Dr. Kubassek János szerk.: A Kárpát-medence természeti értékei (Érd, 2004)
Dr. Péter Rózsa: Robert Townson (1762-1827): a pioneer scientific explorer of the Carpathian Basin
^Ía6m<€ 0oumA<m, (4762—4827/ : a, fiúynew- ácimiüAc eoft/o^e^ aft/is (oa/t^ia/Aian (fföaáim O Continuing his trip in the mountains, he visited the tuff quarry at Bodrogkeresztur village, observed "petrosilex" (quartzite) fragments between Tállya and Mád villages, and found vegetable petrifications in a field near Tállya. He described the air-fall rhyolite tuff covering the southern foot of the mountains near the village Olaszliszka, and the pyroxene amphibole dacite (he named as porphyry) of the Sátor Hills. Special attention must be paid to his report on the perlite deposit near Pálháza village: "Soon after leaving this village, there is on the right hand, overhanging the road, a most remarkable rock: it is a strange mixture indeed; a Breccia composed offragments of glassy pitch-stone (pechstein) , both compact and cellular, both grey and black, scattered with parallelepipeds of adularia [plagioclase], ivith fragments ofpumex, and here and there fragments of porphyry with base of reddish with petrosilex [quartzite] with grains of pellucid Quartz. E These fragments, more heterogeneous in their appearance than in their nature, are imbedded in, or cemented by, a mass no less curious; it is in appearance like sandstone, or rather granulated Quartz, in some parts, particularly if viewed with lens, it has a contorted fibrous texture, in other parts it is more like pitch-stone, but diaphanous and somewhat granulated; where it is most compact it strikes fire. Though this Breccia appears so very heterogeneous, yet it is very! homogeneous in its nature; the fragments of the different coloured pitch-stones, and likewise the pumex and the cementing matter, are all of the same nature: they all intumesce under the blow-pipe with phosphorescence, and form a ivhite light scoria ivhich swims in water: some swell by heat to five or six times their original bulk. Agreeing with him, Townson cited Fichtel's description, 1 and than he stated his own opinion on the origin of this rock, which can be considered as a remarkably balanced standpoint concerning the plutonist-neptunist debate: "In what countries are such fossils found, and in what catalogues do we meet with such fossils described? Is it not indisputable volcanic countries, and often where the fire still rages; and in the catalogues of their products; Neptunismus, to which I am ready to attribute much of the formation of our globe, or rather of its thin epidermis, with which we are only acquainted, must somewhere cease, and vulcanismus begin; and the only difficulty, and where the learned so little agree, is, where shall the one cease and the other begin? I always thought with the great O 173
