exported to France for the magnificent Palace of Versailles; which, though regarded by the French nation, says Voltaire, as "a favorite without merit," Louis the Fourteenth persisted at the time in lavishly beautifying, and looked as for abroad as Portsoy for materials with which to adorn it. I have, however, seen it stated that the greater part of a ship's cargo, brought afterwards to Paris on speculation, was suffered to lie unwrought for years in the stone-dealer's yard, and was ultimately disposed of as rubbish,--a consequence, probably, of its unfitness, from its shaky texture, for ornamental purposes on a large scale, though for ornaments of the smaller kind, such as boxes, vases, and plates, it has been pronounced unrivalled. "At Zoeblitz, in Upper Saxony," says Professor Jamieson, "several hundred people are employed in quarrying, cutting, turning, and polishing the serpentine which occurs in that neighborhood; and the various articles into which it is manufactured are carried all over Germany. The serpentine of Portsoy," he adds, "is, however, far superior to that of Zoeblitz, in color, hardness, and transparency, and, when cut, is very beautiful." It is really a pretty stone; and, bad as the evening was, it was by no means one of the worst of evenings for seeing it to advantage _in situ_, or among the rolled pebbles on the shore. The varnish-like gloss of the wet imparted to the undressed masses all the effect of polish, and brought out in their proper variegations of color, every cloud, streak, and vein. Viewed in the mass, the general hue is green; so much so, that an insulated stack, which stands abreast of one of the beds, a stone-cast in the sea, has greatly the appearance, at a little distance, of an immense mass of verdigris. But red, gray, and brown are also prevailing colors in the rock; occasional veins and blotches of white give lightness to the darker portions; and veins of hematitic and deep umbry tints, variety to the portions that are lighter. The greens vary from the palest olive to the deepest black-green of the mineralogist; the reds and browns, from blood-red to dark chocolate, and from wood-brown to brownish-black; and, thus various in shade, they occur in almost every possible variety of combination and form,--dotted, spotted, clouded, veined,--so that each separate pebble on the shore seems the representative of a rock different from the rocks represented by almost all the others. Though not much of a mineralogist, I could have spent considerably more time than the weather permitted me to employ this evening, in admiring the beauties of this beach of _marbles_, or rather,--as the real name, derived from those gorgeous, many-colored cloudings, that impart a terrible splendor to the skins of the snake and viper family, is not only the more correct, but also the more poetical of the two,--this beach of _serpentines_. I had, however, to compromise matters between the fierce wind and rain and the pretty rocks and