Therefore, a
general theory of petrification or consolidation of mineral bodies must
explain this distinct fact, and not suffer it any longer to remain a
_lusus naturae_.
[Note 36: Mem. de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, an. 1775.]
Let us now consider what it is that we have to explain, upon the
supposition of those concretions being formed from a solution. We have,
first, To understand what sort of a solution had been employed for the
introducing of those various substances; secondly, How those concretions
had been formed from such solutions within those bodies of strata; and,
lastly, How such concretions could have been formed, without any vestige
appearing of the same substance, or of the same operation, in the
surrounding part of the stratum. Whatever may be the difficulty
of explaining those particular appearances by means of fusion and
mechanical force, it is plainly impossible to conceive those bodies
formed in those places by infiltration, or any manner of concretion from
a state of solution.
Naturalists, in explaining the formation of stones, often use a chemical
language which either has no proper meaning, or which will not apply to
the subject of mineral operations.
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