These operations are seen only as the accidents of nature,
and not as part of that design by which the earth, which is necessarily
wasted in the operations of the world, is to be repaired.
So far from employing heat or subterraneous fire as an agent in the
mineral operations of the earth, the volcanic philosophers do not
even attempt to explain upon that principle the frequent nodules of
calcareous, zeolite, and other spatose and agaty substances, in those
basaltic bodies which they consider as lavas. Instead then of learning
to see the operation of heat as a general principle of mineral
consolidation and crystallization, the volcanic philosophers endeavour
to explain those particular appearances, which they think inconsistent
with fusion, by aqueous infiltration, no otherwise than other
mineralists who do not admit the igneous origin of those basaltic
bodies. Thus, that great agent, subterraneous heat, has never been
employed by geologists, as a general principle in the theory of the
earth; it has been only considered as an occasional circumstance, or as
the accident of having certain mineral bodies, which are inflammable,
kindled in the earth, without so much as seeing how that may be done.
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