3<?7 36 
a Theory of the Earth, 125 
6. How the temperature of climates is modified by the 
winds, evaporation, the nature and elevation of the 
ground. 
7- Whether these causes are sufficient to explain cer- 
tain changes, such as that of the plants and animals of 
warmer countries having been able to exist and multiply 
in the coldest countries ? 
8. Mineralogy, the nature of earths, stones, salts, bi- 
tuminous substances, and metals. The principles of 
their analysis and nomenclature. 
9. If it be possible to transmute one earth or one me- 
tal into another. For example, if it be possible that sili- 
ceous earth can be changed into calcareous earth in th6 
bodies of marine animals ; or, reciprocally, that calca- 
reous can be changed into siliceous earth in mountains of 
chalk ? 
10. If it be probable, according to the conjecture of 
Lavoisier, that earths are the oxyds of metals ?* 
11. What idea can we form of one or more solvents 
which, either simultaneously or successively, may have 
rendered soluble in water the different mineral substances 
which we see on the surface and in the bowels of the 
earth ? 
12. Can we believe that these solvents may have been 
afterwards destroyed ; and that it is in consequence of 
their destruction that the matters they held in solution 
were precipitated and became crystallised ? 
12. A. Or, can we believe, witli Dolomieu, that all 
crystallizations may take place without previous solu- 
tion ; and that it is sufficient for this operation that the 
bodies be reduced to their elementary parts, and that 
these parts be suspended in a fluid which gives them lir 
berty to unite by their corresponding faces ? 
* Since verified by Daw and others. Ed- 
