Note 192 — Chapter XIV

His words are as follows: “When I was at Venice, being still a youth, they were sawing some stones for the repair of one of the churches, and it chanced that in one of these blocks there appeared the figure of a head; as of a king, crowned with a long beard. The countenance had no other defect, save that the forehead was too high ascending towards the top of the head. All of us who examined it were satisfied that it was the work of nature. And I being questioned as to the cause of the disproportioned forehead, replied that this stone had been coagulated by the work of vapour, and that by means of a more powerful heat the vapour had arisen without order or measure.” (Op. tom. 2 De Mineralibus. lib. 2, tract. 3, c. i.) The expressions here used are somewhat obscure, but they seem to imply that Albert knew something of those phenomena which geologists explain as the result of volcanic heat and the action of vapour. “Transformed, or metamorphic rocks,” says Humboldt, “are those in which the texture and mode of stratification have been altered either by the contact or proximity of an irrupted volcanic rock, or, as is more frequently the case, by the action of vapours and sublimations which accompany the issue of certain masses in a state of igneous liquefaction.” (Cosmos. vol. i. p. 236.)