"Porphyritic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his power." Humboldt examined some of the remains of this road, and described as follows a portion of it seen in a pass of the Andes, between Mansi and Loxa: "Our eyes rested continually on superb remains of a paved road of the Incas. The roadway, paved with well-cut, dark porphyritic stone, was twenty feet wide, and rested on deep foundations. This road was marvelous. None of the Roman roads I have seen in Italy, in the South of France, or in Spain, appeared to me more imposing than this work of the ancient ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... which occur in many places, are also much used, as are the limestones of Buckfastleigh and of Plymouth. The Roborough stone, used from an early period in Devonshire churches, is found near Tavistock, and is a hard, porphyritic elvan, taking a fine polish. Excellent roofing slates occur in the Devonian series round the southern part of Dartmoor. The chief quarries are near Ashburton and Plymouth (Cann quarry). Potters' clay is worked at King's Teignton, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... Popayan, whence we made excursions to the basaltic mountains of Julusuito and the craters of the Purace volcano, which discharge hydro-sulphuric steam and porphyritic granite with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Tette, and quite metamorphosed where it comes into contact with the igneous rocks below it. It sometimes gives place to quartz and reddish clay schists, much baked by heat. This is the usual geological condition on the right bank of the Cataracts. On the other side we pass over masses of porphyritic trap, in contact with the same mica schists, and these probably give to the soil the great fertility we observed. The great body of the mountains is syenite. So much mica is washed into the river, that on looking attentively on the stream one sees myriads of particles ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... of the above-mentioned road from Koptos to Berenice were the porphyritic quarries and the emerald mines, which were briskly worked under the Emperor Claudius. The mountain was ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... which about a dozen were dug up when the foundations of the workhouse were being laid in 1838, they are probably Samian, a friend having exactly similar vessels which she brought from Cyprus. The writer has in his possession the head of a porphyritic mallet which was found in a garden in the south of the town a few years ago, it is probably Roman; the handle, which would be of wood, had entirely disappeared; it is much "pitted" through damp and age, is 6.5 inches long ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... mass of porphyritic stone, the top about twenty feet above high tide, shaped much like a pyramid, and a few years since was capped with a conical granite beacon, strongly built and riveted down, but which had been two-thirds washed away by the tremendous surf of the easterly storms. The rock stands at the outer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... of the Macquarie, a flat extends to the marshes in which that river exhausts itself. From the midst of this flat Mount Foster and Mount Harris rise, both of which are porphyritic: but as I have been particular in describing these heights in their proper place, any minute notice of them here may be considered unnecessary. We will rather extend our enquiries to those parts of the colony upon which ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... crystal," but Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easily understood; and therefore more scientific). Then the Leaf- crystals, as I said, form an immense mass of foliated rocks; and the Granular crystals, which are of many kinds, form essentially granular, or granitic and porphyritic rocks; and it is always a point of more interest to me (and I think will ultimately be to you), to consider the causes which force a given mineral to take any one of these three general forms, than what ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... in a misty raiment of purple, the royal hill lifted above the valley an Olympian crest of porphyritic rock into the fathomless blue. Here not Jupiter and his court looked serenely down upon the struggling race, "indifferent from their awful height," but a dark-hued god, in Aztec vestments, gazed beyond the meadows ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Gregory's Valley, lying between Longwood and The Barn. This valley, nearly 1700 feet in depth, appears at one period to have been the scene of great volcanic disturbances. The lowest rock I saw was a compact porphyritic one. The upper strata of basalt were in a state of rapid decomposition; but the whole of the valley was traversed by basaltic dykes in every direction; these crossed one another in such a way that it was easy to tell ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... passed recall scenes in Algeria, especially as we get within sight of the purple, porphyritic chain of the Lozere. We gaze on undulations of delicate violet and gray, as in Kabylia, whilst deep down below lie oases of valley and pasture, the dazzling golden green contrasting, with the aerial hues of distant mountain ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of Plutonic Rocks. Granite and its Varieties. Decomposing into Spherical Masses. Rude columnar Structure. Graphic Granite. Mutual Penetration of Crystals of Quartz and Feldspar. Glass Cavities in Quartz of Granite. Porphyritic, talcose, and syenitic Granite. Schorlrock and Eurite. Syenite. Connection of the Granites and Syenites with the Volcanic Rocks. Analogy in Composition of Trachyte and Granite. Granite Veins in Glen Tilt, Cape of Good Hope, and Cornwall. Metalliferous Veins ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... purple gentians; around and on the Arenal, a uniform mantle of monocotyledonous plants, with scattered tufts of valeriana, viola, and geranium, all with rigid leaves in the characteristic rosettes of super-alpine vegetation; and on the porphyritic and trachytic sides of Chimborazo, lichens alone. Snow then covers the last effort of vegetable life.[15] The change in the architecture of the houses indicated, likewise, a change of altitude. The open bamboo huts, shingled with banana leaves, were ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... stretches of meadow, with the Klip River winding a serpentine course through them, between high banks, is Ladysmith town. Between the frog and the horse-shoe lie our various camps, mostly in radiating hollows, open either to the east or west, but sheltered from cross fires by rough kopjes of porphyritic boulders that have turned brown on the surface by exposure to sunshine. Bushy tangles of wild, white jasmine spring from among these boulders with denser growth of thriving shrubs bearing waxen flowers that blaze in brilliant ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... granite walls sculptured in true Yosemitic style into domes, gables, and battlemented headlands, which on the south come plunging down sheer into deep water, from a height of from 1500 to 2000 feet. The South Lyell glacier eroded this magnificent basin out of solid porphyritic granite while forcing its way westward from the summit fountains toward Yosemite, and the exposed rocks around the shores, and the projecting bosses of the walls, ground and burnished beneath the vast ice-flood, still glow with silvery radiance, notwithstanding ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir |
