320 DOMAIN IV. TALCOUS. 



" A steatite is found in Corsica, which is 

 solid, of an even tissue, of a uniform olive-green 

 colour, semi-transparent and unctuous: it is 

 what the Germans call nephritic stone, on ac- 

 count of its resemblance to the jad of the river 

 of Amazons, which has that name by excel- 

 lence. This steatite is, with a slight difference 

 of colour, exactly like the lard-stone of China. 



" Saussure gives the description of a steatite 

 of St. Gothard, which he calls asbestiform steat- 

 ite : it is very interesting, because it shows the 

 transition of one stone to another. 



" It is of a grey, approaching to yellow or 

 green, and it much resembles asbestos, but its 

 fibres are much larger, softer, and more unc- 

 tuous. Its longitudinal fracture shows large 

 fibres, parallel to one another, irregularly pris- 

 matic, as much as three inches long: their lus- 

 tre middling, sometimes bright; but it is owing 

 to a bed of talc, which covers the fibres of the 

 stone. 



" Its transverse fracture is uneven, splintery: 

 translucent on its edges: soft, and scratches with 

 the nail. The small fragments melt by the 

 blow-pipe into a black globule. 



" It is then evidently, Saussure says, a species 

 intermediate between talc, steatite, and asbestos- 



" Rome de Flsle mentions a greenish steatite 



