But to show how little reason our author had for exulting in that question which he so confidently proposed in order to defeat my argument, let us consider this matter a little farther. I will for a moment allow the aqueous theory to have the means for separating the water from the saline solution, and thus to concrete the saline substance in the bowels of the earth; this concretion then is to be examined with a view to investigate the last state of this body, which is to inform us with regard to those mineral operations. But, our author has not mentioned whether those masses appear to have been crystallised from the aqueous solution, or if they appear to have been congealed from the melted state of their _aqueous fusion_.--Has he ever thought of this? Now this is so material a point in the view with which that example has been held out to us, that, without showing that this salt had crystallised from the solution, he has no right to employ it as an example; and if, on the other hand, it should appear to have simply congealed from the state of aqueous fusion, then, instead of answering the purpose for which our author gave it, it would refute his supposition, as certainly as the example which I have given. So far I have reasoned upon the supposition of this alkali, with its water of crystallization, being truly a mineral concretion; but, I see no authority for such a supposition: It certainly may be otherwise; and, in that case, our author would have no more right to give it as an example in opposition to Dr Black's argument, than he would have to give the crystallization of sea-salt, on Turk's Island, in opposition to the example which I had given, of the salt rock, at Northwych in Cheshire, having been in the state of fusion. It certainly was incumbent on our author to have informed us, if those masses of salt were found in, what may be properly termed, their mineral state; or, if the state in which they are found at present had been produced by the influences of the atmosphere, transforming that saline substance from its mineral state, as happens upon so many other occasions; I am inclined to suspect that this last is truly the case. It may be thought illiberal in me to suppose a natural philosopher thus holding out an example that could only serve to lead us into error, or to mislead our judgment with regard to those two theories which is the subject of consideration. This certainly would be the case, almost on any other occasion; but, when I find every argument and example, employed in this dissertation, to be either unfounded or misjudged, Whether am I to conclude our author, on this occasion, to be consistent with himself, or not?