MODE IY. ST-EATITE. 



a whitish steatite, crossed by calcareous spar, 

 which gives it a smooth shining fracture. 



" It was the first, finest sort of steatites, that 

 was the subject of the following analysis." 



The result is, silex 48, magnesia 20, argil 14, 

 oxyd of iron 1, water 15*. 



Da Costa has given more particular inform 

 ation concerning the soap-rock of Cornwall. 



" The soap-earth, or steatites, is found in a 

 sandy creek, not much above a mile to the north- 

 west of the Lizard point : the sand is very 

 smooth and pleasant, of a mixed colour, light 

 and blue, and when the tide is out, affords many 

 turning and winding passages betwixt the rocks, 

 also blue, and the vast masses of cliff, which the 

 violence of the sea has separated from their mo- 

 ther land, and from each other. There are also 

 two grots, one called Kynas hole, into which 

 those sandy walks lead; but in them nothing 

 remarkable is to be found, not even marine 

 plants, it being altogether too often washed by 

 the tides on the surface of these rocks. There is 

 sprinkled here and there a smooth, fat, and seem- 

 ingly unctuous kind of incrustation, in colour 

 and feeling much like to the natural appearance 

 of bees'- wax, or tallow, and much of the same 



* Aual. Ess. i. 462. 



