Theory of the Earth Volume I Part 20

_Lastly_, We have another principle for the dissolution of siliceous substance. This is the fluor acid which volatilises the siliceous substance. This, however, requires certain conditions, which cannot be found as a general cause in the mineral regions.

Thus we would seem to have every thing necessary for explaining the concretion and crystallization of siliceous bodies, provided we could find the proper conditions requisite for that operation; for whether it shall be by means of acid or alkaline substances that siliceous matter is to be dissolved, volatilised, and transported from one place to another, it is necessary that those dissolving substances should be present upon those occasions. Nor is it sufficient only to dissolve the siliceous substance which is to be transported; the necessary conditions for the concretion again of the dissolved substances, whatever these may be, are also absolutely required for this operation. Now, though those requisite conditions may be, upon many occasions, allowed in the earth, it is not according to the theory of our modern naturalists, who explain petrifaction upon the principles of simple infiltration of water, that any advantage can be taken of those conditions; nor are natural appearances to be explained without employing more complicated chemical agents in the mineral regions.

To this subject of the petrifactions of Giezier, I may now add the information which we have received in consequence of a new voyage from this country to Iceland.

When Sir Joseph Banks returned from his expedition to Iceland, he landed at this place; and, having brought specimens of the petrifications of Giezer, Dr Black and I first discovered that these were of a siliceous substance. I have always conjectured that the water of Giezer must be impregnated with flinty matter by means of an alkaline substance, and so expressed my opinion in the Theory of the Earth published in the Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society. We have therefore been very desirous of procuring some of that water, in order to have it a.n.a.lysed.

An opportunity favourable to our views has occurred this summer. Mr Stanley set out from this place with the same purpose of examining Iceland. He was so good as to ask of Dr Black and I what inquiries we would incline that he should make. We have now, by the favour of this gentleman, obtained specimens of the petrifactions of Giezer; and, what is still more interesting, we have procured some of the water of those petrifying boiling springs.

It appears from these specimens, that the boiling water which is ejected from those aqueous volcanoes, if we may use the expression, is endued with the quality of forming two different species of petrifaction or incrustation; for, besides the siliceous bodies, of which we had before received specimens, the same stream of water incrustates its channel with a calcareous substance. All the specimens which I have seen consist of incrustation, some purely siliceous, some calcareous, and others mixed of those two, more or less.

Dr Black has been a.n.a.lysing the water; and he finds in it siliceous matter dissolved by an alkaline substance, in the manner of liquor silic.u.m[44]. My conjecture has thus been verified.

[Note 44: See Trans. of the Edin. Royal Society.]

It must not be alleged that nature may operate in the mineral regions, as she does here upon the surface in the case of Giezer. Such an argument as this, however sound it may be in general, will not apply to the subject of which we treat at present. There is no question about the limiting the powers of nature; we are only considering nature as operating in a certain determined manner, viz. by water acting simply upon the loose materials of the land deposited at the bottom of the sea, and acc.u.mulated in regular strata, one upon another, to the most enormous depth or thickness. This is the situation and condition of things in which nature is to operate; and we are to find the means of consolidating those strata, and concreting every species of substance in almost every possible composition, according to some known physical principle. Here is an operation which is limited; for, we must reason strictly, according to the laws of nature, in the case which we have under consideration; and we cannot suppose nature as ever transgressing those laws.

It is acknowledged, that, by means sometimes of an aeriform, sometimes of an alkaline, perhaps also of an acid substance, calcareous matter is dissolved in the earth, and certain metallic substances, such as lead and iron. This solution also, upon particular occasions, (where the proper conditions for separating the solvent from the dissolved substance exist), forms certain concretions; these are sometimes a mere incrustation, as in the case of the siliceous incrustation of Giezer, sometimes again in a crystallised or sparry form, as in the case of stalactical concretions. But here is no question of those cases where the proper conditions may be found; first, of dissolving the substance which is afterwards to be concreted; secondly, of separating the menstruum from the dissolved substance; and, lastly, of removing the fluid deprived of its solution, and of supplying a new solution in its room; the question is, how far those concretions are formed where those conditions do not take place. Now, this last case is that of almost all mineral concretions.

