There is nothing particular in the siliceous mixture in this species of lime-stone, except the vein of that substance.  It is evident that this vein, traversing the mountain, had been introduced in the fluid state of fusion.  I do not mean to say, that, in this particular case now described, the evidence of that truth peculiarly appears; but that, from the general nature of mineral veins breaking and traversing the solid strata of the globe, no other conclusion can be formed; and that in the particulars of this example there is nothing that could lead us to suppose any other origin to the petrifactions contained in this vein of stinking lime-stone.  It is plain, that our author has imagined to himself an unknown manner of executing his mineral metamorphoses.  He sees plainly that the common notion of infiltration will not at all explain the evident confusion of those calcareous and siliceous bodies which appear to him to be metamorphosing into each other.  Nothing, indeed, can explain those phenomena but a general cause of fluidity; and there is no such general cause besides that of heat or fusion.

But to show how mineralists of great merit, gentlemen who have examined systematically and with some accuracy, may impose upon themselves in reasoning for the explanation of mineral appearances from limited notions of things, and from the supposition of these having been formed where they now are found, that is, upon the surface of the earth, I would beg leave to transcribe what this author has said upon this species of petrifaction.  It is not that he is ignorant of what mineralists have already said upon the subject; it is because he sees the incompetency of their explanations in those particular cases; and that he would employ some other more effectual means. (p. 50.)

“Toute terre calcaire a changer dans une autre doit, avant toute chose, etre rendue refractaire ce qui ne peut se faire qu’en la saturant avec un acide.  Mais une terre simplement, saturee d’un acide, est d’une reduction fort aisee, vu que l’acide n’y tient pas trop fort, d’ailleurs ce n’est qu’un sel neutre terreux fort facile a dissoudre dans une quantite suffisante d’eau.  Or pour rendre cette union plus constante, il faut que la terre alcaline s’assimile intimement a l’acide, ce qui ne se sera jamais sans un intermedeliant, qui homogene les parties de ce nouveau corps, et pour que cela ce fasse il est indispensable, qu’il s’opere une dissolution fonciere des parties terrestres de la chaux, qui facilite l’ingress a l’acide, et a l’intermede pour qu’ils s’y lie bien fortement.  Supposons qu’il se forme une liqueur savonneuse de l’acide et du phlogistique, que l’air fixe, mis en liberte, ouvre les interstices des parties qui constituent la terre alcaline, qu’apres cela cette liqueur savonneuse ayant l’entree libre s’assimile a la terre en proportion requise, que l’eau, qui servoit de vehicule dans cette operation, s’evapore successivement, et emporte le superflu des ingrediens,