MODE If. BASALT. 27 



substance of felspar is equally interspersed in it, 

 and is not united in crystals. This base is homo- 

 geneous, very compact, and very hard. Fine 

 statues of it are seen in the Capitol, and in the 

 Villa Albani. 



" Oriental green basalt, with white specks. It is 

 the same as the preceding, in which the felspar is 

 united in small crystals : it is named speckled ba- 

 salt, and is very rare. There are two pillars of it 

 at Rome, in the church of St. Pudentiana. 



" Dolomieu says, that there is such a vast 

 number of Egyptian monuments in the Borgian 

 Museum at Veletri, that they are almost sufficient 

 to constitute the whole Egyptian Lithology : many 

 are formed of stones which have qualities attri- 

 buted to basalts ; not one is volcanic." 



In passing to the modern basalts, it must be 

 premised that the trap of Wallerius, which he de- 

 scribes as being of an impalpably fine grain, 

 belongs solely to the basalt of the moderns, here 

 called basal tin from that circumstance. But the 

 basaltic granite of this venerable author * certainly 

 includes some of the basalts of the ancients ; as 

 that of an iron-colour, mixed with the ore of that 

 metal and quartz, which is found at Norberg, in 

 Westmania, His saxum fcrreum, composed of 



i. 422. 



