I will for a
moment allow the aqueous theory to have the means for separating
the water from the saline solution, and thus to concrete the saline
substance in the bowels of the earth; this concretion then is to be
examined with a view to investigate the last state of this body, which
is to inform us with regard to those mineral operations. But, our author
has not mentioned whether those masses appear to have been crystallised
from the aqueous solution, or if they appear to have been congealed from
the melted state of their _aqueous fusion_.--Has he ever thought of
this? Now this is so material a point in the view with which that
example has been held out to us, that, without showing that this salt
had crystallised from the solution, he has no right to employ it as an
example; and if, on the other hand, it should appear to have simply
congealed from the state of aqueous fusion, then, instead of answering
the purpose for which our author gave it, it would refute his
supposition, as certainly as the example which I have given.
So far I have reasoned upon the supposition of this alkali, with its
water of crystallization, being truly a mineral concretion; but, I see
no authority for such a supposition: It certainly may be otherwise;
and, in that case, our author would have no more right to give it as an
example in opposition to Dr Black's argument, than he would have to give
the crystallization of sea-salt, on Turk's Island, in opposition to the
example which I had given, of the salt rock, at Northwych in Cheshire,
having been in the state of fusion.
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