Every one
acknowledges that here is the liquefying power and expansive force of
subterranean fire, or violent heat. But, that Sicily itself had been
raised from the bottom of the ocean, and that the marble called Sicilian
Jasper, had its solidity upon the same principle with the lava, would
stumble many a naturalist to acknowledge. Nevertheless, I have in my
possession a table of this marble, from which it is demonstrable, that
this calcareous stone had flowed, and been in such a state of fusion and
fluidity as lava.
Here is a comparison formed of two mineral substances, to which it is of
the highest importance to attend. The solidity and present state of the
one of these is commonly thought to be the operation of fire; of the
other, again, it is thought to be that of water. This, however, is not
the case. The immediate state and condition of both these bodies is now
to be considered as equally the effect of fire or heat. The reason of
our forming such a different judgment with regard to these two subjects
is this; we see, in the one case, the more immediate connection of the
cause and the effect, while, in the other, we have only the effects from
whence we are in science to investigate the cause.
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