion, upon a larger scale than has hitherto excited attention.-)--— 
Nothing is more frequent in the vicinity of very ancient lakes, 
in the bed of considerable ri vers, or by the borders of (he ocean. 
* We afterward ate bread which had been thus baked, in a camp of Djezzar’s 
troops, in the Plain of Esdraelon; and the first lieutenant of the Romulus frigate ate 
bacon so dressed in Aboukir. 
f See the observations which occur in the first part of the first volume of 
these travels. It was in consequence of a journey upon the Rhine, in the year 
1793, that the author first-applied the theory of crystallization toward explain¬ 
ing the formation of what are vulgarly called basaltic pillars ■ an appearance common 
to a variety of different mineral substances, imbedded in which are found ammonites, 
vegetable impressions, fossil wood, crystals of feldspar, masses of chalcedony, zeolite, 
and sparry carbonate of lime. The author has seen the prismatic configuration, to 
which the term basaltic is usually applied, in common compact limestone. Werner, 
according to Mr. Jameson, (Syst. of Min. vol. i. p 372.) confines basalt to the fioeis 
Trap formation,” and (p. 389, Ibid.) to the concretionary structure; alluding to a par¬ 
ticular substance, under that appellation Count Bournon (see note 3. part i.V 
considers the basaltic form as the result of a retreat . This is coming very near to 
the theory maintained by the author ; in furtherance of which, he wilTonly urge as a 
snore general remark, that “ all crystals are concretionary and all columnar minerals 
crystals, more or less regular, the consequence of a ntnaV* 
