A MOUNTAIN OF GLASS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10901, 7 September 1897, Page 4

A MOUNTAIN OF GLASS.

What the " Revue Eccyclopediqua " calls tne eighth wonder of the world has been discovered in the County of Wyoming, in the State of Pennsylvania. With that charming ignorance of American geography for which evan well educated Frenchmen are so justly distinguished, the Parisian writer raises the picturesque valley of the Susquehanna, iv which Campbell laid the scene of one of his best poems, to the dignity of a State; but perhaps the people of Wyoming will be disposed to rest content with tha possession of-a natural wonder,1 upon which • they are sure to pride themselveß as .orach.* as if it were a work of their own creation. This is no other than a rock or glass 800 yds long and 60yds high, and presenting the appearance of a colossal wall, which is occasionally as much as 40yds thick. It is very dark in places, and the southern extremity of|>he mass rests upon a succession of prismatic pillars 18yds high and about lyd in circumference. These columns are described as being as black as jet, while the vitreous rock itself is streaked with veins of a similar substmee, red, brown, and green in colour, and resembling the markings of a dark marble. According to the concurrent statements of the various geologists who have visited and examined this remarkable phenomenon, it i 3 of volcanic origin, and results from the fusion and. fins/at a very high temperature, of the elements of which the ordinary glass of commerce is composed. In all probability, however, it is a mass of hyaline obsidian, such as is often thrown up by. the volcanoes of Mexico and Iceland, and was well ku'own to the ancient Peruvians,-by whom it was employed for the I same purposes as the greenstone of the New ■ Zealand Maoris. When the sun is shining on the rock in Wyoming it hes all tSa appearance of a huge black diamond, and it is believed to have been ejected from the bowels of the earoh in a fluid condition many thousands of years ago. ■' •