oe oe ' ’ a 1 
Association of American Greologisis and Naturalists. 247 
been suggested ; for, as regards the reality and continued opera- 
tion of the causes upon which our induction is erected, it is quite 
unimportant when or how the solid materials of the earth were 
formed ; because, commencing however or whenever they might, 
they would be governed by the same chemical and physical laws 
as now. @ , 
AQUEOUS CAUSES. 
If the internal heat of the earth, with its permanent and efli- 
cient causes, be admitted, we have solved the most difficult prob- 
lems in geology ; for, immensely the greater part of our planet 
is of igneous origin, and all that is due to water, if thrown like 
a covering evenly around the globe, would form but a very thin 
film—scarcely, in a section of a globe of four feet in diameter, 
forming a visible line. ‘The power of water is to dissolve, to 
crystallize, to lacerate, to wear down, to transport and to deposit 
the materials in new situations. 
In estimating the chemical effects of water, we must endow it 
with all the solvent power which heat, under enormous pressure 
under miles of ocean or of incumbent land, would give it; and 
then we must regard it not simply as water, but as a compound 
fluid composed of all that water, in such circumstances, can dis- 
solve; when perhaps red hot, a condition which it may well- 
attain, it might acquire new and remarkable energy—softening or 
dissolving materials which might otherwise be unaffected by it. 
These views would appear particularly important to any meta- 
more reasonable to attribute to a conjoined operation of fire and 
Water ——* nee: their seeping to — them to 
re alone. — 
_ Gentlemen, ot aviog detained you so ong, funn not. dies 
posed to occupy any more of your time by discussing any pecu- . 
liar theories of the operation of water. Its effects, both mechan- 
ical and chemical, are extensive and manifest to all. In the Wer- 
nerian school, the solvent powers of water were exaggerated be- 
yond all credibility ; and at this day, no geologist would venture 
to suggest that the mountains and the entire crust of the earth 
have ever been dissolved in its waters. While in later times the 
operations of fire have been, on substantial proof, (as on theory 
alone they were formerly by Leibnitz,) prodigiously extended, 
those of water have not been cancelled, although they have been 
