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Sophia, and looked upon these Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich Cloth, which the Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within myself: How many other Unholies has your covering Art made holy, besides this Arabian Whinstone!

This was the most rocky road we had yet encountered, and it hurt our feet much. In a short time we arrived at a pretty large river called Boki, which we forded: it ran smooth and clear, over a bed of whinstone.

The Oder, flowing on your left hand, is hereabouts agreeably clothed with woods: the country, originally a swamp, has been drained, and given to the plough, in an agreeable manner; and there is an excellent road paved with solid whinstone, quarried in Strehlen, twenty miles away, among the Hills to the right yonder, as you may guess; road very visible to the Prussian soldier, though he does not ask where quarried.

I have a specimen of steatetical whinstone or basaltes from some part of Cumberland, in which is contained many nodules of the most perfect and beautiful plumbago. It is dispersed through this stone in rounded masses of all sizes from a nut to a pin's head; and many of these are mixed with pyrites. There is therefore reason to believe that this plumbago had been in fusion.

Its walls were of a rough rubble of granite and whinstone, grown upon at the upper storeys with grasses and weeds wafted upon the ledges by the winds that blow indifferent, bringing the green messages of peace from God.

They wind in every direction and are all good. The main roads are covered with heavy square stones, blocks. Once in a hundred years the Flemish farmer does his road work by turning these blocks over. They are called pavè roads. All the other roads are covered with macadam made out of black whinstone that is as hard as iron.

A perfect granite, is, therefore, an extremely hard stone, having quartz and feldspar for its basis; but a perfect whin or basaltes may be extremely soft, so as to cut easily with a knife. In like manner granite is a composition which graduates into porphyry; but porphyry is only whinstone of a harder species.

Hume had ascended, and which he called New Year's Range. Around these hills the country appeared better they are gentle, picturesque elevations, and are for the most part, covered with verdure, and have, I fancy, a whinstone base, the rock of which they are composed being of various substances. I place New Year's Range in lat. 30 degrees 21 minutes, long. 146 degrees 3 minutes 30 seconds.

We crossed much good whinstone land, and arrived at a small ridge where I ascended a hill consisting of a reddish granite or porphyry. From this height I again saw Harvey's and Croker's ranges and various hills to the southward, but I was disappointed in the view of the western horizon, which was confined to a very flat-topped woody range.

Think what these black bare lumps of whinstone are, and what they do.