[Footnote 60: Tom. iii. p. 239, &c. The French translation is in 1759, but the original preface is dated at Berlin, 1756.] 150. Several mineralogists have agreed with him in the supposition, that these rocks are a part of the original structure of the globe, and prior to all organized matter. Of this number is PALLAS;[61] and also DE LUC, who applies the term _primordial_ to the rocks in question, and considers them as neither stratified nor formed by water.[62] In his subsequent writings, however, he admits their formation from aqueous deposition, as the Neptunists do in general, but holds them to be more ancient than organized bodies. [Footnote 61: Observations sur la Formation des Montagnes.] [Footnote 62: Lettres Phys. Sur l'Histoire de la Terre, tom. ii. p. 206.] 151. PINI, professor of natural history at Milan, has denied the stratification of primitive mountains, in a memoir on the mineralogy of St Gothard, and in another on the revolutions of the globe.[63] His reasonings are opposed by SAUSSURE,[64] and are certainly, in many respects, very open to attack. They proceed on a comparison between the division of rocks, by what is called the planes of their stratification, and their division by transverse fissures: two things, which he thinks so much alike, that they ought not to be referred to different causes; and, as the one cannot be regarded as the effect of aqueous deposition, so neither should the other. This is a very fallacious argument, because it confounds two things that are essentially different; and, instead of inquiring about a matter of fact, inquires about its cause. The truth is, that the dispute has arisen from not distinguishing the granite from the schistus mountains, and from involving both under the name of primitive. M. Pini seems to be in the right, when he holds the granite of St Gothard to be unstratified; but it is without any good reason, that he would extend the same conclusion to the schistus of that mountain. CHARPENTIER, and Saussure, in his last two volumes, contend even for the stratification of granite.[65] [Footnote 63: Memoria sulle Rivoluzioni del Globo Terrestre; Memorie della Societa Italiana, tom. v. p. 222, &c.] [Footnote 64: Voyages aux Alpes, tom. iv. § 1881.] [Footnote 65: See NOTE XV. on Granite.] As the consent, if not universal, is very general for the stratification of the primary schistus, and the fact itself abundantly obvious, in almost all the instances I have ever met with, I have not considered it as necessary to enter here into any argument on this subject. NOTE IV. § 8. _Primary strata not primitive._