Now, in order to see that there had been immense compression, we have
but to consider that the formation of the strata, which are to be
consolidated, was at the bottom of the ocean, and that this place is to
us unfathomable. If it be farther necessary to show that it had been at
such unfathomable depth strata were consolidated, it will be sufficient
to observe, it is not upon the surface of the earth, or above the level
of the sea, that this mineral operation can take place; for, it is there
that those consolidated bodies are redissolved, or necessarily going
into decay, which is the opposite to that operation which we are now
inquiring after; therefore, if they were consolidated in any other place
than at the bottom of the sea, it must have been between that place of
their formation and the surface of the sea; but that is a supposition
which we have not any reason to make; therefore, we must conclude that
it was at the bottom of the ocean those stratified bodies had been
consolidated.]
To conclude this long chemico-mineral disquisition, I have specimens in
which the mixture of calcareous, siliceous, and metallic substances,
in almost every species of concretion which is to be found in mineral
bodies, may be observed, and in which there is exhibited, in miniature,
almost every species of mineral transaction, which, in nature, is found
upon a scale of grandeur and magnificence.
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