Elements of Physiophilosophy

by Lorenz Oken

622. The metamorphosis of the granite did not terminate with these precipitations. They are only the starting points for the metamorphosis, in which the effort was first manifested to free themselves from the primary combination. In the metamorphosis of earths, the fundamental earths, or the constituent parts of granite, strove to become each for itself a particular rock. They were all identified in quartz; in granite they for the first time parted company with each other, yet still formed a common sphere; lastly, in gneiss and mica-schist they all separated into three spheres, but which still did not differ in mass from granite.

623. Individualization had not yet been attained. The gneiss had still all the constituent parts of the granite, as well as the mica-schist; both are only a more peripheric, slaty granite, the one having a preponderance of the Argillaceous, the other of the Talcose. With these formations, however, Geogeny cannot remain stationary; for verily the law of the development of the world is individualization. Instead of granite, simply quartz, instead of gneiss simply clay, instead of mica-schist simply talc must be separated; and then the termination of this period is attained, the trinity of the simple earths has been completely represented.

624. All the Earthy could not have been separated from the water by the first storm of precipitation. For the water now rested very much collapsed upon the earth's nucleus, and could no longer therefore assume the form of rain. That therefore which was now precipitated could no longer be thoroughly crystallized, but must follow the current and disquietude of the water, and thus emerge from it in a slaty or massive condition.

625. The quartz of the granite endeavours to set itself free from the clay and talc, or it becomes freed by the latter removing from it in virtue of its polar behaviour. There is therefore one series of rocks, in which the granite is constantly rejecting the feldspar and mica more and more, and at last subsists as quartz simply, which quartzose rocks as forming entire mountains are for intelligible reasons not of frequent occurrence.

626. The completion of the gneiss in its entire separation from the granite, and the evolution of feldspar upon a large scale constitutes the clay-slate, and finally clay-stone and clay-porphyry. This yields us a new series of formations, in which the gneiss gradually attains to being divested of quartz and mica and to a pure position as feldspar. The clay-slate is a true gneiss, that has lost the definite particles of quartz and mica.

627. The position of mica-schist constitutes in its purity the talc-formation, talc-slate, chlorite-slate, hornblende-slate.

628. After these several precipitations, the calcareous mass remains behind in the water, and now, as in the first periods of crystallization, is charged with carbonic acid, and is precipitated as transitionary calx under the form of mountain limestone.

629. These formations are found upon the whole to be arranged on the earth, in the order of time at which they were precipitated from the water. In the middle of the loftiest mountains is granite, then gneiss and mica-schist; then follow quartzose rocks, clay-slate or porphyry, talcose rocks, and lastly on the edge of all these runs the chain of alpine or mountain limestone. In the last of these formations are found fossil remains of corals and molluscous animals. For these formations fell first of all after the water had a solid bottom, and the granitic mountains projected above it.

SEDIMENTARY OR STRATIFIED ROCKS.

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.