itr 



3(^ ON THE SALT SPRINGS OF WORCESTERSHIRE. 



now taking place in the bed of the Mediterranean sea. But it 

 is certain that chloride of sodium, or salt, is one of the products 

 of volcanic emanations, and of springs in volcanic regions, and 

 that these springs are also found in the tertiary, transition, and 

 primary rocks ; and therefore the original source of salt may be 

 as deeply seated as that of lava. Salt springs also rise through 

 granite, which again connects them with igneous phenomena. 

 The hot spring, for example, at St. Nectaire, in Auvergne, may 

 he mentioned as one of many containing a large proportion of 

 chloride of sodium, together with magnesia and other ingredients.* 

 It seems, therefore, most congenial to the spirit of true philosophy, 

 in the imperfect state of our knowledge of those circumstances 

 which have governed the deposition of salt in the strataof the earth, 

 not to lend an implicitbeliefto any theory that may be propounded. 

 We shall, at present, best insure the progressive advancement of 

 geological science by industriously accumulating facts, and 

 cautiously drawing conclusions from them, rather than by pre- 

 maturely arriving at conclusions, which may turn out to be 

 erroneous, and stop that ardour of investigation which never fails 

 to urge on the powers of the mind to exertion when important 

 facts are still to be discovered. In truth, every student of 

 geology should have his mind strongly impressed with the danger 

 that he falls into by hypothetical reasoning, and all those who 

 may be so disposed should keep in mind the example of Saussure, 

 of whom it is related as a geologist, that in proportion to the 

 avidity with which he sought for facts, was the care with which 

 he avoided vain speculations. If he sometimes advanced an 

 hypothesis, it was with a reserve justly admired, although rarely 

 imitated, and only when the facts seemed imperiously to com- 

 ri.and it. When new facts came in opposition to his former 

 opinions, he abandoned them, or modified them without regret. 

 It is by this sober attention to facts, and by orderly arrangements, 

 that modern geologists have been able so much to advance their 

 science. An excessive fondness for theorizing, unconnected with 

 accurate observation, was the sin of the scientific writers of the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and geology, in common 

 with several others of the physical and experimental sciences, has 

 had more difficulty in removing the rubbish which her ill-judged 

 admirers had placed in her way, than in overcoming the natural 

 obstructions of her path. Limestone, for example, was considered 

 as entirely the result of animal action, and the various for- 

 mations of that rock were viewed as accumulations of altered 

 shells and corals. But neither shells nor corals occur in primitive 

 mountains, although these often contain extensive beds of lime- 

 stone, and although lime has been proved to enter into the 

 composition of most of the simple minerals of which primitive 

 rocks are composed. It is therefore evident that lime is an 



* Annales de *1 Auvergne, tome 1, p. 234. 



