1 1 6 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



that the precipitates taking place from the universal water 

 must have entered into the open fissures which the water 

 covered. We know, moreover, for certain, that veins bear 

 all the marks of fissures formed at different times ; and, 

 by the causes which have been assigned for their formation, 

 that the mass of veins is absolutely of the same nature as 

 the beds and strata of mountains, and that the nature of 

 the masses differs only according to the locality of the 

 cavity where they occur. In fact, the solution contained 

 in its great reservoir (that excavation which held the 

 universal water) was necessarily subjected to a variety of 

 motion, whilst that part of it which was confined to the 

 fissures was undisturbed, and deposited in a state of 

 tranquillity its precipitate." 1 



It would be difficult to cite from any other modern 

 scientific treatise a series of consecutive sentences contain- 

 ing a larger number of dogmatic assertions, of which almost 

 every one is contradicted by the most elementary facts of 

 observation. The habit of confident affirmation seems to 

 have blinded Werner to the palpable absurdity of some of 

 his statements. When, for example, he speaks of the great 

 reservoir or excavation which held the universal water, 

 what idea could have been present to his mind ? If the 

 primeval ocean, as he asserted, surrounded the whole globe, 

 and was as deep as the mountains are high, where was 

 the excavation? As an acute writer in the Edinburgh 

 Review pointed out, the excavation spoken of by Werner 

 " can mean nothing else than the convexity of the solid 

 nucleus round which the universal water was diffused. To 



1 Neue Theorie von der Enstehung der Gangen, chap. vii. 68 (1791). 

 English translation by Anderson, p. 110 (1809). 



