a in general appear not to have
been equally or universally consolidated; and this we must attribute to
an insufficient exertion of the consolidating cause. But, so far as the
erecting cause is considered as the same with that by which the elevated
bodies were consolidated, and so far as the vertical situation is a
proof of the great exertion of that subterraneous power, the strata
which are most erected, should in general be found most consolidated.

Nothing more certain than that there have been several repeated
operations of the mineralising power exerted upon the strata
in particular places; and all those mineral operations tend to
consolidation: Therefore, the more the operations have been repeated in
any place, the more we should find the strata consolidated, or changed
from their natural state. Vertical strata have every appearance from
whence we should be led to conclude, that much of the mineral power
had been exerted upon them, in changing their original constitution or
appearance. But the question now to be considered is this, How far
it may appear that these masses of matter, which now seem to be so
different from the ordinary strata of the globe, had been twice
subjected to the mineral operations, in having been first consolidated
and erected into the place of land, and afterwards sunk below the
bottom of the sea, in order a second time to undergo the process of
subterraneous heat, and again be elevated into the place where they now
are found.

It must be evident, here is a question that may not be easy to decide.
It is not to the degree of any change to which bodies may be subject,
that we are to appeal, in order to clear up the point in question,
but to a regular course of operations, which must appear to have been
successively transacted, and by which the different circumstances or
situations of those masses are to be discovered in their present state.
Now, though it does not concern the present theory that this question be
decided, as it is nothing but a repetition of the same operations that
we look for; nevertheless, it would be an interesting fact in the
natural history of this earth; and it would add great lustre to a theory
by which so great, so many operations were to be explained. I am far
from being sanguine in my expectations of giving all the satisfaction
in relation to this subject that I could wish; but it will be proper to
state what I have lately learned with regard to so curious a questi