721. Now, however, nothing can be separated, i. e. nothing be reduced, without the oxygen accumulating upon something else. The Earthy must therefore separate during the formation of metal into the Reduced and Peroxydized.
722. The reduced earthy is the metal or inflammable; the peroxydized, however, an earth proper. This earth is called vein-stone.
723. The ore has only originated in opposition to the vein-stone, and when this has taken the Different of the Earthy into itself. Therefore the vein-stones are also different from the kind of rock in which they occur, and that through greater differentialization; they have even receded for the most part into acid and alkaline poles, as calc-spar, fluor-spar, heavy-spar, which are the usual vein-stones. All vein-stones are oxyds and as a rule, those in which the oxygen is freely manifested, namely as acid. The vein-stones were the sheath of the ore, which could first appear when this sheath had withdrawn itself.
724. The metal stands in relation to the vein-stone. Thus in argillaceous vein-stones we commonly meet with iron, manganese; in the quartzoze with gold; in the calcareous with lead, &c. There are here also extremes. There are vein-stones, called sterile veins, in whose antagonism no metal has been formed; and there are veins, that are merely filled with metal, such as the Stockwerke, Lager.
725. Since the ore and the vein-stones thus originate together, and in such a manner that they conditionate each other; their fundamental mass must have been one, and a separating force, which is not light, must have operated upon them.
726. Moreover, as the ores occur only in narrow spaces with their vein-stones and both form alternating tables upon the walls of the veins, they must have been attracted by the latter.
727. The walls of the vein consequently exert a polar influence upon the ore and vein-stone. Now, if this be their mode of action, they must be in a condition to separate the fundamental mass.
728. It is thus the vein themselves, which, by a vital force, produce the metals; they are thus a living womb, or matrix as it has been emphatically termed.
729. Two walls in close juxtaposition are requisite for the production of metal. Upon a freely exposed wall or face of rock no metals are found.
730. By this separation, however, two kinds of minerals originate, Inflammables, and ores proper or metals. The action of the walls must be therefore of a twofold nature.