There are extensive beds of fuller’s earth in several of the counties of England. London is principally supplied from those of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. At Wavedon, near Woburn, in Bedfordshire, a peculiarly fine kind is dug up from pits at the depth of ten or twelve feet below the surface of the ground; and no country in the world is known to produce fuller’s earth of quality so excellent as that obtained in England. TALC FAMILY. 130. _JADE, or NEPHRITE, is a very hard and tough species of stone, of greenish or olive colour, somewhat unctuous to the touch, and looking as if it had imbibed oil._ _It is found massive, in blunt─edged or rounded pieces._ Nothing has so much tended to make this stone known, as a superstitious notion that a piece of it suspended to the neck will dissolve stones in the kidneys. Hence has been attained its appellation of nephrite, or divine stone; and hence have originated all those numerous amulets in the form of oval plates, hearts, fishes, birds, &c. pierced with holes for ribbons to pass through, which are seen in collections of the curious. Some of the Indian nations make talismans of jade. From the roughness and tenacity of this stone, in addition to its hardness, it is very difficult to be cut and polished; and even the best polish which it is capable of taking as so imperfect, that a person ignorant of its nature might consider it to be merely smoothed and rubbed with oil. The ancient artists executed in it many beautiful and delicate figures; and it is impossible but to admire the industry and perseverance by which they produced even chains, and other hollow kinds of work, in jade. The Turks cut it into handles for sabres and daggers, and into several kinds of vessels, to which they attach great value. Jade occurs in granite (251) and gneiss (255) in Switzerland; but the most beautiful specimens of this mineral are brought from Persia, Egypt, and Siberia. 131. AXESTONE _is a kind of jade, but differs from it in having a slaty texture; and in being less transparent and less tough_. This stone is found in China, New Zealand, and on the banks of the river of Amazons, in America. And it is said that several of the tribes of American Indians form of it the axes which they use in place of iron. To explain how these people have been enabled to work a substance so rebellious as this is even to the file, and to other instruments of steel (of which they know not the use), it has been presumed that, when the stone is first taken from the earth, it is considerably less hard than when, by drying, its humidity is evaporated: that in this state they work it, and subsequently harden it, in some peculiar manner, by exposure to heat. 132. _SERPENTINE is a stone which, when polished, has a near resemblance to marble, is of dark green colour, or reddish; variously streaked, and spotted with lighter green, red, brown, and yellow._