If water had been the menstruum by which the consolidating matter was introduced into the interstices of strata, masses of those bodies could only be found consolidated with such substances as water is capable of dissolving; and these substances would be found only in such a state as the simple separation of the solvent water might produce.

In this case, the consolidation of strata would be extremely limited; for we cannot allow more power to water than we find it has in nature; nor are we to imagine to ourselves unlimited powers in bodies, on purpose to explain those appearances by which we should be made to know the powers of nature.  Let us, therefore, attend, with every possible circumspection, to the appearances of those bodies, by means of which we are to investigate the principles of mineralogy, and know the laws of nature.

The question now before us concerns the consolidating substances of strata.  Are these such as will correspond to the dissolving power of water, and to the state in which these substances might be left by the separation of their menstruum?  No; far, far from this supposition is the conclusion that necessarily follows from natural appearances.

We have strata consolidated by calcareous spar, a thing perfectly distinguishable from the stalactical concretion of calcareous earth, in consequence of aqueous solution.  We have strata made solid by the formation of fluor, a substance not soluble, so far as we know, by water.  We have strata consolidated with sulphureous and bituminous substances, which do not correspond to the solution of water.  We have strata consolidated with siliceous matter, in a state different from that under which it has been observed, on certain occasions, to be deposited by water.  We have strata consolidated by feld-spar, a substance insoluble in water.  We have strata consolidated by almost all the various metallic substances, with their almost endless mixtures and sulphureous compositions; that is to say, we find, perhaps, every different substance introduced into the interstices of strata which had been formed by subsidence at the bottom of the sea.

If it is by means of water that those interstices have been filled with those materials, water must be, like fire, an universal solvent, or cause of fluidity, and we must change entirely our opinion of water in relation to its chemical character.  But there is no necessity thus to violate our chemical principles, in order to explain certain natural appearances; more especially if those appearances may be explained in another manner, consistently with the known laws of nature.