132 ONTOLOGY. 



590. As the mass of the earth is about five times 

 denser than water ; so must the planet, before the Earthy 

 was separated, have been much denser than at present. 

 With its separation the fluid must have suddenly di- 

 minished, and moved towards the middle point of the 

 planet. During the descent of water for many miles in 

 extent, it must separate in drops. The separation of the 

 earths was combined with rain. 



591. In every falling drop the three fundamental 

 earths, which are insoluble in water, crystallized. The 

 first crystals therefore are only of the size of drops. It is 

 only by this mode of origin that the crystallization into one 

 another of the three constituent parts of granite without 

 any cementing substance can be comprehended. Granite 

 is an earthy hail-storm. The hail-stones crystallized 

 during their fall in a similar manner with each other. 



592. Upon the whole the silicious character predomi- 

 nates in granite, as the primary formation of the planet, 

 and must do so, for silicious earth is the primary earth, 

 the principal earth of this precipitation, and one from 

 which clay and talc subsequently proceed, being higher 

 heterogynisms produced by light. Properly speaking only 

 two perfectly different characters of earth exist, the 

 silicious earth as the pure separation of the Earthy, and 

 the calcareous earth, as the last separation of the water 

 from the Earthy. It may also be said that in the cal- 

 careous earth fire, in the talcose earths the air, in the 

 argillaceous earth water has exercised its influence and 

 displaced the Earthy. Not only quartz is silicious earth, 

 but feldspar and mica consist in a great measure of the 

 same. Still, however, these last two constituent forms 

 are wholly different from quartz, and very far removed 

 from the nature of silex ; the feldspar obviously forming 

 the transition to clay by its resolution into porcellanic 

 earths, but the mica passing over into talc. 



593. There does not exist in nature an order of silex, 

 clay, or talc, so soon as we take up these earths in a 

 simply chemical manner. Nature instead of silex pro- 

 duces quartz, instead of clay feldspar, instead of talc mica ; 

 and Hiese must be the earths, that determine this part 



