But many substances which are not considered soluble in water become so by some modification of the water. Water of a high temperature is capable of dissolving silex. In Iceland and other volcanic regions, the hot springs are charged with silex, which is deposited as the water cools. Thus, siliceous formations accumulate around springs of this kind. The various agates may have been deposited from such solutions.
In the decomposition of mica, felspar and volcanic rocks, a considerable amount of potassa is set free. Potassa or soda renders the water in which it is dissolved capable of dissolving silex in large quantity. In these ways water removes, with some degree of rapidity, one of the most insoluble minerals which rocks contain.
In volcanic countries, and in coal districts, carbonic acid is abundant, both in spring-water and in the gaseous form. Water charged with this gas becomes capable of dissolving limestone. Where the water is exposed to the air, the gas gradually escapes, and the calcareous matter is deposited. Many accumulations of this kind are now taking place. Some have already extended several miles in length, and they are often of great thickness, in one instance, in Italy, two hundred feet ([Fig. 72]). It is also probable that many calcareous springs issue below the surface of lakes and seas, and thus, both fresh-water and marine deposits would now be forming. These formations are distinctly stratified, and are white and crystalline, and become solid at the time of deposition.
These dissolved materials are less observed than others, because they do not render the water turbid; but there is reason to believe that several of the aqueous formations, particularly the limestones, have been built up chiefly from them.
2. The abrading action of rivers furnishes considerable detrital matter. The general form of the river courses is determined by other causes than the agency of the river itself, yet a river which has a rapid current is continually deepening its channel. We have proof of this by observing, when the water is low, that irregularity of surface which running water always produces, by wearing away the softer parts of the rock, and leaving the harder in relief. Hence, a river will have its rapids either where the hardest strata occur, and which therefore wear down least rapidly, or where the rock has been hardened by the intrusion or near proximity of dikes.
The abrading power of rivers occasionally becomes greatly increased by waterfalls. The force which the water acquires in its descent is such as to excavate a deep cavity at the foot of the fall, reaching back under the ledge from which the water descends. The ledge is therefore constantly being undermined. The cataract of Niagara is peculiar, in having the rock at its base of a soft and friable texture, so that it is rapidly worn away, while the upper rock is a compact siliceous limestone. If the order of superposition had been the reverse, the falls would have been converted into a series of rapids. It is now preserved as a single fall, and as such it has probably cut the gorge, about two hundred feet deep and seven miles in length, through which its waters now reach Lake Ontario. A few years since, a large mass, perhaps half an acre in area, fell from the centre of the horse-shoe fall. Another mass of equal size has recently fallen from the western extremity of the ledge. Thus the fall is gradually receding.
But the foreign substances, such as drift-wood, ice, sand and gravel, with which the waters of a river are occasionally charged, contribute more than everything else to its abrading power. At such times its volume is generally greatest, and its current the most rapid. Its bed is then sometimes perceptibly deepened and widened in a few hours.