Elements of Geology, for the Use of Schools

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W. Lester, jr., 1833 - 139 pages
 

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Page 97 - ... actually fell in, and disappeared in the earth. At the same time a tremendous noise was heard, resembling the discharge of the heaviest cannon. Immense quantities of volcanic substances, which were thrown out at the same time and spread in every direction, propagated the effects of the explosion through the space of many miles.
Page 94 - ... density he was unable to penetrate; showers of ashes covered the houses, the streets, and the fields, to the depth of several inches; and amid this darkness, explosions were heard at intervals like the report of artillery or the noise of distant thunder.
Page 91 - Caracas preceded this explosion thirty-five days, and violent oscillations of the ground were felt both in the islands and on the coasts of Terra Firma.
Page 94 - This eruption extended perceptible evidences of its existence over the whole of the Molucca islands, over Java, a considerable portion of Celebes, Sumatra, and Borneo, to a circumference of a thousand statute miles from its centre, by tremulous motions, and the report of explosions; while within the range of its more immediate activity, embracing a space of three hundred miles around it, it produced the most astonishing effects, and excited the most alarming apprehensions.
Page 51 - ... unnecessarily to final causes, if we conceive that this distribution of the rude materials of the earth, was determined with a view to the convenience of its inhabitants.
Page 97 - ... the mountain began to give way, and the greatest part of it actually fell in, and disappeared in the earth. At the same time a tremendous noise was heard, resembling the discharge of the heaviest cannon. Immense quantities of volcanic substances, which were thrown out at the same time and spread in every...
Page 90 - ... from the earth, over a vast extent of surface. On the 26th of January, AD 447, subterranean thunders were heard from the Black to the Red Sea, and the earth was convulsed without intermission for the space of six months ; in many places the air seemed to be on fire, towns and large tracts of ground were swallowed up in Phrygia. On the 20th of May, AD 520, the city of Antioch was overturned by a dreadful earthquake, and two hundred and fifty thousand of its inhabitants are said to have been crushed...
Page 83 - Burtreeford on the river Tees, hence called the Burtreeford Dyke. It throws down the strata on the west side of it, one hundred and sixty yards. Dykes, being generally impervious to water, they obstruct its passage along the porous strata, and occasion it to rise; hence it frequently happens that numerous springs make their appearance along the course of a dyke, by which it may be detected, when there is no other indication of it visible on the surface.
Page 47 - Graywacke and graywacke slate, in their most common forms, may be described " as a coarse slate, containing particles or fragments of other rocks or minerals varying in size from two or more inches, to the smallest grain that can be perceived by the eye.
Page 71 - At the mouth of a river in Nova Scotia, a schooner of thirty two tons, laden with live stock, was lying with her side to the tide; at the influx of the Bore; which was then about ten feet in perpendicular height. No sooner had this mass of water reached the vessel, than that great body was instantly turned over, like a barrel and presently disappeared.

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