FIGURE 4: VOLCANIC BOMB OF OBSIDIAN FROM AUSTRALIA.The upper figure gives a front view; the lower a side view of the same object.)These occur in great numbers strewed on the ground, and some of them lie at considerable distances from any points of eruption.They vary in size from that of an apple to that of a man's body; they are either spherical or pear-shaped, or with the hinder part (corresponding to the tail of a comet)irregular, studded with projecting points, and even concave.Their surfaces are rough, and fissured with branching cracks; their internal structure is either irregularly scoriaceous and compact, or it presents a symmetrical and very curious appearance.An irregular segment of a bomb of this latter kind, of which I found several, is accurately represented in Figure 3.Its size was about that of a man's head.The whole interior is coarsely cellular; the cells averaging in diameter about the tenth of an inch; but nearer the outside they gradually decrease in size.This part is succeeded by a well-defined shell of compact lava, having a nearly uniform thickness of about the third of an inch; and the shell is overlaid by a somewhat thicker coating of finely cellular lava (the cells varying from the fiftieth to the hundredth of an inch in diameter), which forms the external surface: the line separating the shell of compact lava from the outer scoriaceous crust is distinctly defined.This structure is very simply explained, if we suppose a mass of viscid, scoriaceous matter, to be projected with a rapid, rotatory motion through the air; for whilst the external crust, from cooling, became solidified (in the state we now see it), the centrifugal force, by relieving the pressure in the interior parts of the bomb, would allow the heated vapours to expand their cells; but these being driven by the same force against the already-hardened crust, would become, the nearer they were to this part, smaller and smaller or less expanded, until they became packed into a solid, concentric shell.As we know that chips from a grindstone (Nichol "Architecture of the Heavens.") can be flirted off, when made to revolve with sufficient velocity, we need not doubt that the centrifugal force would have power to modify the structure of a softened bomb, in the manner here supposed.
Geologists have remarked, that the external form of a bomb at once bespeaks the history of its aerial course, and few now see that the internal structure can speak, with almost equal plainness, of its rotatory movement.
M.Bory St.Vincent ("Voyage aux Quatre Isles d'Afrique" tome 1 page 222.)has described some balls of lava from the Isle of Bourbon, which have a closely similar structure.His explanation, however (if I understand it rightly), is very different from that which I have given; for he supposes that they have rolled, like snowballs, down the sides of the crater.M.
Beudant ("Voyage en Hongrie" tome 2 page 214.), also, has described some singular little balls of obsidian, never more than six or eight inches in diameter, which he found strewed on the surface of the ground: their form is always oval; sometimes they are much swollen in the middle, and even spindle-shaped: their surface is regularly marked with concentric ridges and furrows, all of which on the same ball are at right angles to one axis:
their interior is compact and glassy.M.Beudant supposes that masses of lava, when soft, were shot into the air, with a rotatory movement round the same axis, and that the form and superficial ridges of the bombs were thus produced.Sir Thomas Mitchell has given me what at first appears to be the half of a much flattened oval ball of obsidian; it has a singular artificial-like appearance, which is well represented (of the natural size)in Figure 4.It was found in its present state, on a great sandy plain between the rivers Darling and Murray, in Australia, and at the distance of several hundred miles from any known volcanic region.It seems to have been embedded in some reddish tufaceous matter; and may have been transported either by the aborigines or by natural means.The external saucer consists of compact obsidian, of a bottle-green colour, and is filled with finely cellular black lava, much less transparent and glassy than the obsidian.
The external surface is marked with four or five not quite perfect ridges, which are represented rather too distinctly in Figure 4.Here, then, we have the external structure described by M.Beudant, and the internal cellular condition of the bombs from Ascension.The lip of the saucer is slightly concave, exactly like the margin of a soup-plate, and its inner edge overlaps a little the central cellular lava.This structure is so symmetrical round the entire circumference, that one is forced to suppose that the bomb burst during its rotatory course, before being quite solidified, and that the lip and edges were thus slightly modified and turned inwards.It may be remarked that the superficial ridges are in planes, at right angles to an axis, transverse to the longer axis of the flattened oval: to explain this circumstance, we may suppose that when the bomb burst, the axis of rotation changed.
AERIFORM EXPLOSIONS.
