WliRNERIAN SYSTEM. 
161 
Werner, however, is of opinion, that in many instances, the Dislocatioug 
position of strata is ascribed erroneously to change, which jn 
fact was the result of their original formation ; — where changes 
actually have occurred, he ascribes them to ruptures, occasioned 
" by the unequal accumulation of rocky matter at the tirtie of 
deposition ; by the loss of support, owing to the diminution of 
the water, by the disucation of strata caused by the consolida- 
tion of crystalline depositions ; sometimes by earthquakes, and 
the softening of strata during long-continued rains*.” Hence 
also the formation of veins is accounted for, which “ appear to 
have been formerly open fissures ; and these fissures seem to 
have been filled, from above, with the mineral substances they 
now contain.” 
'i'he wavings, curvatures, and inflections of strata, and of the M'avines, cur- 
lamellae of rocks, are supposed to have originated from the 
diversified circumstances of crystallization and deposition. But 
the causes which gave rise to stratification in general, and which 
determined the original fluid to yield, in some instances, thick 
.and massive strata, in others very thin yet equally distinct ones, 
^sometimes beds of the same material frequently repeated, but 
as often contiguous strata perfectly unlike in composition, 
'Werner has not attempted to assign ; and they will probably 
I be among the last secrets of nature, which geological investiga- 
ition will unfold. 
The existence of volcanoes is ascribed by Werner, to the com- Volcanos. 
. bustionof the coal that occurs in great abundance anu ng the 
I newest flettz-trap rocks : the fusion of basalt producing lava j — 
.or, as Mr. Jameson has expressed it, “ we have only to suppose 
ian immense body of coal in a state of combustion ; that its 
1 outgoing is covered by a stratum of basalt or wacke ; that 
hollows are formed by the combustion of the inflammable 
* These are in fact the causes assigned for the forraation of the 
fissures now constituting veins. Geognosy, p. 54<^ : — hut they seem to 
apply equally to the purposes here slated, and no other mode of 
accounting for the dislocation of strata has been given by Mr. 
Jameson. 
VoL. XXXVI.— No. 16;. 
N 
materials } 
