653. It may be said, that calx were decomposed into alkali and carbon; water into oxygen and acid. Carbon and oxygen become carbonic acid in limestone. Carbons and hydrogen become sulphur, combined with oxygen sulphuric acid in gypsum. Hydrogen and oxygen become hydrochloric acid in common salt.
654. Gypsum is to be regarded as a calcareous earth, which is inflammable in character, as the fundamental earths were metallic. The philosophical essence of gypsum consists not in its oxydation by sulphuric acid, but in the combination of calcareous earth with sulphur, as occurs in that of iron-spar with iron; in this combination, however, the carbonic acid has still remained, whereby the sulphur became acid. The gypsum was therefore a carbonaceo-sulphate of lime, an oxydized metal with a very large proportion of calcareous earth.
655. Gypsum and chalk are related polarwise to each other, separate during the general precipitation, and are deposited opposite to, or alternately upon, each other.
656. In fluor-spar, apatite and boracite the last differentialization of lime and carbonic acid is lost. The principal masses are the carbonate and sulphate of lime.
657. The strata of the Inflammables, such as of pit-coal, and of the ores, as of iron, calamine, appear to have originated in simply a mechanical manner.
658. The precipitating process is a process of polarization, which comprises several stages. In it there are moments of time.
659. If the fluid mass be large, this polarization will then require considerable time to penetrate throughout it.
660. The polarizing process will issue from a definite point, which is different from water, and thus form the point upon which the light operates with greatest force.
661. This is solid ground. During the calcareous precipitation, there was no other ground present save that of the mountain tops. It was thus from these that the calcareous precipitation set out.
662. With each precipitation a greater number of mountain tops made their appearance, because the water sank; for the calcareous earth is about three times denser than water.
663. Such being the conditions belonging to the sedimentary periods, several consecutive centuries characterized by precipitations with repeated recessions and elevations of the water, elapsed and have left evidence of the time thus consumed.