823. The volatilized earth or coal, i. e. the earth that has ascended through water or salt unto air, is associated with a higher kingdom, and that indeed the general mass of the vegetable kingdom, as is the case in the pit-coals, which are reversions of plants.
824. As the earths and metals extend into pit-coals, so does sulphur lose itself in idioelectric, inflammable substances, which are likewise reversions of a sulphur that has escaped into a higher kingdom. Here belong the amber, mineral resins and naphthas.
825. There are thus two ways, by which the reduced earthy seeks to mount aloft; by the carbon, as belonging to the more inert earth; and the Resinous, as belonging to the more active air. The vegetable kingdom has its root in the simple earths, especially the hydroid argillaceous earths; the animal kingdom in the divided calcareous earths.
826. Sulphur is yellow, because it is the earthy that has come to light, the carbon is black, because it is sulphur volatilized, moistened in the gloom or darkness of the earth.
Salt-periods.
827. So long as the basis of the acid is an earthy, such as carbon or sulphur in the carbonic and sulphuric acids, does the earthy also obtain the preponderance, and the lime as well as the gypsum or sulphate of lime are precipitated as insoluble bodies.
828. It is only through the influence of light constantly becoming more powerful by reason of the solid land under the water that the oxydation of water rises to the highest degree, so that this element finally converts itself into an acid, or hydro-oxide. This process must be regarded as a decomposition of water, whereby a portion of the hydrogen forms sulphur with the carbon, the rest with the oxygen an hydro-oxide.
829. The hydro-oxide is hydrochloric acid. This acid must be regarded as peroxydized hydrogen. Its signification is thus that of being water itself, or a whole element with a preponderance of oxygen. It attains this rank by its constituent parts, namely, the two general gaseous primary bodies, by its distribution as a whole element around the earth; by its occurrence as an earth-formation in rock-salt; finally, by its presence in all vegetable and animal juices. Hydrochloric acid is the type of all acids, as the iron is of all metals. All acids are but imitations of the hydrochloric. All abide by the signification of water, or are conversions of elements or earths by oxydation into an hydroid condition.