But
with what are they to be filled? Not with water; they are full of that
already: Not with the substance of the bodies which contain that water;
this would be only to make one cavity in order to fill up another.
If, therefore, the cavities of the strata are to be filled with solid
matter, by means of water, there must be made to pass through those
porous masses, water impregnated with some other substances in a
dissolved state; and the aqueous menstruum must be made to separate
from the dissolved substance, and to deposit the same in those cavities
through which the solution moves.
By such a supposition as this, we might perhaps explain a partial
consolidation of those strata; but this is a supposition, of which the
case under consideration does not admit; for in the present case, which
is that of materials accumulated at the bottom of the ocean, there is
not proper means for separating the dissolved matter from the water
included in those enormous masses; nor are there any means by which a
circulation in those masses may be formed. In this case, therefore,
where the means are not naturally in the supposition, a philosopher, who
is to explain the phenomenon by the natural operation of water in this
situation, must not have recourse to another agent, still more powerful,
to assist his supposition which cannot be admitted.
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