DOMAIN IV. TALCOUS. 



Argyle, is constructed with a dark ollite, of which 

 there are quarries in the neighbourhood; and 

 which has likewise been formed into punch-bowls 

 and vases. It is also said that the cathedral of 

 Bergen, in Norway, is built of ollite. 



In the middle ages, Chiavenna had supplanted 

 Como in this article of commerce, the quarries 

 of ollite being at Pleurs, a town about two miles 

 to the north-east; but the excavations were con- 

 ducted with such little care, that in 1618 the 

 hill fell down, and buried the city, with the 

 greater part of the inhabitants*. Near Oletza, 

 in Corsica, ollite is found of a bright olive green, 

 and is worked by the lath like the others. Ro- 

 ziere, in his interesting memoir on the valley of 

 Cosseir, in Egypt, mentions that the Arabs make 

 little vases of an ollite, which they find in that 

 country. The celebrated calumet f, or pipe of 

 peace, of the American savages, is of a greenish 

 grey ollite, with reddish veins and spots, and is 

 cut with the knife into a not inelegant form, 

 with a second cavity adapted to receive a long 

 reed, which serves for what is called the stem. 

 On the west of the Missouri the savages are said 

 to use a red serpentine for -the same purpose. 



\See the affecting detail of this event in Burnet's travels, 

 f So called from the French chalumcau. 



