The question, with regard to this example of our author's of a mineral
alkali with its water of crystallization, must be this, Whether those
saline bodies had been concreted by the evaporation of the aqueous
solvent with which they had been introduced, or by the congelation of
that saline substance from a fluid state of fusion; for, surely, we are
not to suppose those bodies to have been created in the place and state
in which we find them. With regard to the evaporation or separation
of the aqueous solvent, this may be easily conceived according to the
igneous theory; but, the aqueous theory has not any means for the
producing of that effect in the mineral regions, which is the only place
we are here concerned with. Therefore, this example of a concreted body
of salt, whatever it may prove in other respects, can neither diminish
the evidence of my Theory with regard to the igneous origin of stony
substances, nor can it contribute to support the opposite supposition of
an aqueous origin to them.
But to show how little reason our author had for exulting in that
question which he so confidently proposed in order to defeat my
argument, let us consider this matter a little farther.
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