Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/218

204 hill looks like a mass of weatherworn pyrites on a large scale. Among the lamina some are harder, of a green and red colour. Pyrites I very often found disseminated in the rock.

I now passed along the channels which the last violent gullies of rain had worn in the crumbling rock, and, to my great delight, found many specimens of the desired barytes, mostly of an imperfect egg-shape, peeping out in several places of the friable stone, some tolerably pure, and some slightly mingled with the clay in which they were embedded. That they have not been carried hither by external agency, any one may convince himself at the first glance. Whether they were contemporaneous with the schistous clay, or whether they first arose from the swelling and dissolving of the latter, is matter calling for further inquiry. Of the specimens I found, the larger and smaller approximated to an imperfect egg-shape: the smallest might be said to verge upon irregular crystalline forms. The heaviest of the pieces I brought away weighed seventeen loth (eight ounces and a half). Loose in the same clay, I also found perfect crystals of gypsum. Mineralogists will be able to point out further peculiarities in the specimens I bring with me. And I was now again loaded with stones! I have packed up at least half a quarter of a hundred-weight.

20, 1786. In the night.

How much I should have still to say, were I to attempt to confess to you all that has this beautiful day passed through my mind! But my wishes are more powerful than my thoughts. I feel myself hurried irresistibly forward. It is only with an effort that I can collect myself sufficiently to attend to what is before me. And it seems as if Heaven heard my secret prayer. Word has just been brought me, that there is a vetturino going straight to Rome; and