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 analysed.

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 analysing the water; and he finds in it siliceous matter dissolved by an alkaline substance, in the manner of liquor silicum[44].  My conjecture has thus been verified.