m without any suspicion of fusion. A fire capable of
melting quartz might surely produce it in larger masses." We have here
a kind of two arguments, for removing the effect of this example; and I
shall consider them separately.

The first of these is, the not being suspected of having been in fusion;
now, if this were to be admitted as an argument against the igneous
origin of stony substances, it might have superseded the adducing of any
other, for it is applicable perhaps to every mineral; but we must here
examine the case more minutely.

This argument, of the manganese being in a mine of iron, if I understand
it rightly, amounts to this, that, as iron ore is not suspected of
having been melted, therefore, we should doubt the manganese having been
so. If this be our author's meaning, it is not the fair conclusion which
the case admits of; for, so far as the manganese appears evidently to
have been in a melted state, the iron ore should be _suspected_ of
having been also in fusion, were there no other evidence of that fact.
In science, however, it is not suspicion that should be employed in
physical investigation; the question at present is; If the phenomena of
the case correspond to the conclusion which the intelligent mineralist,
who examined them, has formed? and, to this question, our author gives
no direct answer. He says, _iron is often found in that form without any
suspicion of fusion_. This is what I am now to answer.

The form in which the manganese appears is one of the strongest proofs
of those masses having been in fusion; and, if iron should ever be found
in that form, it must give the same proof of mineral fusion as this
example of manganese; let us then see the nature of this evidence. The
form of the manganese is that of a fluid body collecting itself into a
spherical figure by the cohesion or attraction of its particles, so far
as may be admitted by other circumstances; but, being here refilled by
the solid part on which it rests, this spherical body is flattened by
the gravitation of its substance. Now here is a regular form, which
demonstrates the masses to have been in the state of fusion; for, there
is no other way in which that form of those reguline masses could have
been induced.

There now remains to be considered what our author has observed
respecting the intensity of the fire and size of the masses. "A
fire capable of melting quartz might surely produce it (meaning the
manganese) in lar