WRITINGS OF JAMES SMITHSON. Ill 



excess of acid is the element of agglutination, which nature 

 has in these cases made use of. The acid solvent exhales 

 or becomes saturated, and the neutral salt, ceasing to be 

 soluble, crystallizes on the particles of the powder. 



It is thus that the sands of the Calabriari shores are con- 

 solidated. The sea water loaded with the calcareous salt, 

 carries it into them. It cannot be by drying since they are 

 wetted by every wave ; and sand wetted with ordinary sea 

 water and dried is not converted into millstone. The great 

 hardness is due to the silicious part. 



I brought a mass of sand from the sea at Dumbarton, in- 

 closing a recent razor shell with its epidermis on it, and 

 fragments of coal, cemented to stone by carbonate of lime, 

 so that the calabrain process takes place on that coast. 



In limestones consisting of considerable-sized fragments 

 of shells, the sparry cement which connects them is perfectly 

 evident. It is this cement which appears as regular crystals 

 where cavities occur in the mass too large to have been filled 

 by it. 



Beds of sediment can by this means become rock at the 

 utmost depths of the ocean, and it is in all probability there 

 that most of them have done so. The workings of contig- 

 uous volcanos have supplied the carbonic acid. 



Oolites have been evidently formed in a sea much loaded 

 with dissolved carbonate of lime, and which on the escape 

 of the dissolving acid has crystallized round floating parti- 

 cles. When the weight of the grains has become such as 

 to occasion their subsidence, they have been cemented to- 

 gether, every thing taking place in all respects as in the case 

 of the pisolites of Carlsbaden. The Kirkdale rock being 

 composed of oolites must have had this origin. 



Such a formation cannot be assigned to the time of the 

 deluge. Besides the violence of bringing within the com- 

 pass of a few months, operations whose accomplishment 

 seems to have required centuries of centuries, the necessary 

 conditions must have been wanting. Had not all the vol- 

 canos become extinguished, they could not, and in such a 



