306 Geological Journey to Mount Ramazzo 



the microscope the commencement of the kind of radiated 

 crystallization which is peculiar to each globule. 



The higher we ascended, the more of these specimens 

 did we find at the foot of the rocks of serpentine. T ob- 

 served with interest the general tendency these rocks natu- 

 rally have to divide into sphnters, or into large flat and 

 scaly fragments ; (this I attributed to a peculiar alteration 

 of the iron so abundant in this kind of stone;) when I 

 suddenly perceived upon the right of the pass, a mass of 

 serpentine in its bed more than eighteen feet high, with a 

 base of 40 feet broad, and which seemed as it were iso- 

 lated, either by natural and spontaneous decomposition of 

 the most tender parts of the rock, or by some other cause. 

 1 perceived upon this large mass some parts much greener 

 than others, penetrating deeply into the heart of this enor- 

 mous block, which was of a very dull blackish green. 



I approached very close, and I ascertained that most of 

 the spots were produced by parts abounding in true variolite 

 of a grass green colbur, and white spots or grains, shaded 

 from an extremely clear green. All these parts formed 

 in variolites seemed extremely hard : I had soon some 

 proofs of this, when I struck them with a hammer, and it 

 was with great difficulty f obtained some good specimens. 



Several of these pieces had a multitude of globules ana- 

 logous and similar in every respect to the variolite of Du- 

 rance : sometimes, however, the variolitic spots only en- 

 tered to the depth of an inch and a half into the stone, and 

 the rest seemed to be nothing else than a pure serpentinous 

 rock ; at other places the vanolite entered deeper into the 

 mass : in some places the granulous surface was not much 

 larger than the palm of the hand ; in others it was double 

 this size; in short, by continuing to observe more vario- 

 lites in other blocks, I was convinced that this singular 

 stone is not in a vein in the masses of serpentines, but that 

 it exists indifferently, sometimes in one place and some- 

 times in another, without order or regularity. It is the 

 same with the arrangement of the globules : we see them 

 huddled together upon some pieces, and as it were arranged 



in 



