Mais quoi-qu'il en soit, ces gangues ne font pas de meme date que les
montagnes[30].
[Note 30: I most willingly admit the justness of our author's view, if
he thus perceives the operation of fire in the solids of our earth; but
it is not for the reasons he has given us for discovering it here more
than in other places; for there is not a mineral vein, (so far at least
as I have seen), in which the appearances may be explained by any thing
else besides the operation of fire or fusion. It is not easy to conceive
in what manner our author had conceived the opinions which he has
displayed in these letters. He had no opinion of this kind, or rather he
was persuaded that subterraneous fire had no hand in the formation of
this earth before he came to this place of the Hartz; here he finds
certain appearances, by which he is confirmed in his former opinion,
that water had operated in forming mineral veins; and then he forms the
idea that subterraneous fire may have operated also. But, before the
discovery of the chasms in the schistus mountains having been filled
with the stratified materials of the sea, How had he supposed veins to
be filled? If this philosopher had before no opinion of subterraneous
fire, as instrumental in that operation, How comes he now to change that
former opinion? For, unless it be the extraordinary manner of filling
these open crevices in the mountains by matter deposited immediately
from the sea, there is certainly no other appearance in this mineral
country of the Hartz, that may not be found in any other, only perhaps
upon a smaller scale.
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