92 NEWER PLIOCENE TERIOD. [£h. VII. 
cones, or, in other words, the channels which gave passage to 
the lava-currents and scoriae that have issued from vents in the 
forest-zone. 
Some fissures may have been filled from above, but I did 
not see any which, by terminating downwards, gave proof of 
such an origin. Almost all the isolated masses in the Val del 
Bove, such as Capra, Musara, and others, are traversed by 
dikes, and may, perhaps, have partly owed their preservation 
to that circumstance, if at least the action of occasional floods 
lias been one of the destroying causes in the Val del Bove ; for 
there is nothing which affords so much protection to a mass of 
strata against the undermining action of running water, as a 
perpendicular dike of hard rock. 
In the accompanying drawing (No. 21) the flowing of the 
No. 21. 
View of the rocks Finoehio, Capra, and Musara, Val del Bove. 
lavas of 1811 and 1819, between the rocks Finochio, Capra, and 
Musara, is represented. The height of the two last-mentioned 
isolated masses has been much diminished by the elevation of 
their base, caused by these currents. They may, perhaps, be 
the remnants of cones, which existed before the Val del Bove 
was formed, and may hereafter be once more buried by the 
lavas that are now accumulating in the valley. 
