The Vosges Mountains in Lorraine, and certain copper mines of Saxony, are celebrated for producing very fine specimens of malachite. This beautiful mineral is also found in our own country, in the copper mines of Cornwall and Wales. _232. TURQUOISE. The beautiful light blue substances that are called turquoises have usually been considered as the bones or teeth of animals, impregnated with blue oxide (21) of copper; but they are sometimes found in nodules which are certainly not of an osseous nature._ Turquoises are frequently set in rings, necklaces, brooches, and other female ornaments. In Persia they are very common; and, amongst the Turks, are held in such estimation that persons of rank almost constantly wear them in some part of their dress, as ring─stones, and to adorn the handles of stilettoes. They are imported into England from Russia, stuck with pitch upon the ends of straws; because if mixed together in parcels, the purchaser would not easily be able, in turning them over, to observe their colour, and ascertain their value. In the turquoise there is nothing that can recommend it to notice except the agreeable softness of its colour, which is particularly distinguishable by candle─light; this alone has rendered it so fashionable as an ornament in female dress, for rings, ear─drops, and brooches, that the demand for it is at present greater than the supply. Imitations of turquoise are easily made in paste, and not unfrequently imposed upon the ignorant purchaser; but in these, though the colour is correctly given, there is a glassy lustre much higher than that of the real stone. Of late years a spurious kind of turquoise has also found its way into Europe, which is much softer than the genuine kind; has more of a green than a blue cast, and is by no means capable of so good a polish. 233. _IRON is a well─known metal, of livid greyish colour, hard and elastic, and capable of receiving a high polish. Its weight is nearly eight times as great as that of water._ _It is seldom found in a truly native state, but occurs, abundantly, in almost every country of the world, in a state of oxide (21), and mineralized with sulphuric (24), carbonic (26), and other acids._ _Iron is found in plants, in several kinds of coloured stones, and even in the blood of animals._ Of all the metals there are none which, in the whole, are so useful, or are so copiously and variously dispersed as iron. Its uses were ascertained at a very early period of the world. Moses speaks of furnaces for iron, and of the ores from which it was extracted, and tells us that swords, knives, axes, and instruments for cutting stones, were, in his time, all made of this metal.