had been that of heat and fusion. This
is the particular veins or divisions of the consolidated stratum,
arising from the contraction of the mass, distended by heat, and
contracted in cooling. It is not an argument of greater or lesser
probability; it is a physical demonstration; but, so far as I see, it
would appear to be for most mineralists an unintelligible proposition.
Time, however, will open the eyes of men; science will some day find
admittance into the cabinet of the curious. I will therefore now give
another proof,--not of the consolidation of mineral bodies by means
of fusion, for there is no mineral body in which that proof is not
found,--but of the inconsistency of aqueous infiltration with the
appearances of bodies, where not only fusion had been employed for the
consolidation, but where the application of heat is necessary, and along
with it the circumstances proper for _distillation_.

Short-sighted naturalists see springs of water issuing from the earth,
one forming calcareous incrustations, the other depositing bituminous
substances. Here is enough for them to make the theory of a world; on
the one hand, solid marble is explained, on the other, solid coal.
Ignorance suspects not error; their first step is to reason upon a false
principle;--no matter, were they only to reason far enough, they would
soon find their error by the absurdity into which it lands them. The
misfortune is, they reason no farther; they have explained mineralogy
by infiltration; and they content themselves with viewing the beautiful
specimens in their cabinet, the supposed product of solution and
crystalization. How shall we inform such observators; How reason with
those who attend not to an argument!

As naturalists have explained all mineral concretions from aqueous or
other solution, and attributed to infiltration the formation of those
stony bodies in which there are marks of their original composition,
so have they explained to themselves, I suppose, the origin of those
bituminous bodies which are found among the strata of the earth. In the
case of stony substances, I have shown how unfounded all their theories
are for the production of those concretions, crystallizations, and
consolidated bodies. I am here to examine the subject of inflammable and
combustible bodies, which I believe have been little considered by those
theorists who suppose mineral bodies consolidated by infiltration. It is
here that we shall find an infin