Theory of the Earth, With Proofs and Illustrations, Volume 1 (of 4)Hutton, James
Science
Theory of the Earth, With Proofs and Illustrations, Volume 1 (of 4)
Hutton, James
Geology -- Early works to 1800
The red marly earth is prevalent among those strata; and it is with this
red ferruginous substance that many of the sand-stone strata are tinged.
It is plain that there had been an uniform, deposits of that sand and
tinging earth; and that, however different matter might be successively
deposited, yet that each individual stratum should be nearly of the same
colour or appearance, so far as it had been formed uniformly of the same
subsiding matter. But, in the most uniform strata of red sand-stone,
the fracture of the stone presents us with circular spots of a white or
bluish colour; those little spheres are in all respects the same with
the rest of the stone, they only want the tinging matter; and now it may
be inquired how this has come about.
To say that sphericles of white sand should have been formed by
subsiding along with the red sand and earth which composed the uniform
stratum whether of sand-stone or marl, (for it happens equally in both,)
is plainly impossible, according to our notion of that operation in
which there is nothing mysterious. Those foliated strata, which are of
the most uniform nature, must have been gradually accumulated from the
subsiding sand and earth; and the white or colourless places must have
had their colour destroyed in the subsequent cementing operations. It
is often apparent, that the discharging operation had proceeded from a
centre, as some small matter may be perceived in that place. I know not
what species of substance this has been, whether saline or phlogistic,
but it must have had the power of either volatilising or changing the
ferruginous or red tinging substance so as to make it lose its colour.
I have only mentioned spherical spots for distinctness sake; but this
discharging operation is found diversifying those strata in various
ways, but always referable to the same or similar causes. Thus, in many
of the veins or natural cracks of those strata, we find the colour
discharged for a certain space within the strata; and we often see
several of those spots united, each of them having proceeded from its
own centre, and uniting where they approached. In the two veins above
mentioned, of whin-stone and spar traversing the strata, the colour of
the strata is, discharged more or less in the places contiguous with the
veins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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