MODE V. OLLITE. 327 



sometimes entirely. Mr. Kirwan calls it foliated, 

 or striated steatite ; and says that it is generally 

 found in independent amorphous masses, some- 

 times investing or intersecting serpentine. 



" Leek green, inclining to olive green, curved 

 foliated steatite, from Norway. * 



" Mountain green, partially sprinkled with 

 black, foliated steatite, from Z6bliz."| 



MODE V. OLLITE. 



Texture, earthy, rather schistose. Characters. 



Hardness, cretic or gypsic. Fracture, un- 

 even, somewhat slaty. Fragments, amorphous, 

 blunt, often laminar. 



Weight, carbonose, sometimes granitose. 



Lustre, dull, sometimes glimmering, unctuous. 

 Opake; if translucent on the edges it approaches 

 to hard steatite. 



The colour is often greenish grey, or blackish 

 green; sometimes yellowish, or reddish. It is 

 often spotted, like a snake, whence the ophites 

 of the ancients, which certainly belonged to this 

 kind, and not to the green porphyries, as has 

 hitherto been supposed by a long train of mi- 

 neralogists, copying each other. It differs from 



* Leske, 131. f Ib. 



