The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-03-01

formed.
 Many of the old school geologists still
 adhere to the igneous theory of the for nation of minerals. To sustain this the
 ory they tell us that the heat gradually
 increases with the depth attained in the
 mines. During the last thirty years ex-
 ploratlons in mines have proved that
 depth has but little, if anything, to do
 With their temperature. Heat is rro
 duced by chemical action which can
 take place as we'll a depth of one hun
 dred feet as it can at a depth of one
 thousand feet. The deepest workings of
 any mine In the world are in the Calu-
 met and Hecla mines of Michigan,
 which are now down five thousand feet.
 There has been little or no change in the
 temperature from the two thousand to
 the five thousand foot level. In the
 Chollar- -Norcross- Savage combination shaft on the Comstock the water on the twelve hundred foot level had a temper
 ature of one hundred and forty degrees;
 from the twelve hundred to the thirty two hundred foot level there was no per
 ceptible change.
 We have only three primary divisions
 of matter-solids, fluids and gases
 There is no independent igneous ele-
 ment Lava is not the result of the
 working of such an element, but of de-
 composition. Tn all mountain ranges
 throughout the world there are vast de- posits of sulphites mostly in the state
 of auriferous pyrites. When water,
 which is composed of oxygen and hydro gen gases, is brought in contact with
 these ores, the oxygen unites with the sulphur of the mineral and forms sul- phuric acid and various other com
 pounds. When this violent oh amical ac- tion takes place the water becomes heat ed and the hydrogen, being liberated in its efforts to escape often forces the heated water at intervals, many feet above the surface, as may be seen at Steamboat Springs, New, and other places. We find no evidence to support the theory that minerals are formed by igneous heat. But experiments which have been made in the great laboratory of nature during the past thirty years have convinced me of the fact that all minerals in their natural state together with all other substances with which they are combined, are in solvent con- dition, and that the different metals are iEDlH lIlG uIllcItHl TUChS IF which they are found with as much cer- tainty as the different soils under differ ent climatic influences produce the diff l ferent fruits and vegetables. The pro- cesses in nature which cause the blade | of grass to grow cause all vegetation to | grow; and the same principle applies to the mineral kingdom The exact man. ner in which minerals are formed in na- ture is one of her impenetrabe secrets, | as incomprehensible to the human mind | as is the exact manner in which the | electric fluids are formed or set free by | the digestion of food which is taken into 1 the human stomach and carried or im- pelled by some unknown force to every part of the system. It is scarcely ne- cessary to advance arguments proving that minerals in their natural condition ! are in a solvent state. Everything in nature must have been solvent before it could become solid
 Electricity being the only, element or substance over which we have any con trol that enables us to transmit and re- deposit metals from a solvent to srys- taline state, it is natural to conclude that it is the force which controls the | of everything. The explo- rations and the findings made by Amer ican miners since the discovery of gold in California furnish incontestabe evil dence that all metals are continually be- ing formed from the solvent salts of the rocks in place. In one section of the petrified forest belt that is found in New Mexico, where copper predon1inated, all the petrified trees were found to be cep- 1 per ore. Some of the ore carried as high as forty per cent. in copper, with traces of gold and silver and all the other sub stances that were found in the copper taken from the veins in place in the same locality. A smeter was at one time constructed to smelt these ores. These forest trees had evidently been at