While, therefore, the most perfect
solidity is found in certain strata, or occasionally among the
horizontal bodies, this forms no part of their character in general, or
cannot be considered as a distinctive mark, as it truly is with
regard to the alpine strata. These last have a general character of
consolidation and indissolubility, which is in a manner universal. We
are, therefore, now to inquire into the cause of this distinction, and
to form some hypothesis that may be tried by the actual state of things,
in being compared with natural appearances.
As the general cause of consolidation among mineral bodies, formed
originally of loose materials, has been found to consist in certain
degrees of fusion or cementation of those materials by means of heat;
and as, in the examination of the horizontal strata we actually
find very different degrees of consolidation in the several strata,
independent of their positions in relation to height or depth, we have
reason to believe that the heat, or consolidating operation, has not
been equally employed in relation to them all.
We are not now inquiring how an inferior stratum should have been heated
in a lesser degree, or not consolidated, while a superior stratum had
been consolidated in the most perfect manner; we are to reason upon a
fact, which is, that the horizontal strata in general appear not to have
been equally or universally consolidated; and this we must attribute to
an insufficient exertion of the consolidating cause.
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