But when wedges of wood or iron, or frozen water, should be
found lodged in the cleft, we might be enabled, from this appearance, to
form a certain judgment with regard to the nature of the power which
had been applied. This is the case with mineral veins. We find them
containing matter, which indicates a cause; and every information in
this case is interesting to the theory.
The substances contained in mineral veins are precisely the same with
those which, in the former section, we have considered as being made
instrumental in the consolidation of strata; and they are found mixed
and concreted in every manner possible.
But, besides this evidence for the exertion of extreme heat, in that
process by which those veins were filled, there is another important
observation to be gathered from the inspection of this subject. There
appears to have been a great mechanical power employed in the filling of
these veins, as well as that necessarily required in making the first
fracture and divulsion.
This appears from the order of the contents, or filling of these veins,
which is a thing often observed to be various and successive.
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