! 24 On the Basaltes of Saxony. 



been examined : every where the mountain is sound, its 

 rocks are entire, and geologists are obliged to look for those 

 pretended volcanic abysses, which interrupt as little the gal- 

 lery of the miner as the vein for which he searches, in a few 

 small superficial cavities which may have been formed by 

 the hand of man, or by the least accident. 



The second system will not be more fortunate. It will 

 be readily admitted that the valleys by which the chain is 

 traversed are posterior to its formation ; that the strata now 

 divided by these hollows were formerly continued ; that the 

 basaltes now accumulated on these summits formed an un- 

 interrupted covering along the ridge, of which these strata 

 are. the remains. But in that case, whence did this enor- 

 mous stream of fused matters proceed ? At what distance 

 are we to search for the volcanic region whence it issued ? 

 How can we conceive that the paste-like fluidity of the lava 

 should yield to the length of the passage, and to so many 

 surfaces of a different level, and that a deluge of fire should 

 have overwhelmed such an extent of ground without cal- 

 cining the calcareous matters, without baking the argilla- 

 ceous, consuming the coals, filling up the places where 

 it originated, and interspersing those where it passed with 

 scoria?., pumice stones, and ashes? 



On this point the author derives great advantage from the 

 thick stratum of coal on which the masses of the mount 

 Meissner, in Hesse, are deposited. He, observed this fact 

 after the celebrated Werner. Like him, he asserts that it is 

 impossible to distinguish the least traces of alteration in this 

 accumulation of combustibles, which in general is sepa- 

 rated from the basaltes only by a thin stratum of argil, and 

 which very often is absolutely contiguous to it. But this 

 is not all : in other places the basaltes is found alternately 

 with the coals. This phenomenon has been observed in 

 Bohemia, the Feroe isles, the isle, of Mull, at Borrows- 

 townness, in the mountains of Bathgate. Will it be said 

 that the basaltes thus inserted between strata of combustible 

 matters has been currents of fused stones? By what fire 

 were these stones liquefied, if it spared in the centre of it 

 crystals more fusible that; itself ; if it sported in the midst 

 of bitumen without diss'pating it in flames and in smoke: 

 in a word, if it respected every thing except these stones 

 themselves ? 



On the other hand, if we restore to the water that part 

 of its domain which has been taken from it, all these diffi- 

 culties will vanish. The basaltes of Saxony consists of 

 strata regularly placed above each other, and formed by 



water. 



