Theory of the Earth

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Footnotes
233:*  ACCURATE descriptions of those appearances, with drawings, would be, to natural history, a valuable acquisition.

238:* Since this Dissertation was written, M. DE LA PEYROUSE has discovered a native manganese. The circumstances of this mineral are so well adapted for illustrating the present doctrine, and so well related by M. DE LA PEYROUSE, that I should be wanting to the interest of mineral knowledge, were I not to give here that part of his Memoir.

"LORSQUE je fis insérer dans the journal de physique de l'anneée 1780, au mois de Janvier, une Dissertation contenant la classification des mines de manganèse, je ne connoissois point, à cette epoque, la mine de manganèse native. Elle a la couleur de son régule: elle salit les doigts de la même teinte. Son tissu paroit aussi lamelleux, et les lames semblent affecter une sorte de divergence. Elle a ainsi que lui, l'éclat métalllique; comme lui elle se laisse applatir sous le marteau, et s'exfolie si l'on redouble les coups; mais une circonstance qui est trop frappante pour que je l'omette, c'est la figure de la manganèse native, si prodigieusement conforme à celle du régule, qu'on s'y laisseroit tromper, si la mine n'étoit encore dans sa gangue: figure très-essentielle à observer ici, parce qu'elle est due à la nature même de la manganèse. En effect, pour réduire toutes les mines en général, il faut employer divers flux appropriés. Pour la reduction de la manganèse, bien loin d'user de ce moyen, il faut, au contraire, éloigner tout flux, produire la fusion, par la seule violence et la promptetude du feu. Et telle est la propension naturelle et prodigieuse de la manganèse à la vitrification, qu'on n'a pu parvenir encore à réduire son régule en un seul culot; on trouve dans le creuset plusieurs petits boutons, qui forment autant de culots p. 239 séparés. Dans la mine de manganèse native, elle n'est point en une seule masse; elle est disposée également en plusieurs culots séparés, et un peu applatis, comme ceux que l'art produit; beaucoup plus gros, à la vérité, parce que les agens de la nature doivent avoir une autre énergie, que ceux de nos laboratoires; et cette ressemblance si exacte, semble devoir vous faire penser que la mine native a été produite par le feu, tout comme son régule. La presence de la chaux argentée de la manganèse, me permettroit de croire que la nature n'a fait que réduire cette chaux. Du reste, cette mine native est très-pure, et ne contient aucune partie attirable à l'aimant. Cette mine, unique jusqu'à ce moment, vient, tout comme les autres manganèse que j'ai décrites, des mines de fer de Sem, dans la vallée de Viedersos, en Comté de Foix." Journal de Physique, Janvier 1786.

246:* Plate I.

255:* Plate II. fig.I. 2. 3.



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P A R T III.
Investigation of the Natural Operations employed in the Production of Land above the Surface of the Sea
WE seek to know that operation by means of which masses of loose materials, collected at the bottom of the sea, were raised above its surface, and transformed into solid land.

WE have found, that there is not in this globe (as a planet revolving in the solar system) any power or motion adapted to the purpose now in view; nor, were there such a power, could a mass of simply collected materials have continued any considerable time to resist the waves and currents natural to the sea, but must have been quickly carried away, and again deposited at the bottom of the ocean. But we have found, that there had been operations, natural to the bowels of this earth, by which those loose and unconnected materials have been cemented together, and consolidated into masses of great strength and hardness; those bodies are thus enabled to resist the force of waves and currents, and to preserve themselves, for a sufficient time, in their proper shape and place, as land above the general surface of the ocean.

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We now desire to know, how far those internal operations of the globe, by which solidity and stability are procured to the beds of loose materials, may have been also employed in raising up a continent of land, to remain above the surface of the sea.

THERE is nothing so proper for the **** of land above the level of the ocean, as an expansive power of sufficient force, applied directly under materials in the bottom of the sea, under a mass that is proper for the formation of land when thus erected. The question is not, how such a power may be procured; such a power has probably been employed. If, therefore, such a power should be consistent with that which we found had actually been employed in preparing the erected mass; or, if such a power is to be reasonable concluded as accompanying those operations which we have found natural to the globe, and situated in the very place where this expansive power appears to be required, we should thus be led to perceive, in the natural operations of the globe, a power as efficacious for the elevation of what had been at the bottom of the sea into the place of land, as it is perfect for the preparation of those materials to serve the purpose of their elevation.

