Naturalists, in explaining the formation of stones, often use a chemical language which either has no proper meaning, or which will not apply to the subject of mineral operations.  We know the chemical process by which one or two stony concretions may be formed among bodies passing from one state to another.  When, therefore, a change from a former state of things in mineral bodies is judged by naturalists to have happened, the present state is commonly explained, or the change is supposed to have been made by means of a similar process, without inquiring if this had truly been the case or not.  Thus their knowledge of chemistry has led naturalists to reason erroneously, in explaining things upon false principles.  It would be needless to give an example of any one particular author in this respect; for, so far as I have seen, it appears to be almost general, every one copying the language of another, and no one understanding that language which has been employed.

These naturalists suppose every thing done by means of solution in the mineral kingdom, and yet they are ignorant of those solvents.  They conceive or they imagine concretions and crystallizations to be formed of every different substance, and in every place within the solid body of the earth, without considering how far the thing is possible which they suppose.  They are constantly talking of operations which could only take place in the cavities of the earth above the level of the sea, and where the influence of the atmosphere were felt; and yet this is the very place which we have it in our power to examine, and where, besides the stalactite, and one or two more of the same kind, or formed on the same principle, they have never been able to discover one of the many which, according to their theory, ought always to be in action or effect.  So far from knowing that general consolidating operation, which they suppose to be exerted in filling up the veins and cavities of the earth by means of the infiltrating water of the surface, they do not seem fully to understand the only operation of this kind which they see.  The concretion of calcareous matter upon the surface of the earth is perhaps the only example upon which their theory is founded; and yet nothing can be more against it than the general history of this transaction.

Calcareous matter, the great vinculum of many mineral bodies, is in a perpetual state of dissolution and decay, in every place where the influences of air and water may pervade.  The general tendency of this is to dissolve calcareous matter out of the earth, and deliver that solution into the sea.  Were it possible to deny that truth, the very formation of stalactite, that operation which has bewildered naturalists, would prove it; for it is upon the general solubility of calcareous matter exposed to water that those cavities are formed, in which may be found such collections of stalactical concretion; and the general tendency of those operations is to waste the calcareous