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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    Now tlie circumstance which, in a ^eolosfical sense, attaches the highest interest to the structure of this mountain, is the su])port which it appears to afford to the theory of elevation; the view, that is, which regards volcanic mountains, as formed in the first instance by such a sudden uplieave- ment, as might have brought the masses of rock of which they consist, from a nearly horizontal position, into their jjresent inclined one, and at the same time caused them to occupy a much higher relative level than they had done antecedently. This view of the original formation of volcanic mountains has been maintained by some of the most distinguished of modern geologists ; by Humboldt, by Von Buch, by Elie de Beaumont, by Dufrenoy, and by Abich. But as it has met with able opponents, in Lyell and Scrope in this country, and in Mons. Prevost in France, it is satisfactory for those who adopt such a theory, to be able to justify their belief in it, by pointing out facts, which, like the ejeyerimenta crucis in chemistry, seem irreconcilable with any other hypothesis. Of this description, as it appears to me, is the protrusion of a compact mass of trachytic rock through the centre of a mountain mainly consisting of materials so different from it, as leucitic porphyry and volcanic tuff; and its attaining moreover a height so considerable, as it has done in the instance before us. The first difficulty in the way of su})posiug it formed by the same o])erations as those which })ro- duced the mass of the surrounding mountain, arises
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