Note 57 — SECTION II. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF ICELAND.

Until late years the general opinion was that all basalts are of igneous formation. The contrary has been supported by Mr H. P. Malet (Geogr. Mag., August 1874), to mention no others: he finds in that of Rossberg and the “Rowley Rag” vegetable, animal, and earthy particles which, passed through the fire, would have vanished in vapour. The distinction, therefore, between basalt and basaltic lava becomes fundamental. Granite, again, is by the same writer taken from Hutton and returned to Werner. The author could not but observe, when travelling in the basaltic Haurán, in that Bashan which, according to some, gave a name to the mineral, that the dried mud split under the sun into lozenges and pentagonal flakes (Unexplored Syria, i. 215). Upon this subject more will be said in Chapter XIV.