in the Appenines of Liguna* 309 



in an Irregular manner, and without any precautions for the 

 safety of the workmen : the pickaxe, however, alone is 

 used. The explosion by gunpowder would certainly bring 

 down the roots of the quarries, which are no where supported 

 by props or bulwarks. The various specimens I collected 

 here w^re : 



1st. A greenish steatite, the surface of which, as well as 

 its interior texture, is penetrated with a kind of pyritous 

 varnish of a bronze colour^ but so light and so efflorescent 

 (if I may use the expression) that it seems as if the heart of 

 the steatite, which is black, was shown through this kind of 

 varnish. This pyritous steatite is very heavy ; it blackens 

 paper, and moves the magnetic needle strongly. It cou- 

 tiins a small proportion of copper, but scarcely percep- 

 tible. 



2d. The same steatite, still richer in pyrites, with the 

 flight yellowish or bronze varnish I have mentioned, which 

 seems to gild the black serpentine rock, is soft to the touch, 

 blackening -the fingers, and forcibly obedient to the magnet. 

 ,We find in the same rock arsenical magnetic pyrites, very 

 tieavy, and with a metallic fracture of a grayish white. 



3d. This is a rare and superb specimen, being five inches 

 nine lines long by four inches broad : the base of it is a ser- 

 pentine of a dee^i black, a little glossy, blackening paper, 

 without a pyritous appearance; but very heavy, and strongly 

 attractable by the magnet, remarkable from needles of trans- 

 parent white arragoniie, one crystal of which is two inches 

 three lines Ions; and four lines in diameter, of a hexao'onal 

 figure, but always without a pyramid. Other crystals of a 

 still greater diameter are to be seen, sometimes in kinds of 

 cavities in the specimen, sometimes in the mass irself of 

 the pyritous serpentine, and seem to have been formed si- 

 multaneously with the pyritous and magnesian elements of 

 which this rock is composed. 



4th. We find a few yards from the quarries, and a little 

 lower down, some old excavations, but not so deep : here 

 there is a striated and silky-like pyrites, with beautiful 

 green efflorescences qf carbonated copper. This steatite is 



Us soft 



