--We must not conclude that fire cannot burn
in the mineral regions because our fires require the ventilation of the
atmosphere; for, besides the actual exigence of mineral fire being a
notorious matter of fact, we know that much more powerful means _may_
be employed by nature, for that mineral purpose of exciting heat, than
those which we practise.--We must not conclude that mineral marble is
formed in the same manner as we see a similar stony substance produced
upon the surface of the earth, unless we should have reason to suppose
the analogy to be complete. But, this is the very error into which
mineral philosophers have fallen; and this is the subject which I am now
to endeavour to illustrate.
The manner in which those philosophers have deceived themselves when
reasoning upon the subject of mineral concretion, is this: They see,
that by means of water a stony substance is produced; and, this stony
body so much resembles mineral marble as to be hardly distinguishable in
certain cases. These mineral philosophers then, reasoning in the manner
of the vulgar, or without analysing the subject to its principle,
naturally attribute the formation of the mineral marble to a cause
of the same sort; and, the mineral marble being found so intimately
connected with all other mineral bodies, we must necessarily conclude,
in reasoning according to the soundest principles, that all those
different substances had been concreted in the same manner.
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