Let us now examine how far this testimony
for the originality of those masses is to be admitted in fact and sound
reasoning.
[Note 21: There are no collection of those alpine masses in which may
not be found in some of them sand, mica, and gravel; but these materials
prove the existence of an earth, on which those fragments of greater
masses had been formed, and more or less worn by attrition.]
The matter in question at present is this, that there are certain tracts
of countries in which no vestige of organised bodies are found; now, let
us suppose the fact to be true or well grounded, Can we conclude
from this that there had been originally no organised bodies in the
composition of those masses?--Such a conclusion could only be formed in
making a supposition, that every organised body deposited in a mass
of matter, whether homogeneous or heterogeneous, should be preserved
without change, while the collected mass, in which it had been
deposited, changes as much as possible by the operation both of fire and
water. But this supposition is erroneous, and cannot be admitted; and
the study of marbles will demonstrate this truth, that the calcareous
relics of organised bodies are changed, in the consolidating operations
of the globe, in every degree, from the smallest alteration to the
greatest, when they become indistinguishable any farther to our sight.
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