Note 2 — Chapter I

Footnote 2: (return) M. de Saussure would explain the various shape and contortions of strata upon the principles of crystallization; but surely he has not adverted to the distinction of crystallization as an operation giving form or shape, and as giving only solidity or hardness, which last, it is apprehended, is the only sense in which our author here considers crystallization, although, from the way in which he has employed this principle, it would seem that it is the figure which is to be explained by it. This conjecture is supported by the example of alabaster or stalactites, with which he compares the section of those mountains; for, in the example of implicated figures of the stalactite marble, similar to those of the present distorted strata, crystallization has nothing to do with that part of the figure which corresponds to the case now under consideration; it forms indeed certain figures of crystals in the mass by which also the configuration of some minute parts, affected by those crystals, is determined; but the figure of those alabasters, which is to be compared with the present subject, arises solely from the current of petrifying water along the surface of the mass. This mass, therefore, being formed by succession from that water, crystallising calcareous earth, and carrying colouring parts of other earth, gives an appearance of stratification to a figure which is absolutely inconsistent with stratification; an operation which is performed by depositing materials at the bottom of the sea, and which the marine bodies contained in some of the strata sufficiently attest.