630. The period had now arrived in which the fundamental earths, being upon the whole completed, predominate. That which was separated in a chemical way from the Earthy out of water, has been in great part precipitated. This period, however, although the first and most extensive, indicates but the half of Geogeny, or as yet only one pole in the genesis, which requires the other. In the beginning both poles were in the water, that of the fundamental earths as well as that of the calcareous earth; the light shone upon, dissevered them, and earths, the most heterogeneous in respect to water, were first of all precipitated.
631. While the fundamental earths were precipitated, the calcareous earth was repelled and retained, on account of its homogeneity, in water, because the acid half continued longer fluid than the basic. The water was thus after its separation from these substances a true limewater.
632. Through this separation, however, the great antagonism in the water ceased; and subordinate antagonisms now made their appearance, which were kept united by the former. The calcareous earth is now occupied no more as one pole, but is the whole water itself, upon which, as it is less deep, the light acts anew and with greater force.
633. The dispersions of earths began just at this period to multiply themselves, from the only fettering agent, namely gravity, having betaken itself to rest; every earthy now emerges from its connexions, the factors falling wholly asunder into alkalies and acids, which combine in a multifarious manner.
634. These dispersions associated with the torrents of water that were now everywhere present prevented crystallization from taking place upon a large scale; they moreover mingled with the mechanically water-borne and crumbling débris of the earlier species of rocks; their laminations therefore resemble rather a mechanical deposit from water. They are the _Stratified rocks_.
635. As the first period must include the calcareous earth, so also in the period of strata or in the dualized period this earth is not without a slight antagonism of the fundamental earths; and this it is which for the first time becomes distinct, but always with a preponderance of the calcareous over the fundamental earths, while in the primary periods this relative proportion of the two was the reverse.