Scientific Meeting in Germany. 291 



the Granites — to be immediate sedimentary deposits in water, just 

 as it assumed that mode of deposit for sandstone, clay, and lime- 

 stone. The new geology entertained no doubts regarding the af- 

 finity of basalts with the lavas of active volcanoes ; but it supposed 

 these basalts, after their eruption in the form of lava, to have un- 

 dergone chemical alterations in their masses, by virtue of which 

 they now appear as basalts and not as lavas. The new geology, 

 whilst, no doubt, absolutely denying the Vulcanic, or, if the term 

 be more agreeable, the " Plutonic" origin of Gneiss, Granite and 

 other crystalline rocks, w T as yet very far from regarding these as 

 being therefore immediate sediments. On the contrary, it suppos- 

 ed these rocks to have proceeded, by means of complete chemi- 

 cal changes, from sediments which were originally of a totally 

 different constitution; — to have proceeded, e. g. from limestone 

 strata by processes capable of exact demonstration by means of the 

 pseudomorphoses, the relative antiquity of the various minerals 

 composing the rocks, and other aids to investigation. Again, no 

 Plutonist had ever called in question that sandstone, clay, and 

 stratified limestone were immediate deposits from water, just as 

 their formation was conceived in Werner's Neptunism. The new 

 Geology was not so neptunistic, but here too pointed out a number 

 of chemical processes caused by the sediments partly in the act of 

 their deposit and partly immediately afterwards. Whilst Plu ton- 

 ism, e. g. had never scrupled to assume that limestone strata had 

 been formed and were still in process of formation, partly from 

 the evaporation of water holding lime in solution, partly from the 

 liberation of the carbonic acid by means of which the water held 

 the lime in solution, the new Geology showed that this process so 

 little occurs in nature that by no possibility could sedimentary 

 limestone ever have arisen in such a manner. Sea water contained 

 so much free carbonic acid that it could dissolve ten times: the 

 quantity of lime that it contains ; and, far from being able to depo- 

 sit lime for want of carbonic acid, it must operate as a solvent up- 

 on all masses of lime with which it comes in immediate contact^ 

 According to the results attained by the new geology, the mode 

 in which sedimentary lime was formed was as follows : Its mate- 

 rials were furnished not only by the (Carbonate of) lime contained 

 in the water, but also by the gypsum (sulphate of lime) which is 

 such a singularly universal constituent of all the waters of the 

 Earth and in sea-water especially is contained in great abundance. 

 The business of separating the lime from the water was performed 



