AND ANALOGIES, OF ROCKS. 213 



is no more than must happen in every similar case 

 of a general principle, when we are not in possession 

 of all the collateral circumstances by which it may 

 have been modified. 



In thus deducing from the agencies, both of heat 

 and of watery solution, the consolidation of all the 

 stratified rocks, and in limiting these according to 

 the various circumstances which have been indicated, it 

 must be apparent that the power granted to the former 

 is comparatively small, and that it is not here sup- 

 posed to have acted beyond the range of the more 

 antient rocks, probably not through the whole of these. 



That it has operated in the consolidation of the 

 secondary strata at large, is rendered improbable, 

 by a variety of circumstances which I need not 

 enumerate, because they have frequently been urged 

 against the whole theory. 



But in admitting that the great mass of the secon- 

 dary strata has been consolidated by a watery agent 

 it must be remembered that there is a wide difference 

 between the consolidation, and the precipitation of 

 the same substances from water. If every one of 

 these rocks did not give the most unquestionable 

 proofs of its having originated, either in the ruins of 

 more antient rocks or in the spoils of animals, it 

 would be a sufficient argument against precipitation 

 from a watery solution, that it involves every species 

 of chemical and mechanical impossibility that can be 

 included in a proposition so simple. It is unnecessary 

 at present to detain the reader a moment longer on 

 an hypothesis that would create and destroy oceans 

 at its pleasure, yet find them ineffectual. 



It has indeed been suggested, that if the original 

 heat of the globe was considerable, the water must 

 have formed an atmosphere producing a degree of 



