174 Professor Keilhau on Unstratified 



origin of the crystalline silicide rocks, know how perfectly 

 convincing are the geognostical facts which actually exist as 

 an answer to the question ; were they fully aware of the many 

 completely conclusive points with regard to the occurrence of 

 these formations, — then immediately it would be universally 

 perceived how natural and reasonable it is to take into con- 

 sideration, above all things, the geological data, and then the 

 emancipation of geology, which is so extremely requisite, 

 would be accomplished. The misfortune is, that precisely 

 so long as this emancipation has not taken place, geologists 

 are prevented from supplying what has hitherto been ne- 

 glected. In the mean time, I hope that no one will be 

 prevented from invariably seeking for information founded 

 on fact, or, moreover, from applying what he has discovered 

 in an unfalsified state ; and the period must eventually arrive 

 when geology shall rest on an independent basis. Although it 

 must always continue to be felt as a deficiency, that so large a 

 portion of the globe can only be observed indirectly, yet it is 

 nevertheless possible materially to remedy this deficiency, by 

 properly conducted investigations, in the manner already pointed 

 out ; and the existence of the possibility gives us sufficient se- 

 curity that this will happen. It will then, I trust, be rendered 

 evident to every one, that the history of what took place in 

 and with the crust of the earth, composed of mountain rocks, 

 is by no means lost to the extent that certain persons of great 

 influence assert ;* and some misunderstandings of the most 



chemical arguments. Certainly the blind know more of colours than this worthy 

 man does of the relations on which he rests with so much confidence. 



* I must here be permitted to add some remarks suggested by what is said in 

 Berzelius' Jahresbericht for 1841, with reference to an article by Studer. " The 

 geologists," it is there asserted, " who suppose that chemistry must be able to ex- 

 plain all geological observations, have entirely forgotten that this explanation 

 must be founded on something more than chemistry." In this there is truth ; 

 and it might appear that he who thus expressed himself, must be at one with the 

 views brought forward in the present paper. This, however, is by no medns the 

 case. Immediately after this passage, the author states it as his opinion, that if 

 geologists could but give a correct history of the changes which have taken place 

 in the crust of the earth, chemistry, even in its present state, could give exact 

 explanations of most of them. But we cannot expect that this should ever take 

 place, for it is given us to understand that this history is irrecoverably lost. I do 

 not know what the author would require in such a historical delineation of what has 



