So far it seemed necessary to premise with regard to the great mineral
power which we are to employ as an agent in the system of this earth;
and it may be now observed, that it is in the proper relation of this
power of heat and the fluidity or softness of bodies, as cause and
effect, that we are to find a physical principle or argument for
detecting those false theories of the earth that have been only
imagined, and not properly founded on fact or observation. It is also by
means of this principle, that we shall be enabled to form a true theory
of the mineral region, in generalising particular effects to a common
cause.
Let us now proceed in endeavouring to decide this important question,
viz. By what active principle is it, that the present state of things,
which we observe in the strata of the earth, a state so very different
from that in which those bodies had been formed originally, has been
brought about?
Two causes have been now proposed for the consolidating of loose
materials which had been in an incoherent state; these are, on the one
hand, fire; or, on the other, water, as the means of bringing about that
event.
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