On the site of the ancient city of the Aurunci, and on the volcanic phenomena which it exhibits / [Charles Daubeny].

  • Charles Daubeny
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the site of the ancient city of the Aurunci, and on the volcanic phenomena which it exhibits / [Charles Daubeny]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    This trachytic rock is much more abrupt than the tuff through which it appears to have been pro¬ truded. In its centre is a hollow plain, which may possibly have once been a kind of crater, as there are still on three of its sides points of rock that rise considerably above the central concavity, of which the highest was formerly marked by a cross; a circumstance which, as I have stated, served to give the name of Santa Croce to the entire mountain. The rock is generally of a reddish brown colour, its base sometimes gray, fine-grained and compact, but not of very close texture, intimately interwoven with small felspathic portions, which frequently shew a fflassv fracture, as if from fusion. Much green augite, never however accompanied by even a trace of hornblende, penetrates the whole mass, and brown mica, generally in hexagonal tables, is a predominant ingredient. Abich regards the rock in the aggregate as forming a link intern]ediate between trachyte and greenstone. Pilla informs us, that the summit of this cone is exactly equidistant from all parts of the crest of Monte Cortinella, the only portion of the original crater that stands absolutely intact, shewing, that it stands exactly in the centre of the inclosed area ; a singular and improbable coincidence, unless it had upheaved the rest of the mountain, but one presenting no difficulty if we admit this supposition. The rock alluded to, abrupt as it is, seems to be everywhere covered over with vegetation, and a fine chestnut forest occupies a considerable })ortion of its flanks. From its summit the eye embraces, on the one liand, Mola di (Jaieta, the range of mountains termi-
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