IN opposition to this conclusion, it will not be allowed to allege, that we are ignorant how such a power might be exerted under the bottom of the ocean; for the present question is not, what had been the cause of heat, which has appeared to have been produced in that place; but, if this power of heat, which has certainly been exerted at the bottom of the ocean for consolidating strata, had been employed also for another purpose, that is, for raising those strata into the place of land.

WE may, perhaps, account for the elevation of land, by the same cause with that of the consolidation of strata, already investigated, without explaining the means employed by nature in procuring the power of heat, or shewing from what general source of action this particular power had been derived; but, by finding in subterranean heat a cause for any other change, besides

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the consolidation of porous or incoherent bodies, we shall generalize a fact, or extend our knowledge in the explanation of natural appearances.

THE power of heat for the expansion of bodies, is, so far as we know, unlimited; but by the expansion of bodies placed under the strata at the bottom of the sea, the elevation of those strata may be affected; and the question now to be resolved regards the actual exertion of this power of expansion, how far it is to be concluded as having been employed in the production of this earth above the level of the sea.

BEFORE attempting to resolve that question, it may be proper to observe, there has been exerted an extreme degree of heat below the strata formed at the bottom of the sea; and this is precisely the action of a power required for the elevation of those heated bodies into a higher place. Therefore, if there is no other way in which we may conceive this event to have been brought about, consistent with the present state of things, or what actually appears, we shall have a right to conclude, that such had been the order of procedure in natural things, and that the strata formed at the bottom of the sea had been elevated, as well as consolidated, by means of subterraneous heat.

THE consolidation of strata by means of fusion or the power of heat, has been concluded from the examination of nature, and from finding, that the present state of things is inconsistent with any other supposition. Now, again, we are considering the only power that may be conceived as capable of elevating strata from the bottom of the sea, and placing such a mass above the surface of the water. It is a truth unquestionable, that what had been originally at the bottom of the sea, is at present the highest of our land. In explaining this appearance, therefore, no other alternative is left, but either to suppose strata elevated by the power of heat above the level of the present sea, or the surface of the ocean reduced many miles below the

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height at which it had subsisted during the collection and induration of the land which we inhabit.

NOW, if, on the one hand, we are to suppose no general power of subterraneous fire or heat, we leave to our theory no means for the retreat of the sea, or the lowering of its surface; if, on the other hand, we are to allow the general power of subterraneous heat, we cannot have much difficulty in supposing, either the surface of the sea to have subsided, or the bottom of the ocean, in certain parts, to have been raised by a subterranean power above the level of the surface, according as appearances shall be found to require the one or other of those conclusions. Here, therefore, we are again remitted to the history of nature, in order to find matter of fact by which this question may be properly decided.

IF the present land had been discovered by the subsiding of the waters, there has not been a former land, from whence materials had been procured for the construction of the present, when at the bottom of the sea; for there is no vestige remaining of that land, the whole land of the present earth having been formed evidently at the bottom of the sea. Neither could the natural productions of the sea have been accumulated, in the shape in which we now find them, on the surface of this earth; for how should the Alps and Andes have been formed within the sea from the natural productions of the water? Consequently, this is a supposition inconsistent with every natural appearance.

THE supposition, therefore, of the subsidence of the former ocean, for the purpose of discovering the present land, is beset with more difficulty than the simple **** of the bottom of the former ocean; for, first, There is a place to provide for the retirement of the waters of the ocean; and, 2dly, There is required a work of equal magnitude; that is, the swallowing up of that former continent, which had procured the materials of the present land.

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ON the one hand, the subsiding of the surface of the ocean would but make the former land appear the higher; and, on the other, the sinking the body of the former land into the solid globe, so as swallow up the greater art of the ocean after it, if not a natural impossibility, would be a least a superfluous exertion of the powers of nature. Such an operation as this would discover as little wisdom in the end elected, as in the means appropriated to that end; for , if the land be not wafted and worn away in the natural operations of the globe, why make such a convulsion in the world in order to renew the land? If, again, the land naturally decays, why employ so extraordinary a power, in order to hide a former continent of land, and puzzle man?

LET us now consider how far the other proposition, of strata being elevated by the power of heat above the level of the sea, may be confirmed from the examination of natural appearances.

THE strata formed at the bottom of the ocean are necessarily horizontal in their position, or nearly so, and continuous in their horizontal direction or extent. They may change, and gradually assume the nature of each other, so far as concerns the materials of which they are formed; but there cannot be any sudden change, fracture or displacement naturally in the body of a stratum. But, if these strata are cemented by the heat of fusion, and erected with an expansive power acting below, we may expect to find every species of fracture, dislocation and contortion, in those bodies, and every degree of departure from a horizontal towards a vertical position.

