Chemical Origin of Iron Oves^ Etc. — Winchell. 297 
been of immense density. Under the pressure of such a high 
barometric column condensation would take place at a tem- 
perature much above the present boiling point of water ; and 
the depressed portions of the half-cooled crust would be 
flooded with a highly heated solution of hydrochloric and sul- 
phuric acids, whose action in decomposing the silicates is eas- 
ily intelligible to the chemist. The formation of chlorides and 
sulphates of the various bases and the separation of silica 
would go on until the affinities of the acids were satisfied, and 
there would he a separation of silica taking the form of 
quartz, and the production of a sea water, holding in solution, 
besides the chlorides and sulphates of sodium, calcium and 
magnesium, salts of aluminum and other metallic bases. * * 
* * Quartz has not only never been met with as a result of 
igneous fusion, but it is clearly shown by the experiments of 
Rose, that a heat even much less than that required for the 
fusion of quartz destroys it, changing it into a new substance 
which differs both in chemical and physical properties from 
quartz. * * * xhe first precipitates from the waters of 
the primeval sea must have contained oxidized compounds of 
most of the heavy metals. The large amounts of silica 
contained in solution in the waters of some thermal springs 
and of many rivers, are separated when these waters are 
exposed to spontaneous evaporation, partly as silicates of 
lime and magnesia, and partly in the forms of crystallized 
quartz, hornstone and opal. In many different formations, 
beds are met with composed entirely of crystallized grains of 
quartz which have apparently been deposited from solution. 
In other sediments this element abounds in the form of grains 
of chalcedony, or as amorphous soluble silica. The beds and 
masses of chert, flint, hornstone, buhrstone, and many jaspers, 
have all apparently been deposited from aqueous solutions." ''' 
Prof. A. AVinchell thus refers to this primeval ocean and the 
precipitation of silica ■}" "The liberated silica would separate 
and would be chemically precipitated during the subsequent 
cooling of the waters, and would thus give rise to the enor- 
mous beds of quartz which we actually find among the very 
oldest strata." 
Concerning the similar production of beds of iron oxide, 
'*Hunt. Geology of Canada, ISii'^. p. 574. 
'^ A. Winchell. Sl:etche$ of Creation, 1870. p. 59. 
