210 Dr. Cooper on Volcanoes 
stones, that we find extending for many miles in length, and 
a few yards comparatively in breadth. 
Those who have witnessed the fall of trees in the Ameri- 
can woods by the effect of hurricanes, extending fifty or six- 
ty miles in length, and from a quarter to half a mile per- 
haps in breadth, with borders exactly defined through the 
whole length, will find no difficulty in applying the force of 
fluids acting in torrents of limited direction and limited ex- 
tent. For, what happens when forests are levelled by cur- 
rents of air, happens also when rocks are hurried. on by the 
still greater momentum of torrents of water. 
The present observations leave it uncertain in what way 
the primitive rocks have been crystalized. Until we see 
how a granite stone can be formed by solution in water, 
and subsequent crystalization, or how by means of aqueous 
solution, granite veins can shoot into and permeate newer 
rocks, we must hesitate in admitting aqueous solution as 
the cause: and we shall lose nothing in the mean time by 
confessing our ignorance. 
From the laws of action of aqueous fluids thus laid down, 
it will follow, that the deposits of solid matter from aqueous 
solution, must be more or less crystalline; and from 
aqueous muxture, they must be soft, pliable and_ pasty. 
Hence, it will be impossible for mountain masses, amor- 
phous, and rising into peaked or abrupt eminences to be 
thus formed : for while in their soft state, they will of neces-_ 
sity fall down and subside in strata of comparatively even and 
uniform surfaces : itis manifest you cannot form an abrupt 
peak, or a mountain-mass, out of mud. 
It will follow also, that as all muddy depositions must as-. 
sume a plane and uniform surface, so far as the subjacent 
rock will admit of it, no abrupt mountain mass can have been 
formed by deposition from aqueous mixture : and the moun- 
tain eminences on the surface of our globe, must be ac- 
counted for onsome other principle. But we have no other 
principle left to account for them except the action of sub- 
terranean fire; to which alone, if this reasoning be legiti- 
mate, we must ascribe their elevation : unless indeed we 
consider them as the waves of a fluid mass turning on its 
axis ; but even this supposition will account for no mountain 
nob, or peak, or any abrupt eminence: such a cause would 
produce round-backed mountains but no other. For, this 
