in the natural history of the ancients, the white marble used then, and to this day, for carving statues, &c. and called by us at this time flinty marble.

Too many of the later writers have confounded all the white marbles under the name of the Parian; and among the workmen, this and all the other white marbles have the common name of alabasters; so that it is in general forgotten among them, that there is such a thing as alabaster different from marble; which, however, is truly the case. Almost all the world also have confounded the Carrara marble with this, though they are really very different; the Carrara kind being of a finer structure and clearer white than the Parian; but but less bright and splendid, harder to cut, and not capable of so glittering a polish.

The true Parian marble has usually somewhat of a faint bluish tinge among the white, and often has blue veins in different parts of it. It is supposed by some to have had its name from the island Paros, one of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, where it was first found; but others will have it to have been so called from Agoracritus Parius, a famous statuary, who ennobled it by cutting a statue of a Venus in it.