Next to the granite, but never, as I observed, joined with it in the same mountain, is the red marble. It is covered with sand of the same colour, and looks as if the whole mountain were spread over with brick dust. There is also a red marble with white veins, which I have often seen at Rome, but not in principal subjects, I have also seen it in Britain. The common green (called Serpentine) looks as if covered over with Brazil snuff. Joined with this green, I saw two samples of that beautiful marble they call Isabella; one of them with a yellowish cast, which we call Quaker-colour; the other with a blueish, which is commonly termed Dove-colour. These two seem to divide the respective mountains with the serpentine. In this green, likewise, it was we saw the vein of jasper; but whether it was absolutely the same with this which is the bloody jasper, or blood-stone, is what we had not time to settle. I should first have made mention of the verde antico, the dark green with white irregular spots, because it is of the greatest value, and nearest the Nile. This is produced in the mountains of the plain green, or serpentine, as is the jasper, and is not discoverable by the dust, or any particular colour upon it. First, there is a blue fleaky stone, exceedingly even and smooth in the grain, solid, and without sparks or colour. When broken, it is something lighter than a slate, and more beautiful than most marble; it is like the lava of volcanoes, when polished. After lifting this, we come to the beds of verde antico; and here the quarrying is very obvious, for it has been uncovered in patches, not above twenty feet square. Then, in another part, the green stone has been removed, and another pit of it wrought. I saw, in several places in the plain, small pieces of African marble scattered about, but no rocks or mountains of it. I suppose it is found in the heart of some other coloured marble, and in strata, like the jasper and verde antico, and, I suspect, in the mountains of Isabella marble, especially of the yellowest sort of it, but this is mere conjecture. This prodigious store of marble is placed upon a ridge, whence there is a descent to the east or west, either to the Nile or Red Sea. The level ground and hard-fixed gravel are proper for the heaviest carriages, and will easily and smoothly convey any weight whatever to its place of embarkation on the Nile; so that another wonder ceased, how the ancients transported those vast blocks to Thebes, Memphis, and Alexandria.