The general tendency of this
is to dissolve calcareous matter out of the earth, and deliver that
solution into the sea. Were it possible to deny that truth, the
very formation of stalactite, that operation which has bewildered
naturalists, would prove it; for it is upon the general solubility of
calcareous matter exposed to water that those cavities are formed, in
which may be found such collections of stalactical concretion; and the
general tendency of those operations is to waste the calcareous bodies
through which water percolates. But how is the general petrifaction or
consolidation of strata, below the surface of the sea, to be explained
by the general dissolution of that consolidating substance in the
earth above that level? Instead of finding a general petrifying or
consolidating operation in the part of the earth which we are able to
examine, we find the contrary operation, so far at least as relates to
calcareous spar, and many other mineral bodies which are decomposed and
dissolved upon the surface of the earth.
Thus in the surface of the earth, above the level of the sea, no
petrifying operation of a durable nature is found; and, were such an
operation there found, it could not be general, as affecting every kind
of substance.
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