Notebook No.190, January 1854 - February 1854

This black notebook contains a record of Charles Lyell’s geological travels around Madeira with Georg Hartung, and in the company of Mary Lyell, and Charles and Frances Bunbury. Specific areas of note include Cape Girão, Curral [das Freiras], Pico Serado, Torrinhas, Pico do Cardo, Casa Branca, Pico da Cruz, Pico Grande, Pico do Jorge, Pico Ruivo, and Serradinho. 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 pebbles, basalt, lava types, scoria, red crystals, columnar, dikes, tuff, and limestone. Some key geological features Lyell describes in this book include erosion of waterfall, theory of explosion, subsidence, and Curral being a crater. The painter Johan Frederick Eckersberg is mentioned in this notebook and was in Madeira at the same time as Lyell and Hartung and has many paintings of places noted in Lyell’s notebooks. Charles Bunbury is also mentioned, in relation to the species of fauna and flora he found/identified.

This notebook is written in ink and pencil and does not include an index but there is a preliminary list on the first page and a type of itinerary on page 88. An index exists in Lyell's Index to Notebooks on Geology of Madeira reference Coll-203/A5/16, and this index has been used to catalogue this notebook. Many of the words/place names have been difficult to decipher and have been left with Lyell’s own spellings– please contact us if corrections can be made.

[From “Index To Note Books on Geology of Maderia” reference Coll-203/A5/16, p.36]:
p.2 Vesicular spheroidal dipling at angle of 13°
p.4 Buttress with scoria between
“ Knife edge ridge between Vaso Gil & scorridos Socorridos – 20ft broad. Slope 44° - & 27 on V. Gil side
p.6 Basalts at angle of 8° to S. on Socorridos
p.8 Spheroidal & vesicular
p.10 Massive curvieat [?]current see specimens at the Fonte Vermelha.
“ Dip between 20 & 30 of beds near “Red Fountain”
p.12 Dike on Pico Serrado with hade of 20 -
“ - its hade not owing to tilts of beds
p.16 Serrado section of numerous beds
“ Slope of precipieece [?] 67°
p.17 Serrado – solid beds in agglomerate below-
“ Curral an ordinary valley
“ - denudat[ion] (once more wood) once the height was greater-
“ (Socorridos once a great river Hartung) River of Machico once more [wood cut interlined] boatable
“ Lateral ravines courdeult [?]considerable
p.19 Spheroidal relative position of S. Martinho range.
p.20 Dike in red confln lava form[atio]n 1 ft thick.
p.22 Dikes 10 ft thick.
p.24 Piedra molten like ejection
p.26 Lava form[ation] made out of cones of eruption -
“ Curral not a crater
p.28 Lapilli etc
p.31 Heights of eruption matter 5000 ft & more – Therefore the height & central part are not drawn of upheaval
p.33 Dikes why rare [?] when neast most solid lava
p.34 Leaf bed of S. Jorge implies woods
“ Dip in time directing ions are onesver the srtintream [?] in Pico Canaries.
“ Old river beds under taluses?
p.36 Do -
“ Dikes direction varying
p.36, 38} Pico Ruvio & P. Torres
p.40, 42} Dikes & castellaldated aittum [sic atrium?]
p.44, 46} Original intercollin [sic intercolumn?] depression in Curral?
p. 56 Measurements of heights watershed
p.60 Central range of cones & dikes
p.64 Dip 10 of beds to N. of Island – of alternations
“ Dike hade 82 N etc Pico Canaria
“ Rapilli go with wind lava with slope of land
p.64 Pico Ruvio dike at summit
p.65 - cone of eruption
“ Height measured
p.66 Dike of basalt with olivine 5 or 6 yards wide. 30 ft
“ Pico Ruvio ice upon it Jan[uar]y 26 -
“ Height
p.67 Pico Ruvio currents from Pico Gatto or Torra may have flowed over the flanks of P. Ruvio
“ Current from near top of P. Ruvio
“ Valley posterior to the eruption
p.68 Pico Ruvio a cone of eruption.
“ - outline of peak
“ Slope of 35.
p.69 Height meas[ure]d
p.70 Do.
p.72 River fall of bed 1 in 15 or 4°
p.74 no [qu?aint?] dip towards or away from Curral. Not a valley of Elevation
p.75 Amorphous or Lower
form[atio]ns varying heights of
Oct. 19. 1853 p.76 Column of basalt with hade of 60 -
p.78 - Whether the lava on opposite sides of Curral etc were once united
p.80 Barometer Curral
p.81. Erosion of Curral thisro’ [sic through] a gorge.
p.82 Fonte Vermelha floras from laterite
“ Ribo de Lapa dip 11 & 12°. S. magnetic
p.84 - then beds going to Cam[ar]a de Lobos
“ Vasco Gill [sic Gil], spheroidal qy under as well as over as well as over S. Martinho range?
p.85 Climate of Maderia
“ Ferns fossil of S. Jorge
p.87 Orthography
p.90 Dip NN.E. of scorria Pico Fonte apparentroach fort from the town[?] -
“ Denudat[ed/ion]– of Pico Forte by the sea? Perhaprobablys a cliff?
p.92 Absence of pebble not presence of tuff to prove alluvial action.
p.93 Barometrical obse[rvation]s Curral - & Pico Ruvio
p.94 Fern fossils of S. Jorge 5 species & not same as recent fern -
“ Lava of S. Lucia look as if it was inclined to N.
p.96 Barometrical obse[rvation]s
p.97 Spheroidal 1124ft & red clay with it
p.98 Buried cone & apparent dip of basalt 30 ft-
p.100 Dike of buried cone
p.102 Buried cone S. Lucia
“ Red ochre of lateri
te used for paint
p.104 Dike hade of. “ Lower form[atio]n at bottom of ravine of S. Lucia
“ Waterfall (baro[mete]r | 2500 ft or 2600 p 114
p.106 - Retrogression of the fall
“ Boulder angles wear off as are descend the stream
“ Dikes some cutting all the beds
p.107 Slope of channel average 6°-
“ No marine rem[ain]s or fossils in lowest breccia
p.108 S. Lucia or waterfall ravine dikes in 5 places.
“ Dike hade to the sea qy it by upheaval.
p.109 S. L[ucia] ravine dip of beds 10. 11. & 12 to the sea
- p.111 Trap like Scotch supposed - marine beds.
“ Qy Scratched boulders
p.113 Buried cone plan of
“ Knife edge – below S. Lucia
p.114 Waterfall from drainage of upper Poizo
p.116 Pico de Camera de Lobos
p.118 Cape Girau [sic Girão] E. end.