Notebook No.189, January 1854

This black notebook contains a record of Charles Lyell’s geological travels around Madeira with Georg Hartung, in the company of Mary Lyell, and Charles and Frances Bunbury. This notebook begins January 16th, 1854, covering both Madeira and the Azores archipelago. Specific areas of note include Boaventura, Ponte la Grande, Ponte De Serra, São Jorge, Faial Island, Ribeiro Frio, Arrebentão, Pontinha, Piedade, and Paul da Serra. This notebook primarily focuses on the geological features and formations Lyell saw across Madeira and includes a vast number of drawings and sketches of these geological features, primarily concerning tuff, crystals, buried craters, scoria, and vesicular lava. A drawing of interest can be found on page 33, showing a valley in São Jorge with the remains of a ruined bridge, as well as geological features like columnar and rocks. Lyell mentions using both Georg Hartung and Eckersberg as reference points in his notebook in drawings and writing e.g., ‘see Hartung’s drawing’ (page 18). The painter Johan Frederick Eckersberg was in Maderia at the same time as Lyell and Hartung and has many paintings of places noted in Lyell’s notebooks. Some key geological features Lyell describes in this book include the ‘lime kiln’ in Pontinha, eruption theory, uplift, upheaval, and caldera. Lyell also has Barometers readings included with dethatched and attached readings. Equally he mentions an interesting name for foxglove as ‘Madeira Violet’. An interesting aspect of this notebook is the later additions of Lyell and Hartung from October 19th potentially from the same year, these additions from this date are also in later notebooks on Madeira.

[From “Index to Note Books on Geology of Maderia” reference Coll-203/A5/16 p.27]
p.2 N. of Maderia – identification of beds on opposite side of barrancas improbable
p.5 Buried cones of N. Coast, doctrine of -
p.6 Boa Ventura buried cone-
p.8 [Boa Ventura] cone buried and abut 700 ft of basalt etc
p.9 [Boa Ventura] - crystals in B.V. tuff -
“ Coral limestone] brought for Po. Santo
“ Excavation of valleys & of Cuviel
p.10. No proof c[oul]d. be of upheaval in recent time when N[orth].Cliff cut away p.12 Paul de Serra dip 14. N.
“ Alluvium ancient 110 ft high in Boa Ventura valley. R[iver]. bank.
p.14 Buried cone Do.
p.16 Alluvium boulder 5ft diameter, section of alluvium etc. Boa Ventura -
p.18 Section showing upfilling of valley angle of 27° -at function
p.19 Upheaval unpossible because above & below horizontal beds
p.20 S. Jorge landslip 1688?
“ plants
p.22 Want of stony lavas So. Jorge
p.24 Sources of lava of N. Cliffs –not far in interior
“ Puys near So. Jorge like them of Auvergne
p.25 - No great derangement seen the cones of S. Jorge were formed Achade de S. Jorge
p.26. Puys Do.
p.28 Spheroidal & red marle [marble?] cov[ere]d by-
p.29 Pico Ruvio
p.30 No helix or pebbles in red or yellow tuff-
p.32 Old riverbed. 123ft –above the river So. Jorge. 20 to 30ft extends up slope, sea section-
“Chasm exceed[e]d. 300 yards. Size of pebbles & shape.
p.34 Slope of 25° ahead glacial dip only 5 not down to upheaval
p.34. Spheroidal & red soil over it (washed down from Sa Anna?)
p.35 Dike Pico do Jogo de Bole -
p.36 Dome shaped appearance of Madeira from Sante Anne [Anna?]
p.38 N. of S. Jorge narrowing downward
“ Dip 33 od red laterite between agglomerates
p.40 Ribo S. Jorge dip 16 W 25 N of beds
“ Boulder modern 5ft diam[ete]r as in old alluvium, see p 16. 189.
[pencil notes: 3 weeks £4.10.0/8.00.]
[pencil notes: 8. Days – 2110 -]
p.42 Lignite dip N.10 West - about 900 ft high. (1014 ft) (Oct.18 Hartung says 1076 ft of alluvium higher & lava above the lignite. - 2 beds of lignite. Amygdales 200 ft. Higher up the stream – above the lignite.
p.44 Plants of S. Jorge lignites
p.46. Do-
p.48 Living plants seen
“ Slope of bed 5°. (lignite 11°)
p.50 Spheroidal overlying red marle on Achade of Sa. Anna. Deccomp[resse]d yellow surface of -
p.52 Spheroidal basaltia
“ Penha d’Aguia dip
p.54. Old river bed Riberio Medade – Hartung says 6715 ft diameter -
p.56 Dike 5 foot wide in older formation -
“ Jogo da bola dike cutting the basalts
p.59 Medada basalts etc
“ Qy as to origin of Penha d’Aguia of rivers c[oul]d make it.
p.60. Basalt columns more vertical than w[ou]d. agree with dip of current-
p.62 Ribo Faio – older formation dips varies (in a line from Po do Gatto)
p.62. 10 ft dike & various deep in older formation in Ribo Frio -
p.64 Do. & Cone of eruption near central axis. 3500 ft high
p.66 Spheroidal at 4500 ft Feiteiras N. of Poizo – spheroidal covering red clay again
(Qy long pause & decomposition lufs [?] the spheroidal flowed out - the spheroid itself also may turn into red marle
p.66. Spheroidal 40 ft thick. 5000 ft high.
p.68 Cone of eruption 3800 ft high with scoria & belonging to spheroidal basalt period.
Ponzio
p.70 Spheroidal between Sa Anna & Mount Curiel.
p.72 Scoria at bottom of the Great basaltic mass of Pontinha.
p.74 More scoria at top than at bottom 5 times more -
p.74 Dip modern lava or rather angle of slope of junction of lava 28°
p.76, 78, 80 } Pontinha
p.82 Socorridos lava, scoria at bottom but no pebbles,
p.84 Camara de Lobos cone
p.85 Scoria & laterite between stream implies time
“ Volume of ejectamate [sic ejecta] in [onela?] cone in Cam[era] de Lobos
p.86 Pico as Cruces, cone of eruption -
p.88 N.E. dip for Cap. Girau [sic Cape Girão] of same beds of lava.
p.90 No dikes seen in so called Calderia of Cape Girau [sic Girão] & yet such numbers in sea-cliff section.
“ Spheroidal at top of C. Girau [sic Girão]
p.92 Cape Girau [sic Girão] a transverse or N & S. axis of eruption -
p.94 Cape Girau [sic Girão] - not red at top
“ [Cape Girau [sic Girão]] - section of.
“ angles of red ribbon wedging
p.96 Modification of the dip of the lava of C. Girau [sic Girão] by the contemporain [sic] flowing down of lava from the highest E & W axis.
p.96 Dike in Calderia of C. Girau [sic Girão] 25 to 30 ft thick – direction N. 25 E. (Showing that the thick dikes being the cone of eruption.
p.100 - So-called Caldera of C. Girau [sic Girão] drained by a torrent acti[on?] cones from a higher point of the edge
p.100 - Dikes of C. Girau [sic Girão] not persistent.
“ Beds dipping toward Camara de Lobos at 28°
p.104 Height of S. Vincente corrals 1154 ft
p.105 Camara de Lobos denudat[ion?] of mass at the torn by sea?
p.109 S. Martinho range tuffs & lava contemporary ] & Picos.
“ Spheroidal 1200 ft high
p.110 - height of al Poizo 4500 & at Pico Grande
“ Age of relative to modern cone
“ Spheroidal in C. Girau [sic Girão].
p.112 dip of Cone E. 10 N. angle of 16 -
“ Crater in Maderia.