But, when
strata are found consolidated, at what time is it that we are to suppose
this event to have taken place, or this accident to have happened to
them?--Strata are formed at the bottom of water, by the subsidence or
successive deposits of certain materials; it could not therefore
be during their formation that such strata had been consolidated;
consequently, we must necessarily _conclude_, without any degree of
_supposition_, that _strata had existed at the bottom of the sea
previous to their consolidation_, unless our author can show how they
may have been consolidated previous to their existing.
This then is what our author has termed a gratuitous supposition of
mine, and which, he adds, "is a circumstance which will not be allowed
by the patrons of the aqueous origin of stony substances, as we have
already seen."--I am perfectly at a loss to guess at what is here
alluded to _by having been already seen_, unless it be that which I have
already quoted, concerning things which have been never seen, that
is, _those interior parts of the earth which were originally a solid
mass_.
Pages:
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227