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The geological formation of this region is on a most gigantic scale, the rocks of basalt and granite rising in fantastic shapes, forming ravines and pinnacles unparalleled for grandeur. By-and-by the lovely vale and pretty village of Maltrata is seen, with its saffron-colored domes and towers, its red-tiled, moss-enameled roofs, its flower-bordered lanes, and its squares of cultivated fields.
We avoided the field of basalt by moving up the creek we last crossed, about four miles, and by crossing over to the flats of the river where the basalt terminated.
The summit of the small island is composed of a highly crystalline basalt; lower down I found a hard, stratified slatey sandstone, while on the beach are huge blocks of lava, and scattered masses of white coralline limestone. The larger island has coral rock to a height of three or four hundred feet, while above is lava and basalt.
Crook had sent a picket of soldiers to the edge of the basalt cliffs and these men, with long-range rifles, did some little execution on the defenders of the forts, although the distance was so great that their fire was largely ineffectual. Night found the soldiers ensconced behind boulders on the very rim of the ravine, the Indians in the forts.
It is only occasionally, however, that such fractures are accompanied by the extrusion of molten matter; and in the North of England and Scotland dykes of igneous rock, such as basalt, which run across the country for many miles in nearly straight lines, often cut across the faults, and are only rarely coincident with them.
Sometimes we fish along the shore, and, then enjoy a luncheon in the grotto, whilst the basalt columns vibrate like harps to the breeze.
Supposing, as seems probable, that all such hillocks or obelisks have originally been injected, whilst liquified, into a mould formed by yielding strata, as certainly has been the case with Lot, how are we to account for the frequent abruptness and singularity of their outlines, compared with similarly injected masses of greenstone and basalt?
Sandstone cropped out in deep gullies, and in the bed of the river; it was naturally soft and coarse, but where it rose into hillocks near basalt, it changed into a fine baked sandstone, resembling quartzite, which, when in contact with the igneous rock, looked like burnt bricks.
The limestone mountains, though of great extent, seem to be entirely superficial, resting on a basis of basalt which in some places forms low rounded hills between the more precipitous mountains. In the rocky beds of the streams basalt is almost always found, and it is a step in this rock which forms the cascade already described.
The whole of the valley bordering on the cave, shaded by fir and other trees, was thoroughly explored, and on turning the point of the south-western spur, the colonists entered a narrower gorge similar to the picturesque columns of basalt on the coast. Here the trees were fewer. Stones took the place of grass. Goats and musmons gambolled among the rocks. Here began the barren part of the island.
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