Note (return) — Chapter II · (continued 4)

This author has perhaps properly exposed Woodward's Theory of Petrification in saying33, "Son erreur à cet égard vient de ce qu'il n'a point réfléchi sur la manière dont se fait la pétrifaction. Il ramollit d'abord les pierres pour y faire entrer les coquilles, sans bien connoître l'agent qu'il y employe; et il les duroit ensuite, sans réfléchir au comment." To avoid this error or defect, M. de Luc, in his Theory of Petrifaction, sets out with the acknowledged principle of cohesion; and, in order to consolidate strata of a porous texture, he supposes water carrying minute bodies of all shapes and sizes, and depositing them in such close contact as to produce solidity and concretion. Now, if Dr Woodward softened stones without a proper cause, M. de Luc, in employing the specious principle of cohesion, has consolidated them upon no better grounds; for, the application of this principle is as foreign to his purpose, as is that of magnetism. Bodies, it is true, cohere when their surfaces are closely applied to each other; But how apply this principle to consolidation?—only by supposing all the separate bodies, of which the solid is to be composed, to be in perfect contact in all their surfaces. But this, in other words, is supposing the body to be solid; and, to suppose the agent, water, capable of thus making hard bodies solid, is no other than having recourse to the fortuitous concourse of atoms to make a world; a thought which this author would surely hold in great contempt.