As to the first, it is acknowledged, that there is a certain regular disposition of the substances in mineral veins, as stated § 59, but it is one which has hardly any thing in common with the real phenomena of stratification. It consists in the distribution of the principal substances in coats parallel to the sides of the vein, each substance forming a separate coat. In a vein, for instance, containing quartz, fluor, calcareous spar, lead, &c. we might expect to find a lining of quartz crystals, applied immediately to the walls of the mine, and following exactly the irregularities of their surface; next, perhaps, a coat of fluor, then of calcareous spar, and last of lead ore in the centre of the vein, the same order being observed on the opposite side. These successive coats, it is material to remark, are not in planes, but in uneven surfaces, of which the inequalities are evidently determined by those of the walls, that is, of the rock which forms the sides of the vein; neither are they horizontal, but are parallel to the walls, whether these be perpendicular or inclined. Here, therefore, there is no appearance of the action of that statical law which has directed the arrangement of the other strata, and which tends to make the plane of every stratum deposited by water perpendicular to the direction of gravity. The coating of the veins has therefore been performed under the conduct of some other power than that which presides over aqueous deposition. If, as the Neptunists maintain, the materials in the veins were deposited by water, in the most perfect tranquillity, it is wonderful that we do not find those materials disposed in horizontal layers, across the vein, instead of being parallel to its sides; and it seems very unaccountable, that the common strata, deposited as we are told while the water was in a state of great agitation, have so rigorously obeyed the laws of hydrostatics, (§ 38.) and acquired a parallelism in the planes of their stratification, which approaches so often to geometrical precision; while the materials of the veins, in circumstances so much more favourable for doing the same, have done nearly the reverse, and taken a position, often at right angles to that which hydrostatical principles require. This is a paradox which the Neptunian system has created, and which therefore it is not very likely to resolve.