It must not be here alleged that certain concretions have been found in mines posterior to these having been worked by man; consequently, that those concretions have been formed by nothing but the infiltration of water. In those cases, where such concretions are truly found, I am persuaded that all the conditions proper to that operation will also be found; and it is only, I believe, in those cases where such proper conditions may be found, that this aqueous concretion ever appears. Now, if we shall except calcareous stalact.i.te, and the bog ore of iron, How seldom is it that any appearance of those aqueous mineral concretion ever is found? Those very few cases in which they are found, afford the strongest proof against these being operations general to the globe, or proper mineral concretions; because it is only where all the necessary conditions conspire in each contributing its part, that the effect is accomplished; and this is a thing which cannot possibly take place in the aquiform strata below the surface of the sea. But, without attending to this clear distinction of things perfectly different, naturalists are apt to see false a.n.a.logies, and thus in generalising to form the most erroneous theories.

I shall now give an example of this fallaceous manner of reasoning; it is in the case of certain mineral appearances which are erroneously considered as stalactical concretions.

The only true stalactical bodies are of a calcareous substance; they are formed by water containing this substance in a dissolved state; and the principles upon which this particular concretion is formed are well known. It is therefore easy to compare other concretions, which may have some superficial resemblance to these stalactical bodies, in order to see if they have proceeded upon the same principle of concretion from a dissolved state, or by water depositing its dissolved substance in a similar manner.

There are two different mineral substances which give appearances of this sort. These are certain concretions of calcedony, and also of iron-ore, which are thought to have such resemblance to stalactical concretions as, by some superficial observers, to be reckoned of the same kind. It is now proposed to show that those conclusions are not well founded; and that, in this case of calcedony and iron-ore, it could not be upon the principle of stalactical concretion that the bodies now in question had their forms.

The principle upon which calcareous substance is dissolved in water, and made to concrete by the evaporation of the acid substance, or fixed air by which it had been dissolved, is too well known to require any explanation in this place; we are only to consider the sensible effects of those operations of which we know so well the proper conditions.

There are just two distinct views under which we may consider all stalactical concretions formed; these are the incrustation of the calcareous substance concreting upon a foreign body, and the incrustation of the same substance upon itself. By the first any manner of shape may be formed, provided there be a solid body, upon the surface of which the calcareous solution is made to pa.s.s. By the second, again, we have various forms; but we know the principles upon which they had been made. These are the shape and motions of the fluid which gives the calcareous concretion. Now, these principles are always to be perceived, more or less, in all the bizarre or fantastical, as well as regular shapes which are produced by stalactical concretions. At present, we shall confine our views to one particular shape, which is simple, regular, and perfectly understood wherever it is formed.

Drops of water falling from a roof, and forming stalact.i.te, produce first tubular bodies, and then gradually consolidate and increase those pendulous bodies by incrustation. These appearances are thought to be observed in the calcedony and ferruginous concretions, which has led some mineralists to conclude, that those concretions had been formed in the same manner, by means of water. We are now to show that these mineral appearances are not a.n.a.logous to stalact.i.tes in their formation, and that they have evidently been formed in a different manner.

It must be evident, that, in the formation of those pendulous bodies, each distinct stalact.i.te must be formed by a separate drop of water; consequently, that no more stalact.i.tes can be formed in a given s.p.a.ce, than there could have subsisted separate drops of water. Now, a drop of water is a very determined thing; and thus we have a principle by which to judge of those mistaken appearances.

Let us suppose the gut of water to be but one eighth of an inch, although it is a great deal more, we should have no stalact.i.tes formed nearer to each other than that measure of s.p.a.ce. But those mineral concretions, which are supposed to be stalactical, are contained in half that s.p.a.ce, or are nearer to each other than the tenth or twentieth of an inch. I have them like needles, and in every degree of proximity or contiguity, at the same time that they are perfectly solid. Therefore, it is plainly impossible that they could have been formed upon this principle of calcareous stalact.i.te. But, it is only by this false resemblance, that any argument can be formed for the concretion of those bodies from an aqueous solution; in every other respect they are true mineral concretions; and, that these have had a very different origin, has been already the subject of investigation, and will be more particularly examined in the course of this work.

