208 Dr. Cooper on Voleanoes 
hundred and fifty parts by weight of water to one part of the 
substances in question. But the known quantity of water 
on the preceding data will be to the primitive formations in, 
absolute quantity as 18 only to 150: whereas to dissolve 
them chemically would require six thousand times the weight 
of water known to exist. 
Chemical solution therefore can extend but a very little 
way, even with the aid of subterranean heat. [ acknowled 
these calculations are not accurate : but they are founded 
on the present state of our knowledge ; and in such a calcu- 
lation, minute accuracy is not necessary to the conclusion 
deduced ; which is that the primitive crystalized rocks, 
constituting so large a portion of our present globe, so far as 
its strata have been exposed to our view, have not been 
chemically dissolved, formed, and crystalized in the mass 
been exposed to the direct action of subterranean fires, that 
burn now, and for ought we know, have never ceased to 
b 
urn. 
The inferences are that the crystalized form of the old 
Granite and the other crystalized primitive rocks, has al- 
ways been, and is independent of any aqueous solution in 
the waters of the present ocean: and we can have no eVi- 
dence of any other. 
But 2dly. The present Strata may have been modified in 
the component parts and in their present disposition, by 
having been mechanically mixed with and suspended in the 
waters of the ocean, and from thence mechanically deposi- 
ted: and there is sufficient evidence from present appear- 
ances to induce us to believe that this has been the case. — 
The transition and secondary strata, bear such manifest 
marks of subsidence from a state of suspension in a disturb- 
ed and turbulent aqueous fluid—there is throughout the 
: 
ng en ae 