THE strata of the globe are actually found in every possible position: For from horizontal, they are frequently found vertical; from continuous, they are broken and separated in every possible direction; and, from a plane, they are bent and doubled. It is impossible that they could have originally been formed, by the known laws of nature, in their present state and position;

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and the power that has been necessarily required for their change, has not been inferior to that which might have been required for their elevation from the place in which they had been formed.

IN this case, natural appearances are not anomalous. They are, indeed, infinitely various, as they ought to be, according to the rule; but all those varieties in appearances conspire to prove one general truth, viz. That all which we see had been originally composed according to certain principles, established in the constitution of the terraqueous globe; and that those regular compositions had been afterwards greatly changed by the operations of another power, which had introduced apparent confusion among things first formed in order and by rule.

IT is concerning the operation of this second power that we are now enquiring; and here the apparent irregularity and disorder of the mineral regions are as instructive, with regard to what had been transacted in a former period of time, as the order and regularity of those same regions are conclusive, in relation to the place in which a former state of things had produced that which, in its changed state, we now perceive.

WE are now to conclude, that the land on which we dwell had been elevated from a lower situation by the same agent which had been employed in consolidating the strata, in giving them stability, and preparing them for the purpose of the living world. This agent is matter actuated by extreme heat, and expanded with amazing force.

IF this has been the case, it will reasonable to expect, that some of the expanded matter might be found condensed in the bodies which have been heated by that igneous vapour; and that matter, foreign to the strata, may have been thus introduced into the fractures and separations of those indurated masses.

WE have but to open our eyes to be convinced of this truth. Look into the sources of our mineral treasures; ask the miner

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from whence has come the metal into his veins? Not from the earth or air above, not from the strata which the vein traverses; these do not contain one atom of the minerals now considered: There is but one place from whence these minerals may have come; this is, the bowels of the earth, the place of power and expansion, the place from whence must have proceeded that intense heat by which loose materials have been consolidated into rocks, as well as that enormous force by which the regular strata have been broken and displaced.

OUR attention is here peculiarly called upon, where we have the opportunity of examining those mineral bodies, which have immediately proceeded from the unknown region, that place of power and energy which we want to explore; for, if such is the system of the earth, that materials are first deposited at the bottom of the ocean, there to be prepared in a certain manner, in order to acquire solidity, and then to be elevated into the proper place of land, these mineral veins, which contain matter absolutely foreign to the surface of the earth, afford the most authentic information with regard to the operations which we want to understand. It is these veins which we are to consider as, in some measure, the continuation of that mineral region, which lies necessarily out of all possible reach of our examination. It is, therefore, peculiarly interesting to know the state in which things are to be found in this place, which may be considered as intermediate between the solid land, upon the one hand, and the unknown regions of the earth, upon the other.

WE are now to examine those mineral veins; and these may be considered, first, in relation to their form, independent of their substance or particular contents; and, secondly, in relation to the contained bodies, independent of their form.

IN examining consolidated strata, we remarked veins and cutters as a proof of the means by which those bodies had been consolidated. In that case, the formation of these veins is

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a regulated process, determined by the degree of fusion, and the circumstances of condensation or refrigeration. In respect of these, the mineral veins now to be examined are anomalous. They are; but we know not why or how. We see the effect; but, in that effect, we do not see the cause. We can say, negatively, that the cause of mineral veins is not that by which the veins and fissures of consolidated strata have been formed; consequently, that is not the measured contraction and regulated condensation of the consolidated land which has formed those general mineral veins; however, veins, similar in many respects, have been formed by the co-operation of this cause.

HAVING thus taken a view of the evident distinction between the veins or contractions that are particular to the consolidated body in which they are found, and those more general veins which are not limited to that cause, we may now consider what is general in the subject, or what is universal in these effects of which we wish to investigate the cause.

THE event of highest generalization or universality, in the form of those mineral veins, is fracture and dislocation. It is not, like that of the veins of strata, simple separation and measured contraction; it is violent fracture and unlimited dislocation. In the one case, the forming cause is in the body which is separated; for, after the body had been actuated by heat, it is by the reaction of the proper matter of the body, that the chasm which constitutes the vein is formed. In the other case, again, the cause is extrinsic in relation to the body in which the chasm is formed. There has been the most violent fracture and divulsion; but the cause is still to seek; and it appears not in the vein; for it is not every fracture and dislocation of the solid body of our earth, in which minerals, or the proper substances of mineral veins, are found.

