MARBLE. 
372 
flexible. If these tables are supported vertically 
and struck on one end, they will vibrate so as to de- 
scribe small curves ; and during these oscillations it 
is said that the particles of marble may be heard 
rubbing or grinding against each other. 
Saussure has observed several beautiful marbles 
in Piedmont and in the Milanese. Near Mergozzo 
he found the quarries of white primitive marble 
veined with grayish black, of which the cathedral 
of Milan is built. Sicily furnishes several marbles 
of different degrees of beauty ; the most esteemed 
are of a deep red colour mixed with white and 
Isabella yellow. In Spain, as well as in Italy and 
in Greece, there are entire hills of white marble. 
One of the most singular phenomena of this kind 
occurs near Almeria, a maritime town in the king- 
dom of Grenada, of which Bowles has given the 
following description : “ To form a just idea of this 
mountain, you must conceive a block of white mar- 
ble, a league in circumference and two thousand 
feet high, so pure as to be quite free from any ex- 
traneous mixture. The summit is almost flat, and 
the marble which may be traced in several parts of 
it does not appear to have suffered any thing from 
the effect of the air. One side of this mountain is 
almost perpendicular, and appears like an enormous 
wall of a thousand feet high, entirely of one piece, 
and so perfect that the largest crack is not six feet 
long, and hardly two lines wide.” 
We know but little of the marbles of Asia. Dr. 
Shaw, in his Travels, speaks of the marble of Mount 
