in Werner s Views on Basalt 1 2 1 



at the Stolpen he " found not a trace of volcanic action, 

 nor the smallest proof of volcanic origin. So I ventured 

 publicly to assert and prove that all basalts could certainly 

 not be of volcanic origin, and that to these non-volcanic 

 rocks the Stolpen mass undoubtedly belongs. Though at 

 first I met with much opposition, yet soon several geognosts 

 came over to my views. These views gained special 

 importance from the observations which I made in 1777 

 on the old subterranean fire in the coal-field that lies 

 around the hills of basalt and porphyry-slate in the middle 

 of Bohemia, and the consequent pseudo-volcanic hills that 

 have arisen there. After further more matured research 

 and consideration, I hold that no basalt is volcanic, but 

 that all these rocks, as well as the other Primitive and 

 Floetz rocks, are of aqueous origin." x Thus ten years of 

 reflection had only served to make him more positive in 

 maintaining an opinion which the most ordinary observa- 

 tion in his own Saxony ought to have enabled him to 

 disprove and reject. He had not only asserted that basalt 

 is a chemical precipitate, but had placed it among his primi- 

 tive rocks. 



When we remember the long and patient labours of 

 Desmarest before he announced his conclusions regarding 

 the volcanic origin of basalt, we cannot but wonder at the 



1 Kurze Klassification und Beschreilung der Verschied&nen Gebirgsarten, 

 1787, p. 25. Later in the same year (1787) he visited a little eminence 

 near Scheibenberg in the Erzgebirge, and found there a cake of basalt lying 

 on clay and sand, and thought he could trace these materials passing into 

 each other. Whereupon he announced as a "new discovery" that all 

 basalt is of aqueous origin, and constitutes, with clay, sand and wacke, 

 one single formation which originally extended far and wide over the 

 primitive and floetz rocks, but has in course of time been worn away, 

 leaving only cappings on the hills. Keferstein, Geschichte der Geognosie, 

 p. 69. 



