6 DE. THOMAS STEEEY HUNT ON THE 



hypothesis. Hence the theological element which, as is well known, entered so largely 

 into the controversies of the vulcanists and the neptunists at the beginning of this century, 

 and the svispicion with which the partisans of Hutton were then regarded by the 

 Christian world. 



The extreme neptunian views of Werner, however, soon fell into disfavor. The 

 visible evidences of the extrusion of trappean rocks in a heated and softened state, obser- 

 vations showing the augmentation of the temperature in mines, and the phenomena of 

 thermal springs and A'olcanoes, soon turned the scale in favor of Hutton's Aàews. There 

 were not wanting those who attempted to unite the Weruerian hypothesis with that of an 

 igneous globe, and who supposed a primeval chaotic ocean, to the waters of which, heated 

 by the mass below, and kept at a high boiling-point by the pressure of an atmosphere of 

 great density, was ascribed an exalted solvent power. 



§ 13. Such a modified neptunian view was advanced by Delabeche. In his "Kesearches 

 in Theoretical G-eology," published in 183*7, he favored the notion of an unoxydized nucleus, 

 as suggested by Davy, and held to a solid crust resting on a liquid interior, and presenting 

 from the first, irregularities of surface. He then speaks of " the much debated question " 

 whether the crystalline stratified rocks " have resulted from the deposit of abraded por- 

 tions of pre-existing rocks mechanically suspended in water, or have been chemically 

 derived from an aqueous or an igneous fluid in which their elements were disseminated." 

 We have in this paragraph three distinct hypotheses presented. Two years later he clearly 

 declared for the second of them. 



While admitting the crystallization of detrital matter in proximity to intrusive rocks. 

 Delabeche objected to what he called the " sweeping hypothesis " of Hutton and his school, 

 He supposed that, in the cooling of our planet from an igneous fluid state, "there must 

 have been a time when solid rock was first formed, and also a time when heated fluids 

 rested upon it. The latter would be conditions highly favorable to the production of crys- 

 talline substances, and the state of the earth's surface would then be so totally different 

 from that which now exists, that mineral matter, even when abraded from any part of the 

 earth's crust which may have been solid, would be placed under A'ery different conditions 

 at these different periods." He suggests that there would be " a mass of crystalline rocks 

 produced at first, which, however they may vary in minor points, should still preserve a 

 general character and aspect, the result of the first changes of fluid into solid matter, 

 crystalline and sub-crystalline' sixbstances prevailing, intermingled with detrital portions 

 of the same substances abraded by the movements of the heated and first-formed aqueous 

 fluids. In the gneiss, mica-slate, chloritic-slate and other rocks of the same kind, associated 

 together in great masses, and covering large areas in various parts of the world, we seem to 

 have those mineral bodies which were first formed. The theory of a cooling globe, such as 

 our planet, supposes a transition from a state of things highly favorable to the production 

 of crystalline rocks, to one in which masses of these rocks would be more rarely formed. 

 Hence we could never expect to draw fine lines of demarcation between the products of 

 one state of things and those of the other." ^ 



§ 14. Still later, in 1860, we find a similar view suggested by Daubrée as a probable 

 hypothesis. He goes back in imagination to a time when the waters of our planet, as yet 



' Delabeche, Geology of Cornwall and Devon, pp. 33-34 ; also Researches in Theoretical Gîeology. 



