ITALY. L E T T E R XI. 149 



haps/ conceive how they are produced. Attempt, 

 for example, to explain by what means the red 

 garnets came into their common matrix of mica- 

 ceous flate (or gneifs) ? How they have been 

 brought into that matrix in fuch vaft quantities as 

 that in which they are found in Bohemia, near 

 Leutmeri'z, at Zoeblitz in Saxony, in Hungary^ and 

 in other places? Have they been pre-exiftent and 

 formed before ? And how came they into the flate? 

 Or, have they been cryftallized while the mafs of 

 the flate was fluid ? Take whatever hypothefis you 

 will, a friend of contradictions and difficulties will 

 ever have fome at hand ; however it be true, tha c 

 they cannot have been produced but by either of 

 thefe fuppofitions. Similar objections can be made 

 to me, by afking how the white garnets came 

 into the volcanic afhes-hills, the afhes being thrown 

 out into the fkies, and thence fallen down as fnow ? 

 But I can anfwer it by the ftupendous forces, 

 which, throwing the fire-confumed lavas into the 

 fkies, may have pulverized and thus feparated 

 themfrom the inherent merl-cryflallizations. Thefe 

 forces indeed muft be ailonifliing, if it be true 

 that, by fome ancient eruptions of Vefuvius, the 

 afhes have been fpread as far as Rome ; and, as 

 fome authors have affured, at random as far as 

 Conftantinople. Dion Caff us relates, that the 

 L 3 afhes 



