128 On the Basalt e$ of Saxony. 



dissolved. It first deposited the coarsest under the form of 

 argil and wacke, and, chemical precipitations succeeding to 

 mechanical processes, in proportion as the waters became 

 purified they then furnished basaltes and grunstein accord- 

 ing as the crystallization, more or less turbid or tranquil, 

 confounded or separated the hornblend and feldspar of 

 which they were constituted. 



But when we confess that this explanation is in many 

 respects more natural, we must admit also that under other 

 points of view there are difficulties : that this new labour 

 of the seas, altogether distinct and detached from the pre- 

 ceding operations, supposes either the return of the waters 

 which covered the globe, or strange changes in the proper- 

 ties of those by which it was still covered ; that it is very 

 singular to see these waters suddenly resume the dissolving 

 power, which they had long lost, to cover the primitive and 

 secondary mountains, and even the strata of alluvion, with 

 new deposits, which represent in an inverse order those 

 which they had before formed ; to abandon first thecoarse- 

 est matters, to finish by crystalline sediments, ai}d ^.he least 

 soluble to crystallize the last; that one can hardly conceive 

 how this solution, which covered very high mountains, and 

 which consequently inundated a great part of the globe, 

 should not leave more monuments of its existence; and 

 how so great causes, acting so generally and at. periods so 

 modern, should produce only sonic thin deposits separated^ 

 by intervals so vast. 



It is, however, from the analogy which exists between 

 the basaltes scattered throughout countries very remote from, 

 each other, that C. Daubuisson derives one of his most spe- 

 cious arguments in favour of its aqueous origin; and it is, 

 here that we shall enter into an exposition of this order of. 

 proofs, on which he founds the composition and structure 

 of this kind of stone. 



If we compare, says he, the basaltes from Sweden, 

 Hesse, and Saxonv ; of Bohemia and Hungary; of Italy^ 

 (TAuvergne, and the island of Ueunion ; the same prismatic 

 division, the same colour, fracture, and weight, will be 

 found in them all. The foreign substances they contain are- 

 always amphibolite, peridot, pyroxene, See. : when ana- 

 lysed they yield the same constituent principles. The d\t\ 

 ferent analyses of the same mineral seldom agree so much 

 as those which Bergman, Klaproth, and Kennedy, have 

 given us of the basaltes^of Sweden, Bohemia, and Stafla.- 

 This conformity appears striking to the author of the me- 

 moir, and he find:, in it one oi the distmetive attiibutes of 



rock* 



