nomy o f the Globe, we may further include the
circumstance, that these fractures are the most
frequent channels o f issue to mineral and thermal
waters, whose medicinal virtues alleviate
many o f the diseases o f the Human Frame.*
“ Thus in the whole machinery o f Springs and
Rivers, and the apparatus that is kept in action
for their duration, through the instrumentality
o f a system o f curiously constructed hills and
valleys, receiving their supply occasionally from
the rains o f heaven, and treasuring it up in their
everlasting storehouses to be dispensed perpetually
by thousands o f never-failing fountains, we
see a provision not less striking, than it is
important. So also in the adjustment o f the
relative quantities of Sea and Land, in such due
proportions as to supply the earth by constant
evaporation, without diminishing the waters o f
the ocean ; and in the appointment o f the Atmosphere
to be the vehicle o f this wonderful and
unceasing circulation ; in thus separating these
waters from their native salt, (which though of
the highest utility to preserve the purity o f the
* Dr. Daubeny has shewn that a large proportion of the
thermal springs with which we are acquainted, arise through
fractures situated on the great lines of dislocation of the strata.
See Daubeny on Thermal Springs, Edin. Phil. Jour. April,
1832, p. 49.
Professor Hoffmann has given examples of these fractures in
the axis of valleys o f elevation, through which chalybeate waters
rise at Pyrmont, and in other valleys of Westphalia. See PI.
67, fig. 2.
sea, renders them unfit for the support o f terrestrial
animals or vegetables), and transmitting
them in genial showers to scatter fertility over
the earth, and maintain the never-failing reservoirs
o f those springs and rivers by which they
are again returned to mix with their parent
o c e a n ; in all these circumstances we find such
evidence o f nicely balanced adaptation of means
to ends, o f wise foresight, and benevolent intention,
and infinite power, that he must be blind
indeed, who refuses to recognize in them proofs
o f the most exalted attributes of the Creator.”*
C h a p t e r X X I I I .
Proofs o f Design in the Structure and Composition
o f unorganized Mineral Bodies.
M u c h of the physical history o f the compound
forms o f unorganized mineral bodies, has been
anticipated in the considerations given in our
early chapters to the unstratified and crystalline
rocks. I t remains only to say a few words
respecting the simple minerals that form the
ingredients o f these rocks, and the elementary
bodies o f w hich they are com posed, f
* Buckland, Inaug. Lecture, p. 13.
f The term simple mineral is applied not only to uncombined
mineral substances, which are rare in Nature, such as pure native