617. The principal valleys of gneiss and mica-schist have not
originated by themselves, but have been modelled according to the form
of the granitic valleys. The valleys of those earth-precipitates are
properly only subsequent valleys.
618. The lamination is not everywhere a mechanical phenomenon,
but without doubt also a polar. It is exactly the same law, which
determines the lamination of crystals, that does that of the strata of
the earth, and operates also in producing their lamination.
PRIMARY LIMESTONE.
619. The earths must be viewed as _one_ mass, the component parts of
which observe a mutual relation. Now, after the silex, clay and talc
had been precipitated, a proportionate abundance of lime became free,
which was then thrown down at the end of this period of precipitation,
as _Primary limestone_.
620. The calcareous mass may be viewed as corrosive earth, from which
a certain quantity of carbon has been set free. As such, and combined
with the oxygen developed out of the water by the influence of light to
form carbonic acid, the lime was insoluble and was precipitated.
621. The primary limestone has also not been mechanically deposited.
It has a crystalline texture, is a calcareous granite, and generally
succeeds the mica-schist formation.
b. _Water-Formation--Transition-Rocks._
METAMORPHOSIS OF THE PRIMARY PRECIPITATIONS.
622. The metamorphosis of the granite did not terminate with
these precipitations. They are only the starting points for the
metamorphosis, in which the effort was first manifested to free
themselves from the primary combination. In the metamorphosis of
earths, the fundamental earths, or the constituent parts of granite,
strove to become each for itself a particular rock. They were all
identified in quartz; in granite they for the first time parted company
with each other, yet still formed a common sphere; lastly, in gneiss
and mica-schist they all separated into three spheres, but which still
did not differ in mass from granite.
623. Individualization had not yet been attained. The gneiss had still
all the constituent parts of the granite, as well as the mica-schist;
both are only a more peripheric, slaty granite, the one having a
preponderance of the Argillaceous, the other of the Talcose. With these
formations, however, Geogeny cannot remain stationary; for verily the
law of the development of the world is individualization. Instead of
granite, simply quartz, instead of gneiss simply clay, instead of
mica-schist simply talc must be separated; and then the termination
of this period is attained, the trinity of the simple earths has been
completely represented.
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