WE are now examining matter of fact, real effects, from whence we would investigate the nature of certain events which do not now appear. Of these, two kinds occur; one which has

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acted in relation to the hardness and solidity, or the natural constitution of the body; the other, to its shape or local situation. The first has been already considered; the last is now the subject of enquiry.

BUT, in examining those natural appearances, we find two different kinds of veins; the one necessarily connected with the consolidating causes; the other with that cause of which we now particularly enquire. For, in those great mineral veins, violent fracture and dislocation is the principle; but there is no other principle upon which strata, or masses formed at the bottom of the sea, can be placed at a height above its surface. Hence, in those two different operations, for forming mineral veins, and erecting strata form a lower to a higher place, the principle is the same; for neither can be done without violent fracture and dislocation.

WE now only want to know, how far it is by the same power, as well as upon the same principle, that those two operations have been made. An expansive force, acting from below, is the power most proper for erecting masses; but whether it is a power of the same nature with that which has been employed in forming mineral veins, will best appear in knowing the nature of their contents. These, therefore, may be now considered.

EVERY species of fracture, and every degree of dislocation and contortion, may be received in the form of mineral veins; and there is no other general principle to be observed in examining their form. But, in examining their contents, some other principle may appear, so far as, to the dislocating power or force, there may be superadded matter, by which something in relation to the nature of the power may be known. If, for example, a tree or a rock shall be found simply split asunder, although there be no doubt with regard to some power having been applied in order to produce the effect, yet we are left merely to conjecture at the power. But when wedges of wood or

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iron, or frozen water, should be found lodged in the cleft, we might be enabled, from this appearance, to form a certain judgment with regard to the nature of the power which had been applied. This is the case with mineral veins. We find them containing matter, which indicates a cause; and every information in this case is interesting to the theory.

THE substances contained in mineral veins are precisely the same with those which, in the former part of this paper, we have considered as being made instrumental in the consolidation of strata; and they are found in every species of mixture and concretion.

BUT, besides this evidence for the exertion of extreme heat, in that process by which those veins were filled, there is another important observation to be gathered from the inspection of this subject. There appears to have been a great mechanical power employed in the filling of these veins, as well as that necessarily required in making the first fracture and divulsion.

THIS appears from the order of the contents, or filling of these veins, which is a thing often observed to be various and successive. But what it is chiefly now in view to illustrate, is that immense force which is manifested in the fracture and dispersion of the solid contents which had formerly filled those veins. Here we find fragments of rock and spar floating in the body of a vein filled with metallic substances; there, again, we see the various fragments of metallic masses floating in the sparry and siliceous contents.

ONE thing is demonstrable from the inspection of the veins and their contents; this is, the successive irruptions of those fluid substances breaking the solid bodies which they meet, and floating those fragments of the broken bodies in the vein. It is very common to see three successive series of those operations; and all this may be perceived in a small fragment of stone, which a man of science may examine in his closet, often

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better than descending to the mine, where all the examples are found on an enlarged scale.

LET us now consider what power would be required to force up, from the most unfathomable depth of the ocean, to the Andes or the Alps, a column for fluid metal and of stone. This power cannot be much less than that required to elevate the highest land upon the globe. Whether, therefore, we shall consider the general veins as having been filled by mineral steams, or by fluid minerals, an elevating power of immense force is still required, in order to form as well as fill those veins. But such a power acting under the consolidated masses at the bottom of the sea, is the only natural means for making those masses land.

IF such have been the operations that are necessary for the production of this land; and if these operations are natural to the globe of this earth, as being the effect of wisdom in its contrivance, we shall have reason to look for the actual manifestation of this truth in the phaenomena of nature, or those appearances which more immediately discover the actual cause in the perceived effect.

TO see the evidence of marble, a body that is solid, having been formed of loose materials collected at the bottom of the sea, is not always easy, although it may be made abundantly plain; and to be convinced that this calcareous stone, which calcines so easily in our fires, should have been brought into fusion by subterraneous heat, without suffering calcination, must require a chain of reasoning which ever one is not able to attain. But when fire bursts forth from the bottom of the sea, and when the land is heaved up and down, so as to demolish cities in an instant, and split asunder rocks and solid mountains, there is nobody but must see in this a power, which may be sufficient to accomplish every view of nature in erecting land, as it is situated in the place most advantageous for that purpose.

