But what
it is chiefly now in view to illustrate, is that immense force which is
manifested in the fracture and dispersion of the solid contents which
had formerly filled those veins. Here we find fragments of rock and spar
floating in the body of a vein filled with metallic substances; there,
again, we see the various fragments of metallic masses floating in the
sparry and siliceous contents.
One thing is demonstrable from the inspection of the veins and their
contents; this is, the successive irruptions of those fluid substances
breaking the solid bodies which they meet, and floating those fragments
of the broken bodies in the vein. It is very common to see three
successive series of those operations; and all this may be perceived in
a small fragment of stone, which a man of science may examine in his
closet, often better than descending to the mine, where all the examples
are found on an enlarged scale.
Let us now consider what power would be required to force up, from the
most unfathomable depth of the ocean, to the Andes or the Alps, a column
of fluid metal and of stone.
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