484 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



compares. A peculiar stone from this same locality is white with 

 streaks and blotches of a blood-red color. It is more peculiar than 

 beautiful. The marbles of Pero Pinheiro are of mottled white and 

 pink — almost red — color, fine grained and compact. They are said to 

 have been extensively used in Lisbon, where they have proved very 

 durable. Other marbles that perhaps need especial mention are the 

 breccias from Serra da Arrabida and Chodes, Saragossa Province. The 

 first named is composed of rounded and angular pebbles of a gray, drab, 

 black, and red color, embedded in a dull red paste. In a general way it 

 resembles the breccia from Montgomery County, Md., but has less 

 beauty. The Chodes stone is composed of very angular fragments, of 

 a black color, in a reddish-brown paste. The proportion of paste to the 

 fragments is very large and much filling is 'necessary in polishing. 

 Fine, compact marbles of dull reddish hues, often veined with drab, oc- 

 cur in Pannella province. Others that may be mentioned are the red 

 and yellow mottled marbles of Murcia province, the black of Alicante 

 province, and the black white reined breccias of Madrid. A fine 

 translucent alabaster is also included in the collections from Saragossa 

 province. 



A very full series of these stones was exhibited at the Centennial 

 Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, and from there was transferred to 

 the National Museum. 



D.— GRANITIC ROCKS. 

 (1) EGYPT. 



Granite of Syene. — The now well-known red granite, formerly called 

 syenite, from near Syene, Egypt, and from which was constructed the 

 numerous obelisks of the Egyptians, is represented in the Museum col- 

 lections by a block some 10 inches long by 5 inches broad, and which was 

 presented by the late Commander H. H. Gorringe. The block was at 

 one time a portion of one of these obelisks, as it was found during the 

 excavations preparatory to the removal of the obelisk now in Central 

 Park, New York, from Alexandria. The rock, which is very coarse, is 

 of a general reddish color and is composed of large crystals of red and 

 whitish feldspars intermixed with clear, glassy quartz and coal-black 

 mica and hornblende. Some of the red feldspars are very large, ex- 

 ceeding an inch in length. The original source of the granite is stated 

 to have been Upper Egypt, where it occupies large tracts between the 

 first cataract of the Nile and the town of Assouan, the ancient Syene. 

 It was quarried by the Egyptians as far back as one thousand three 

 hundred years before the Christian era and has been fashioned into 

 obelisks, sarcophagi, and colossal statues innumerable.* The block in 



*See Hull, op. cit., p. 51; also Gorringe's "The Egyptian Obelisk," N. Y., 1882, or 

 Jour. Geol. Soc. of London, Vol. yn, 1850-'5l, p. 9, 