The term _infiltration_, which has been much employed for explaining mineral appearances, is too vague, imperfect, or unexplicit, for science, whether as the means of knowing nature, or the subject of confutation. This is not the case with that of stalact.i.te; here is a term that implies a certain natural operation, or a most distinct process for attaining a certain end; and we know the principles upon which it proceeds, as well as the several steps that may be traced in the general result. It is an operation which has not only been a.n.a.lysed to its principles; it is also a process which is performed by man, proceeding on his acquired knowledge. Now, were this operation common to the mineral regions, as it is proper to the surface of this earth; we could not remain in any degree of suspense with regard to the origin of those mineral bodies; for, having the true clue of knowledge, we should be able to unravel the most intricate and mysterious appearance. But, so far from this being the case, the more we come to inquire into nature, and employ this principle, the less we find it applicable, and the more involved in darkness is our science.

The places where these false appearances of stalact.i.te are found, are precisely those in which, from the nature of things, all possibility for such an operation is excluded. For, How can this take place within a closs cavity in the mineral regions? The term _vegetation_ may as well be employed for the explanation of those appearances: But what would now be said of such an explication? It is high time that science were properly applied to the natural history of this earth, and mineralists not allowed to impose upon themselves with false reasoning, or to please themselves with the vain attempt of explaining visible effects by unknown causes.

Such various inconsistent opinions, respecting petrifaction or mineral concretion, as I have now exposed, opinions that are not founded on any sound physical principle, authorise me to conclude that they are all erroneous. If this be admitted, it will follow that we have no proof of any proper mineral concretion except that which had proceeded by congelation from the fluid state of fusion. This has been the doctrine which I have held out in my Theory of the Earth; and this will be more and more confirmed as we come to examine particular mineral appearances.

CHAP. VIII.

The Nature of Mineral Coal, and the Formation of Bituminous Strata, investigated.

SECT. I.--Purpose of this Inquiry.

In the first chapter, I have given a perfect mark by which to judge, of every consolidated stratum, how far that had been the operation or effect of water alone, or if it had been that of heat and fusion. This is the particular veins or divisions of the consolidated stratum, arising from the contraction of the ma.s.s, distended by heat, and contracted in cooling. It is not an argument of greater or lesser probability; it is a physical demonstration; but, so far as I see, it would appear to be for most mineralists an unintelligible proposition.

Time, however, will open the eyes of men; science will some day find admittance into the cabinet of the curious. I will therefore now give another proof,--not of the consolidation of mineral bodies by means of fusion, for there is no mineral body in which that proof is not found,--but of the inconsistency of aqueous infiltration with the appearances of bodies, where not only fusion had been employed for the consolidation, but where the application of heat is necessary, and along with it the circ.u.mstances proper for _distillation_.

Short-sighted naturalists see springs of water issuing from the earth, one forming calcareous incrustations, the other depositing bituminous substances. Here is enough for them to make the theory of a world; on the one hand, solid marble is explained, on the other, solid coal.

Ignorance suspects not error; their first step is to reason upon a false principle;--no matter, were they only to reason far enough, they would soon find their error by the absurdity into which it lands them. The misfortune is, they reason no farther; they have explained mineralogy by infiltration; and they content themselves with viewing the beautiful specimens in their cabinet, the supposed product of solution and crystalization. How shall we inform such observators; How reason with those who attend not to an argument!

As naturalists have explained all mineral concretions from aqueous or other solution, and attributed to infiltration the formation of those stony bodies in which there are marks of their original composition, so have they explained to themselves, I suppose, the origin of those bituminous bodies which are found among the strata of the earth. In the case of stony substances, I have shown how unfounded all their theories are for the production of those concretions, crystallizations, and consolidated bodies. I am here to examine the subject of inflammable and combustible bodies, which I believe have been little considered by those theorists who suppose mineral bodies consolidated by infiltration. It is here that we shall find an infinite difference between the aqueous and igneous theories; for, we shall find it impossible to explain by the one certain operations which must have necessarily required the great agent generally employed in the other.

The subject of this chapter is a touch-stone for every theory of the earth. In every quarter of this globe, perhaps in every extensive country, bituminous strata are to be found; they are alternated with those which are called aquiform, or which had been evidently formed by subsidence of certain moved materials at the bottom of the sea; so far, therefore, all those strata have had the same origin. In this point I think I may a.s.sert, that all the different theories at present are agreed; and it is only concerning certain transformations of those strata, since their original collection, that have been ascribed to different causes.

