Carrara is almost the only one which is at present held in estimation, or is now accessible to modern sculptors. This marble is of a very fine grain and compact texture; it is also susceptible of a high polish when required, and is consequently applicable to every species of sculpture, except when, as is too often the case, dark veins intrude and spoil the beauty of the work. Notwithstanding the general apparent uniformity of its texture, it offers different varieties of aspect. It is always of a fine granular fracture, yet this fracture is sometimes combined with a slight tendency to the flat splintery, in which case the stone is harder and more translucent than when it is purely granular. When merely granular it is sometimes dry and crumbly, precisely as if it had been exposed to a high heat; it then loses much of its transparency, and is called woolly by sculptors. Its transparency is various, and in some cases nearly equal to that of alabaster, (granular gypsum.)
The bust of Marcellus in the Museum offers an example of a very fine grained and extremely translucent marble, apparently of this kind. The specimen employed in the bust of Messalina is equally remarkable for the fineness and beauty of its texture. In at bust of a youthful Hercules in the same collection the identity of the marble is marked by the dark veins which are to be seen in it; but it is unnecessary to quote individual specimens, as the greatest number of the sculptures in this collection appear to have been executed in Carrara marble.
The last of the antient marbles which I shall describe is that of Pentelicus, of which the quarries are probably still to be found in the vicinity of Athens, although they have not been investigated by modern travellers. But we are in possession of numerous specimens of sculpture in this stone, from which we are able to
