ITALY. LETTER IV. 1J 



centine and Yeronefe hills, which with much pains 

 he has collected, and with equal care glued on a 

 black paper-ground. Several fpecies feemed to 

 be entirely new, and never obferved. He fhewed 

 me fome petrified (hells in a red jafper, fprinkled 

 with quartz, found near Brefcia ; where, as in 

 Vicenza and Verona, the upper ftratum of the 

 calcareous hills commonly contains a great variety 

 of red and black jafper and common flint, dif- 

 pofed in fmall beds, which are called la Scaglia. 

 His mouldings and ammonites in a grey horn- 

 ftone (Petrofilex) from the ifland Cerigo, in the 

 Archipelago, feemed to me very fingular. 



Signer Giacomp Morofmi, a nobleman, has a 

 fine botanic garden near Venice, and a cabinet 

 of the three natural kingdoms ; which, though 

 not very numerous, contains fome very valuable 

 pieces. I faw there pretended black Iceland agate 

 (Cronfted. Mineral. .295) and another fpecies of 

 that kind, of a blue colour ; fo perfectly refem- 

 bling blue iron-flags, that I doubted its authenti- 

 city, till feveral connoifTeurs, whofe veracity I 

 cannot fufpecl, unanimoufly afiured me of its 

 being very frequent, together with the black 

 fpecies, among the volcanic productions in the 

 Venetian State ; I faw, like wife, calcined bones 

 and fragments of human fkulls ( fuch they 

 feemed to be) in a red calcareous and jafper- 

 7 like 



