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OCR
TOKAYT, 27%. in: doubt of what nature I fhould confider this foil to be; and at-a: lofs-to explain how fo deep and light a foil fhould exift upon fo rapidly floping a hill. Towards the bottom, facing the river, there. are fome precipices which throw, I think, confiderable light upon this matter. Here, in this foft, friable foil, I obferved the-fame ftructure. I-had often feen in traps and bafaltes, when in an. incipient. ftate of decompofition—a difpofition to affume rude and irregular prifmatic and columnar forms: but a large angular block imbedded in the foil threw the greateft light upon it: This, though with:-the angular fhape of a fragment of ftone, differed from the foil only in being a little darker in colour, and not quite fo friable; yet it might be cut like cheefe, and it made an effervefcence with acids. From thefe circumftances, I am led to confider the foil, as well as the block, to. be fome kind of trap or bafalt decompofed. In a.deep ravine, where a narrow road. has.been’ made, I found the rocks compofed of that kind of Porphyry called by Mr. Werner Porphyrfchiefer, the Porphyrius /chiftofus of the Syft. N. Lin. * ; though Mr. Born, in his nineteenth letter to Mr. Ferber, fays, the hill on which the Tokay wine grows, is Argillaceous Shiftus (Thon/chiefer), and from: hence infers that the Obfdian found here is not indigenous, * Porphyrius fchiftofus. Ex Petrofilice fufca lineis vel ‘venis interruptis tenuibus fubparallelis albidis, particulis albis Feldfpati, & pellucidis Adulariz. but 19
