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II. Observations on Granite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

James Hutton
Affiliation:
Member of the Royal Academy of Agriculture at Paris.

Extract

Since reading the paper upon the theory of the earth, I have been employed in examining many parts of this country, in order to enquire into the natural history of granite. In this undertaking, I have succeeded beyond my most flattering expectations; and I am now to communicate to this Society the result of my observations.

In the paper just referred to, it was maintained, from many different arguments, that all the solid strata of the earth had been consolidated by means of subterraneous heat, softening the hard materials of those bodies; and that in many places, those consolidated strata had been broken and invaded by huge masses of fluid matter similar to lava, but, for the most part, perfectly distinguishable from it. Granite also was considered there as a body which had been certainly consolidated by heat; and which had, at least in some parts, been in the state of perfect fusion, and certain specimens were produced, from which I drew an argument in support of this conclusion.

Type
Papers Read Before the Society
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1794

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References

page 77 note * Vid. Trans. R. S. Edin. vol. I. p. 209. Phys. Cl.

page 80 note * Trans. R. S. Edin. vol. I. p. 255. Phys. Cl.

page 83 note * I am inclined to believe that this specimen, which is here represented as coming from Corsica, is no other than the granite of Portsoy which I have described. I imagine that here it only a graphic error, in writing de Corse, in place of d'Ecosse.