224 
FROM THE CAPITAL OF THE CRIMEA, 
otrAP. the most beautiful writing-sand, that can be 
> — y — i used : and as this may be here obtained in any 
quantity, it might perhaps answer as an article 
of commerce ; since nothing that has been sold 
by stationers, for a similar purpose, can be 
compared with this micaceous sand of Balaclava. 
When scattered over fresh writing, it produces 
an effect as if the ink had been covered with 
minute scales of polished gold ; which it will 
retain for any number of years. This is the 
kind of gold dust alluded to by Trebellius Pollio 1 , 
with which the Emperor Gallienus powdered his 
hair. It is still used by the women of Armenia, 
and some other parts of the East, for the same 
ornamental purpose. 
Extraordi- The appearance of so much mica might 
gicai not- induce an opinion that a substratum, anterior in 
nomena. . r 
its formation to the rocks which surround the 
port, cannot lie very deep ; but there is no part 
of the world where geological phenomena are so 
extraordinary. Pallas often confessed, that in 
all his travels he had never met with any 
similar appearances*. It is impossible to con- 
0 ) Trehell. Pollio, Vit. Gallien. ap. Hist. August. Script, tom. II. 
p. 232. A. Bat. 1672. 
(2) The small treatise he extracted from the Journal of his Travels 
in the Crimea in 1794, and published at Petersburg in 1796, has been 
Wore noticed. It is so extremely rare, that the Reader may perhaps bu 
gratified 
