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Updated: May 20, 2025
To this subject of the petrifactions of Giezier, I may now add the information which we have received in consequence of a new voyage from this country to Iceland. When Sir Joseph Banks returned from his expedition to Iceland, he landed at this place; and, having brought specimens of the petrifications of Giezer, Dr Black and I first discovered that these were of a siliceous substance.
It must not be alleged that nature may operate in the mineral regions, as she does here upon the surface in the case of Giezer. Such an argument as this, however sound it may be in general, will not apply to the subject of which we treat at present.
We have now, by the favour of this gentleman, obtained specimens of the petrifactions of Giezer; and, what is still more interesting, we have procured some of the water of those petrifying boiling springs.
In the first place, although siliceous substance is not soluble, so far as we know, by simple water, it is soluble by means of alkaline substance; consequently, it is possible that it may be dissolved in the earth. Secondly, The water of Giezer in Iceland, actually petrifies bodies which are alternately imbibed with that hot water and exposed to the air.
I have always conjectured that the water of Giezer must be impregnated with flinty matter by means of an alkaline substance, and so expressed my opinion in the Theory of the Earth published in the Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society. We have therefore been very desirous of procuring some of that water, in order to have it analysed.
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