44S 
NATURAL HISTORY OF AFRK^A. 
as it is sometimes called, is a mineral production 
of Egypt. The most beautiful calcareous alabas- 
ters, those used by the ancients, are conjectured 
to have been brought from the mountains of the 
Thebaid, situated between the Nile and the Red 
Sea, near the city of Alabastron. In the Natural 
Museum in Paris, there is a colossal figure of an 
Egyptian deity, cut in this rare kind of alabaster.* 
Very lately, that indefatigable inquirer Mr Bel- 
zoni discovered, in one of the chambers of a 
tomb in the valley of Biban El Moluck" in 
Egypt, an exquisitely beautiful sarcophagus of 
alabaster, which he describes as being nine feet 
five inches long by three feet nine inches wide, 
and two feet and one inch high, carved, within 
and without, with hieroglyphics and figures in 
intaglio, nearly in a perfect state, sounding like 
a bell, and as transparent as glass; 
18. Fhior Spar, — A beautiful green coloured 
variety of this mineral, which has been confound- 
ed with emerald, is said to occur in the Island of 
Emeralds, in the Red Sea. 
19. Heavy Spar^ or Sidphat of Barytes,— This 
mineral occurs in small quantity in Lower Egypt. 
20. Nitre. — This salt occurs incrusting rocks 
in Darfur, and in the Karroo deserts in Southern 
Africa. 
Jameson's Mineralogy, vol. ii. p. 173. 
