Now, the percolation of water may increase the porousness of that
body which it pervades, but never can thus change it from a porous to a
perfect solid body. But even the percolation of water through the strata
deposited at the bottom of the sea, necessarily required, according to
the supposition of naturalists, must be refused; for, the interstices of
those strata are, from the supposition of the case, already filled with
water; consequently, without first removing that stagnant water, it is
in vain to propose the infiltration of any fluid from the surface.
This is a difficulty which does not occur in our theory, where the
strata, deposited at the bottom of the sea, are to be afterwards heated
by the internal fires of the earth. The natural consequence of those
heating operations may be considered as the converting of the water
contained in the strata into steam, and the expulsion of steam or
vapour, by raising it up against the power of gravity, to be delivered
upon the surface of the earth and again condensed to the state of water.
Let us now conceive the strata, which had been deposited at the bottom
of the sea, as exhausted of their water, and as communicating with the
surface of the earth impregnated with water.
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