However that be,
this is not the principal object of the example[42].
[Note 42: Here we have well informed naturalists reasoning with all the
light of our present mineralogy, and maintaining, on the one hand, that
gypsum is transformed into calcedony, by the operation of the meteors,
or some such cause; and, on the other, that a siliceous substance is by
the same means converted into lime-stone. What should we now conclude
from this?--That calcareous and siliceous substances were mutually
convertible. But then this is only in certain districts of Poland and
Siberia. Every where, indeed, we find strange mixtures of calcareous and
siliceous bodies; but neither mineralists nor chemists have, from these
examples, ventured to affirm a metamorphosis, which might have spared
them much difficulty in explaining those appearances.
This is a subject that may be taken in very different lights. In one
view, no doubt, there would appear to be absurdity in the doctrine of
metamorphosis, as there is now a days acknowledged to be in that of
_lusus naturae_; and those reasoning mineralists might thus, in the
opinion of some philosophers, expose their theory to contempt and
ridicule.
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