[Note 43:  Water is now considered by men of science, as a compound substance; this doctrine, which seems to follow so necessarily from the experiments of the French philosophers, must be tried by the growing light of chemical science.  In the oxygenating operation of inflammable and combustible bodies when burning, those ingenious chemists overlooked the operation of phlogistic matter, which has no weight, and which escapes on that occasion, as I have had occasion to show in a dissertation upon phlogiston, and in the Philosophy of Light, Heat, and Fire.  How far this view, which I have given of those interesting experiments, may lead to the explanation of other collateral phenomena, such as that of the water produced, I will not pretend to conjecture.  One thing is evident, that if the weight of the water, procured in burning inflammable and vital air, be equal to that of those two gasses, we would then have reason to conclude, either that water were a compound substance, or that vital air, and inflammable vapour were compounds of water and the matter of light, or solar substance.]

I dare say that this is not the view that M. Monnet takes of the subject, when he thinks to explain to himself the concretion of those different substances by means of water; but, according to my apprehension of the matter, his theory, when sifted to the bottom, will bear no other construction; and, unless he shall consider water like the matter of heat, as capable of producing the fluidity of fusion, and of being also again abstracted from the fluid, by pervading the most solid body, which would then be a substance different from water, he must employ this aqueous substance as a menstruum or solvent for solid bodies, in the same manner as has been done by those naturalists whom he he justly censure, and conform to those erroneous ideas which first observations, or inaccurate knowledge of minerals, may have suggested to former naturalists.

It is the dissolution and concretion of siliceous substance, no doubt, that gives such difficulty to our naturalists in explaining petrifaction:  they have, however, something apparently in their favour, which it may be proper now to mention.

In the first place, although siliceous substance is not soluble, so far as we know, by simple water, it is soluble by means of alkaline substance; consequently, it is possible that it may be dissolved in the earth.

Secondly, The water of Giezer in Iceland, actually petrifies bodies which are alternately imbibed with that hot water and exposed to the air.  This water, therefore, not only contains siliceous substance in a dissolved state, but deposits this again, either by means of cooling, or being aerated, or of evaporating.  Consequently, without knowing the principle upon which it proceeds, we here perceive a natural operation by which siliceous petrifaction may be performed.

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.