254 Notice of Oriental Minerals. 
4. This specimen resembles semi-opal, but is harder; yields fire 
more freely and abundantly. It is of a cream-yellow color, and 
porous. 
5. Acicular hornblende, very beautiful; crystals irregularly ar- 
ranged; some of them curved, and wearing a jet black aspect. 
6. “From the ruins of a building belonging to the ancient capitol 
of Sira.””? Oolitic limestone of a reddish color. 
7. Talc, green, indurated and filled with elegant flattened crys- 
tals of actynolite, very similar to those of the famous locality in 
Windham, Vt. 
8. Mica slate, red on one side, and white on the opposite ; a part 
of it resembles lepidolite. ‘The whole is thickly sown with crystal- 
lized garnets, so much disintegrated that it is difficult to determime 
the number of their sides. 
9. Mica slate, composed chiefly of layers of quartz and mica, the 
Jatter singularly contorted and twisted in every imaginable manner. 
10. Magnetic oxide of iron, in small octohedral crystals, in chlorite. 
11. Marble, white and fresh, as when taken from the quarry. 
‘‘ Broken from the statue of a woman.” 
From Egypt. 
1. “Broken off from arock near the pyramids. Some of the 
stones of which the pyramids are built are similar to this.” Piso- 
lite, a specimen as large as a man’s fist, composed of particles of a 
lenticular shape, varying in size from a small pea to that of a wal- 
nut. These lenses, made up of thin layers of carbonate of lime, are 
hollow, or filled with sand, colored yellow. 
2. “‘The common stone of the temple at Carnac, Thebes.” A 
light gray, soft sandstone. 
3. ‘A sample of the sarcophagus in one of the tombs of the 
kings, Thebes.”’ Sienite; the feldspar is flesh-red, and the horn- 
blende brownish, inclining to black. ’ 
4. A fragment of Pompey’s pillar. ‘‘ This specimen was given 
me by Capt. Skinner, of an English brig, who had been on the top 
of Pompey’s pillar, and broke it off himself.” Granite. The mica 
is black; the quartz white, vitreous, and sparingly distributed; the 
feldspar is red, and is the principal ingredient. 
5. Granite, similar to No. 4. ‘“ Broken from the statue of Mem- 
non at the temple of Memnon in Gornon, Thebes. The body of 
this statue, below the arms, is twelve feet in diameter from side to 
side ; the arms four feet in diameter.” 