Of these transformations, which the strata must have undergone, there are two kinds; one in relation to change of place and position; the other in relation to solidity or consistence. It is only the last of those two changes which is here to be the subject of consideration; because, with regard to the first, there is nothing peculiar in these bituminous strata to throw any light, in that respect, upon the others.

This is not the case with regard to the transformation in their chemical character and consistence; bituminous bodies may not be affected by chemical agents, such as fire and water, in the same manner as the argillaceous, siliceous, micaceous, and such other strata that are alternated with the bituminous; and thus we may find the means for investigating the nature of that agent by which those strata in general have been transformed in their substance; or we may find means for the detecting of false theories which may have been formed with regard to those operations in which the original deposits of water had been changed.

We have had but two theories, with regard to the transformation of those bodies which have had a known origin, or to the change of their substance and consistence; the one of these which I have given is that of heat or fusion; the other, which I wish to be compared with mine, is that of water and infiltration. It is by this last that all authors. .h.i.therto, in one shape or another, have endeavoured to explain the changes that those strata must have undergone since the time of their first formation at the bottom of the sea. They indiscriminately apply the doctrine of infiltration to those strata of mineral coal as to any other; they say that bituminous matter is infiltrated with the water, impregnates certain strata of earth with bituminous matter, and thus converts them into mineral coal, and bituminous strata. This is not reasoning physically, or by the inductive method of proceeding upon matter of fact; it is reasoning fantastically, or by making gratuitous supposition founded merely on imagination. It was thus that natural philosophers reasoned before the age of science; the wonder now is, how men of science, in the present enlightened age, should suffer such language of ignorance and credulity to pa.s.s uncensured.

The subject which I am now to treat of consists of peculiar strata of the earth, bodies which we may investigate through all the stages of their change, which is extreme; for, from vegetable bodies produced upon the habitable earth, they are now become a mineral body, and the most perfect coal,--a thing extremely different from what it had been, and a thing which cannot be supposed to have been accomplished by the operation of water alone, or any other agent in nature with which we are acquainted, except the action of fire or heat. It is therefore impossible for a philosopher, reasoning upon actual physical principles, not to acknowledge in this a complete proof of the theory which has been given, and a complete refutation of that aqueous operation which has been so inconsiderately supposed as consolidating the strata of the earth, and forming the various mineral concretions which are found in that great body.

To see this, it will be sufficient to trace the progress of vegetable and animal substances, (bodies which had certainly lived by means of a former earth), to this changed state in which they have become perfect mineral bodies, and const.i.tute a part of the present earth. For, as these changes are perfectly explained by the one theory, and absolutely inconsistent with the other, there arises from this a conviction that must be irresistible to a person who can give proper attention to a chain of reasoning from effect to cause.

But if we thus succeed to ill.u.s.trate the theory of the earth by the natural history of those particular strata, we have but one step farther to make in order to bring all the other parts of the earth, whether stratified or not, into the most perfect consistence with the theory; now this step, it will be most easy to make; and I shall now mention it, that so the reader may keep it in his view: Pyrites is a sulphureo-metallic substance, which cannot be produced by means of water, a substance which the influences of the atmosphere decomposes or separates into its elements, and which even our imperfect art may be considered as able to produce, by means of fusion in our fires.

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 ill.u.s.trate in that doctrine. What I have now in view is, to h.o.m.ologate 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.s, 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. If, therefore, it were proved, that either the one or other of those two substances had been consolidated by fusion, the other must be acknowledged as having had the same origin; but now I am to prove, from the natural history of mineral coal, that pyrites had been there formed by fusion; and then, by means of the known origin of that sulphureo-metallic substance, we shall extend our knowledge to the origin of every other mineral body.

The process of this argument is as follows: Every mineral body, I believe, without exception, will be found so intimately connected with pyrites, that these two things must be concluded as having been together in a fluid state, and that, whatever may have been the cause of fluidity in the one, this must have also caused the fluidity in the other; consequently, whatever shall be proved with regard to the mineral operations of pyrites, must be considered as proved of every other mineral substance. But, from the connection of pyrites with mineral coal, it is to be proved that the origin of this metallic body had been fusion; and then it will appear, that all other mineral bodies must have been more or less in fusion, or that they must have been consolidated by means of heat, and not by any manner of solution or aqueous infiltration. I therefore now proceed to take a view of the natural history of coal strata,--a subject which mineralogists seem not inclined to engage with, although the most ample data are to be found for that investigation.

