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The alternating strata of porphyries and porphyritic conglomerate, and with the occasionally included beds of feldspathic slate, together make a grand formation; in several places within the Cordillera, I estimated its thickness at from six to seven thousand feet.
This appearance has been given to the monument by the removal of the large blocks of stone which formed the basement, leaving the massive superincumbent weight to be supported on a very narrow stalk of conglomerate masonry. It is a striking proof of the extraordinary solidity and tenacity of Roman architecture, defying the laws of gravitation.
"The nature of the formation of the main range I found generally iron-stone, conglomerate and quartz, with sandstone and slate at the lower elevation. At the points of highest elevation from Mount Bryan northward, igneous rocks of basaltic character protruded from below, forming rugged and fantastic outlines.
In a depression of the granitic or hypogene rocks in the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut strata of red sandstone, shale, and conglomerate are found, occupying an area more than 150 miles in length from north to south, and about five to ten miles in breadth, the beds dipping to the eastward at angles varying from 5 to 50 degrees.
About four o'clock, the soil, generally composed of a thick mud mixed with petrified wood, changed by degrees, and it became more stony, and seemed strewn with conglomerate and pieces of basalt, with a sprinkling of lava.
There were also pebbles of a quartzose conglomerate, and others of decomposed porphyry, the base consisting of granular felspar, with crystals of common felspar. It is not improbable that good millstones might be obtained from the range of Nundewar. The grass was fortunately much better here than at the last camp. February 20.
Judging therefore of the thickness of the conglomerate, as seen in the separate mountain-masses, I estimated it at least from one thousand five hundred to two thousand feet. These lower beds are traversed by several dikes of decomposing porphyry. The quartzose strata in one spot were folded into a regular dome.
Dene saw that it was a travelling menagerie and circus, and he looked on it with an amusement which predominated over his self-interest. Presently there darted into the conglomerate mass an extraordinary object it might have been one of the monkeys escaped from its cage and miraculously raised into imitation of a man's stature.
The horrors that have been enacted in that spot, the horrors that are seen there every hour, who can attempt to describe? Under and amid that mass of conglomerate rubbish are the remains of at least one thousand persons who died the most frightful of deaths. This is the place where the fire broke out within twenty minutes after the flood. It has burned ever since.
The gentle passage of the feldspathic slate, at Jajuel, into the porphyritic conglomerate, which is certainly of aqueous origin, should also be taken in account.
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