4Q8 DOMAIN V. CALCAREOUS. 



even bones of fish, and trunks of the palm-tree. 

 Small pieces of iron-stone also appear, particu- 

 larly on that side where the gypsum once bore a 

 prismatic form, now destroyed by the progress of 

 the quarriers, and which probably arose from the 

 influence of that metal. 



Aspect 2. Grey gypsum, from Mount Cenis* 

 The same, from Germany. 



MODE X. ALABASTER. 



Characters. Texture, compact, generally saline, but fine- 

 grained ; sometimes fibrous, even in large masses. 



Hardness, gypsic. Fracture, even, sometimes 

 scaly. Fragments, amorphous, rather blunt. 



Weight, oarbonose, sometimes granitose. 



Lustre, glimmering. Sometimes translucent, 

 even in pretty thick pieces ; often only on the 

 edges. 



The colour is generally of the purest white, 

 sometimes slightly veined with grey : but when 

 stalactitic, it may be veined with yellow and 

 brown, by ferruginous infiltrations. In small 

 veins it may assume a rose colour, as at the Old 

 Passage, near Bristol, where it is however too 