SECT. II.--Natural History of Coal Strata, and Theory of this Geological Operation.

Fossil coal is the species of stratum best understood with regard to its accidents, as being much sought after; at least, this is the case in many parts of Britain, where it supplies the place of wood for burning.

This fossil body has the most distinguished character; for, being inflammable or combustible in its nature, there is no other species of stratum that may be confounded with it.

But, though coal be thus the most distinguishable mineral, and that which is best understood in the science of mining, it is perhaps the most difficult to be treated of in the science of mineralogy; for, not having properly any distinguishable parts, we have nothing in the natural const.i.tution of this body, as we have in most other strata, to lead us to the knowledge of its original state or first formation.

The varieties of coal are distinguished by their different manner of burning; but, from appearances of this kind, no perfect judgement can be formed with regard to the specific manner in which those strata had been made; although, from chemical principles, some conclusion may be drawn concerning certain changes which they have undergone since they had been formed.

Thus we have one species of coal which is extremely fusible, abounds with oil, and consequently is inflammable; we have another species again which is perfectly fixed and infusible in the fire; therefore, we may conclude upon principle, that, however, both those coals must have undergone the operation of heat and fusion, in bringing them to their present state, it is only the last that has become so much evaporated as to become perfectly fixed, or so perfectly distilled, as to have been reduced to a caput mortuum.

The argument here employed is founded upon this fact; that, from the fusible species of coal, a caput mortuum may be formed by distillation, and that this chemical production has every essential quality, or every peculiar property, of the fixed and infusible species; although, from the circ.u.mstances of our operation, this caput mortuum may not have precisely the exterior appearance of the natural coal. But, we have reason to believe, it is not in the nature of things to change the infusible species, so as to make it fusible or oily. Now, that this body was not formed originally in its present state, must appear from this, that the stratum here considered is perfectly solid; but, without fusion, this could not have been attained; and the coal is now supposed to be infusible. Consequently, this fixed substance, which is now, properly speaking, a perfect coal, had been originally an oily bituminous or fusible substance. It is now a fixed substance, and an infusible coal; therefore, it must have been by means of heat and distillation that it had been changed, from the original state in which this stratum had been formed.

We have thus, in the examination of coal strata upon chemical principles, received a certain lesson in geology, although this does not form a proper distinction by which to specify those strata in general, or explain the variety of that mineral. For, in this manner, we could only distinguish properly two species of those strata; the one bituminous or inflammable; the other proper coal, burning without smoke or flame. Thus it will appear that, as this quality of being perfectly charred is not originally in the const.i.tution of the stratum, but an accident to which some strata of every species may have been subjected, we could not cla.s.s them by this property without confounding together strata which had differences in their composition or formation.

Therefore, we are led to inquire after some other distinction, which may be general to strata of fossil coal, independent of those changes which this substance may have undergone after it had been formed in a stratum.

Perfect mineral coal being a body of undistinguishable parts, it is only in its resolution that we may a.n.a.lyse it, and this is done by burning.

Thus, in a.n.a.lysing coal by burning, we have, in the ashes alone, that by which one species of coal may be distinguished from another; and, if we should consider pure coal as having no ashes of itself, we should then, in the weight of its ashes, have a measure of the purity of the coal, this being inversely as the quant.i.ty of the ashes. Now, though this be not accurately true, as the purest coal must have some ashes proper to itself, yet, as this is a small matter compared with the quant.i.ty of earthy matter that may be left in burning some species of coal, this method of a.n.a.lysis may be considered as not far removed from the truth.

But, in distinguishing fossil coal by this species of chemical a.n.a.lysis, not only is there to be found a perfect or indefinite gradation from a body which is perfectly combustible to one that is hardly combustible in any sensible degree, we should also fall into an inconveniency similar to that already mentioned, of confounding two things extremely different in their nature, a bituminous body, and a perfect charcoal. Thus, if we shall found our distinction upon the fusibility and different degree of having been charred, we shall confound fossil coals of very different degrees of value in burning, or of very different compositions as strata; if, again, we found it upon the purity of composition, in judging from the ashes, we shall confound fossil bodies of very different qualities, the one burning with much smoke and flame, the other without any; the one fusible almost like wax, the other fixed and infusible as charcoal.