But, even suppose that such a general operation were found
to take place in the earth above the level of the sea, where there might
be a circulation of air and percolation of water, How could the strata
of the earth below the level of the sea be petrified? This is a question
that does not seem to have entered into the heads of our naturalists
who attempt to explain petrifaction or mineral concretion from aqueous
solutions. But the consolidation of loose and incoherent things,
gathered together at the bottom of the sea, and afterwards raised
into rocks of various sorts, forms by far the greatest example of
petrification or mineral operation of this globe. It is this that must
be explained in a mineral theory; and it is this great process of
petrifaction to which the doctrine of infiltration, whether for the
mechanical purpose of applying cohesive surfaces, or the chemical one of
forming crystallizations and concretions, will not by any means apply.
Nothing shows more how little true science has been employed for the
explanation of phenomena, than the language of modern naturalists, who
attribute, to stalactical and stalagmical operations, every superficial
or distant resemblance to those calcareous bodies, the origin of which
we know so well.
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