130 ONTOLOGY. 



581. The genesis of the earths is a process of con- 

 duction of light. All transparency is a formation of 

 earth ; for it is a separation of the Aqueous from the 

 body of gravity. Where non-transparency exists, there 

 has earth been already formed. 



582. As the conducting process of light is an act of 

 deoxydation, so are the earths at the same time also 

 deoxydized by precipitation, and this in four stages 

 which indicate the elements whereby light operates upon 

 the Basic in water; or it might be said, by the four 

 colours of, or by coloured, light. We already know that 

 the earth, which presents in itself the most dismembered 

 character is the calcareous earth ; but that those which 

 have preserved a more identical character in themselves 

 are the silicious, argillaceous, and talcose earths. These 

 earths may be viewed as those in which the lime has 

 absorbed a proportion of oxygen, which has in it become 

 carbonic acid. There is indeed only one earth-substance 

 in water. In this substance, which is neither silex nor 

 calx, the polar principle has distributed itself, and that 

 very portion, which has obtained the most thereof, has 

 become calcareous earth. 



583. The calcareous earth has originated in the upper 

 parts of the aqueous globe, the other earths, however, in 

 the depths, in the middle of that globe ; for in the upper 

 regions of the water, the light can exert a greater 

 polarizing influence, and therefore that very earth is 

 generated which stands nearest to the sether or to the 

 light, viz. the different calcareous earth. But in the 

 depths of the water, the light loses its energy, and is no 

 longer in a condition to elicit the Oxygenous in the Basic ; 

 thereby identical and more fixed earths originate. 



GRANULAR ROCK OR GRANITE. 



584. The differenced calcareous earth has been as- 

 sociated with the differential water, remained for a longer 

 period identical with and dissolved in it, and was there- 

 fore the last to be precipitated from it. The silicious 

 earth with its neighbours must necessarily have been the 

 first to separate from the water, as it is in a proper sense, 



