iments, and occasionally of
conglomerates, were by degrees deposited, giving rise to the TRANSITION
formations.

"Beneath this crust a new process now commenced. The outer zones of
crystalline matter having been suddenly refrigerated by the rapid
vaporization and partial escape of the water they contained, abstracted
caloric from the intensely heated nucleus of the globe. These
crystalline zones were of unequal density, the expansion they had
suffered diminishing from above downward.

"Their expansive force was, however, equal at all points, their
temperature everywhere bearing an inverse ratio to their density. But
when by the accession of caloric from the inner and unliquefied nucleus
the temperature, and consequently the expansive force of the lower
strata of dilated crystalline matter, was augmented, it acted upon the
upper and more liquefied strata. These being prevented from yielding
OUTWARDLY by the tenacity and weight of the solid involucrum of
precipitated and sedimental deposits which overspread them, sustained
a pressure out of proportion to their expansive force, and were in
consequence proportionately condensed, and by the continuance of the
process, where the overlying strata were sufficiently resistant, finally
consolidated.

"This process of consolidation must have progressed from above downward,
with the increase of the expansive force in the lower strata, commencing
from the upper surface, which, its temperature being lowest, offered the
least resistance to the force of compression.

"By this process the upper zone of crystalline matter, which had
intumesced so far as to allow of the escape of its aqueous vapor and of
much of its mica and quartz, was resolidified, the component crystals
arranging themselves in planes perpendicular to the direction of the
pressure by which the mass was consolidated--that is, to the radius of
the globe. The gneiss formation, as already observed, was the result.

"The inferior zone of barely disintegrated granite, from which only
a part of the steam and quartz and none of the mica had escaped,
reconsolidated in a confused or granitoidal manner; but exhibits marks
of the process it had undergone in its broken crystals of felspar and
mica, its rounded and superficially dissolved grains of quartz, its
imbedded fragments (broken from the more solid parts of the mass, as it
rose, and enveloped by the softer parts), its concretionary nodules and
new minerals, etc.

"Ben