slM Professor Keilliau on 



means on the possibility or probability of the transmutations, 

 inasmuch as it is now absolutely certain that they have really 

 occurred. Although, in the mean time, they may be chemi- 

 cally inexplicable, yet this can have no influence on the incon- 

 trovertibility of the result. How many other facts are there 

 not which still remain chemical mysteries. When, for example, 

 certain after-crystals of augite are found, containing a con- 

 siderable quantity of alkali, whose origin is incomprehen- 

 sible to chemists, the conviction is not therefore suppressed, 

 that in this case augite has been transmuted. It is only 

 the explanations added to the matter of fact which can 

 here be blamed by the chemist ; and, certainly, in some of 

 these occasion has been given for their propounders being cut 

 short by the " how" and '• wherefore," or it has been found 

 necessary to advance beyond the limits within which the ex- 

 perimental investigator must remain, and which are often re- 

 garded by him as the boundaries of the science itself.* 



It will thus be perceived that, in two respects, we consider 

 that party to be in error, who prefer considering the crystal- 

 line silicide rocks as erupted masses which have been solidi- 

 fied from an originally burning liquid condition, instead of the 

 regarding them as transmuted, originally uncrystalline, slates, 

 sandstones, fee. 1. Because that party have turned away 

 from nature, which tells them that such transmutations are 

 actually met with^ and have addressed themselves to an incom- 

 petent authority with the unnecessary question, whether such 

 processes Sive possible ; and, 2. Because, after receiving a nega- 

 tive answer, they believe themselves obliged io reject palpable 

 facts. If we are not wrong in these accusations, nothing else 

 is required to shew the disposition and the judgment with 

 which these theorists proceed. It is not at present necessary 

 to consider other weak points of their geological result. 



* The lamentable part performed by geologists as to the question of the for- 

 mation of dolomite also naturally occurs to us in speaking of this subject. In- 

 stead of, at all events, at first, adhering simply to what personal observation 

 taught them, namely, that dolomite is incontrovertibly a transmuted carbonate of 

 lime, and instead of enriching their science with this result of observation, as 

 with an incontestable fact, they went with their discovery to the chemists, pre- 

 senting it in the form of a theory. Now, as this theory could receive no appro- 

 bation from the chemists, the good people remained standing with empty hands, 

 notwithstanding the great discovery which they bad really made. 



