Therefore, the finding of this creature of fire intimately connected
with those consolidated strata of mineral coal, adds the greatest
confirmation, were it necessary, to the doctrine of those mineral bodies
having been consolidated by fusion. This confirmation, however, is
not necessary, and it is not the only thing which I am at present to
illustrate in that doctrine. What I have now in view is, to homologate
the origin of those coal strata, with the production of every other
mineral substance, by heat or fusion; and this is what the intimate
connection of pyrites with those strata will certainly accomplish. This
will be done in the following manner:
Pyrites is not only found in great masses along with the coal strata; it
is contained in the veins which traverse those strata, and in the minute
ramifications of those veins, which are occasioned by the contraction of
the mass, and generally divide it into small cubical pieces; but besides
that extrinsic connection, (as it may be called,) with the stratum of
coal, pyrites is found intimately connected with that solid body, in
being mixed with its substance.
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