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THE only question, therefore, which it concerns us to decide at present, is, whether those operations of extreme heat, and violent mechanic force, be only in the system as a matter of accident; or if, on the contrary, they are operations natural to the globe, and necessary in the production of such land as this which we inhabit. The answer to this is plain: these operations of the globe, remain at present with undiminished activity, or in the fulness of their power.

A stream of melted lava flows from the sides of Mount Ætna. Here a column of weighty matter raised an immense height above the level of the sea, and rocks of an enormous size are projected from its orifice some miles into the air. Every one acknowledges that here is the liquefying power and expansive force of subterranean fire, or violent heat. But that Sicily itself had been raised from the bottom of the ocean, and that the marble called Sicilian Jasper, had its solidity upon the same principle with the lava, would stumble many a naturalist to acknowledge. Nevertheless, I have in my possession a table of this marble, from which it is demonstrable, that this calcareous stone had flowed, and been in such a state of fusion and fluidity as lava.

HERE is a comparison formed of two mineral substances, to which it is of the highest importance to attend. The solidity and present state of the one of these is commonly thought to be that of water. This, however, is not the case. The immediate state and condition of both these bodies is now to be considered as equally the effect of fire or heat. The reason of our forming such a different judgment with regard to these two subjects is this; we see, in the one case, the more immediate connection of the cause and the effect, while, in the other, we have only the effects from whence we are in science to investigate the cause.

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BUT, if it were necessary always to see this immediate connection, in order to acknowledge the operation of a power which, at present, is extinguished in the effect, we should lose the benefit of science, or general principles, from whence particulars may be deduced, and we should be able to reason no better that the brute. Man is made for science; he reasons from effects to causes, and from causes to effects; but he does not always reason without error. In reasoning, therefore, from appearances which are particular, care must be taken how we generalize; we should be cautious not to attribute to nature, laws which may perhaps be only of our own invention.

THE immediate question now before us is not, if the subterraneous fire, or elevating power, which we perceive sometimes as operating with such energy, be the consolidating cause of strata formed at the bottom of the sea; nor, if that power be the means of making land appear above the general surface of the water; for, though this be the end we want to arrive at ultimately, the question at present in agitation respects the laws of nature, or the generality of particular appearances.

HAS the globe within it such an active power as fits it for the renovation of that part of its constitution which may be subject to decay? Are those powerful operations of fire, or subterraneous heat, which so often have filled us with terror and astonishment, to be considered as having always been? Are they to be concluded as proper to every part upon the globe, and as continual in the system of this earth? If these points in question shall be decided in the affirmative, we can be at no loss in ascertaining the power which has consolidated strata, nor in explaining the present situation of those bodies, which had their origin at the bottom of the sea. This, therefore, should be the object of our pursuit; and, in order to have demonstration in a case of physical enquiry, we must again have recourse to the book of nature.

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THE general tendency of heat is to produce fluidity and softness; as that of cold is, on the contrary, to harden soft and fluid bodies. But this softening power of heat is not uniform in its nature; it is made to act with very different effect, according to the nature of the substance to which it is applied. We are but limited in the art of increasing the heat or the cold of bodies; we find, however, extreme difference in their substances with respect to fusibility.

A FUSIBLE substance, or mineral composition in a fluid state, is emitted from those places of the earth at which subterraneous fire and expansive force are manifested in those eruptive operations. In examining these emitted bodies, men of science find a character for such productions, in generalizing the substance, and understanding the natural constitution of those bodies. It is in this manner, that such a person, finding a piece of lava in any place of the earth, says with certainty, Here is a stone which had congealed from a melted state.

HAVING thus found a distinguishing character for those fused substances called, in general, lavas, and having the most visible marks for that which had been actually a volcano, naturalists, in examining different countries, have discovered the most undoubted proofs of many ancient volcanos, which had not been before suspected. Thus, volcanos will appear to be not a matter of accident, or as only happening in an particular place, they are general to the globe, so far as there is no place upon the earth that may not have an eruption of this kind; although it is by no means necessary for every place to have had those eruptions.

VOLCANOS are natural to the globe, as general operations; but we are not to consider nature as having a burning mountain for an end in her intention, or as a principal purpose in the general system of this world. The end of nature in placing an internal fire or power of heat, and a force of irresistible expansion, in the body of this earth, is to consolidate the sediment

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