and the liquor preffed out of it, the linnen or other stuffs either of filk or wool, that imbibe this liquor, will appear only of a yellowish colour. But the fame linnen or stuffs, expofed to a moderate heat of the fun, fuch as it is in fummer-mornings, in a few hours take very different colours. That yellow begins at first to incline a little to the green; thence it becomes of a lemon colour. To that fucceeds a livelier green, which changes into a deep green; this terminates in a violet colour, and afterwards fixes in a very fine purple. Thus thefe linnens or ftuffs, from their firft yellow, proceed to a fine purple through all the various degrees of green. I pafs over many very curious obfervations of Monfieur Reaumur's upon these changes, which do not immediately come into my fubject. It feems furprizing, that Ariftotle and Pliny, in fpeaking of the purple dye, and the fhells of feveral countries, from which it is extracted, fhould not fay a word of the changes of colour, fo worthy of remark, through which the dye paffes before it attains the purple. Perhaps not having fufficiently examined these shells themfelves, and being acquainted with them only from accounts little exact, they make no mention of changes which did not happen in the ordinary preparation of purple; for, in that, the liquor being mingled in cauldrons with a great quantity of water, it turned immediately red. Mr. Reaumur, in the voyage he made in the year 1710, upon the coaft of Poitou, in confidering the fhells called Buccinum, which the fea in its ebb had left upon the fhore; he found a new fpecies of purple dye, which he did not fearch after; and which, according to all appearances, had never been known to the antients, though though of the fame fpecies with their own. He obferved that the Buccina generally thronged about certain ftones, and arched heaps of fand in fuch great quantities, that they might be taken up there by handfulls, though dispersed and fingle every where else. He perceived at the fame time, that thofe ftones or heaps of fand were covered with certain grains, of which the form resembled that of a fmall oblong bowl. The length of these grains was fomewhat more than three lines, (a quarter of an inch) and their bignefs fomething above one line. They feemed to him to contain a white liquor, inclining to yellow. He preffed out the juice of fome of them upon his ruffle, which at first seemed only a little foiled with it; and he could perceive, with difficulty, only a fmall yellowish fpeck here and there in the fpot. The different objects, which diverted his attention, made him forget what he had done, and he thought no farther of it, till cafting his eyes by accident upon the fame ruffle, about a quarter of an hour after, he was ftruck with an agreeable furprize, to fee a fine purple colour on the places where the grains had been squeezed. This adventure occafioned many experiments, which give a wonderful pleasure in the relation, and fhew what great advantage it is to a nation to produce men of a peculiar genius, born with a taste and natural difpofition for making happy discoveries in the works of nature. Mr. Reaumur remarks, that the liquor was extracted from thefe grains, which he calls the eggs of purple, in an infinitely more commodious manner, than that practifed by the antients for the liquor of the Buccinum. For there was nothing more to do, after having gathered thefe eggs, than to have them well washed wafhed in the fea-water, to take off as much as poffible the filth, which might change the purple colour by mixing with it; there was, I. fay, nothing more to do than to put them into clean cloths. The liquor was then preffed out, by twifting the ends of thefe cloths different ways, in the fame manner almost that the juice is preft out of goofeberries to make jelly. And to abridge this trouble ftill more, fmall preffes might be used, which would immediately prefs out all the liquor. We have feen before, how much time and pains were neceffary for extracting the liquor from the Buccina. The Coccus or Coccum fupplied the antients Plin. 1.22. with the fine colour and dye we call fcarlet, c. 2. which, in fome measure, difputed beauty and fplendor with purple. Quintilian joins them together; where he complains, that the parents of his times dreffed their children, from their cradles in scarlet and purple, and infpired them, in that early age, with a taste for luxury and magnificence. Scarlet, acording to + Pliny, supplied men with more fplendid garments than purple, and at the fame time more innocent, because it was not neceffary to hazard life in attaining it. Scarlet is generally believed the feed of a tree, of the holm-tree kind. It has been difcovered to be a small round excreffence, red, and of the bignefs of a pea, which grows Quid non adultus concupifcet, qui in purpuris repit? Nondum prima verba exprimit, & jam coccum intelligit, jam conchylium poffit. Quintil. 1. 1. c. I. + Tranfalpina Gallia herbis Tyrium atque cenchyli VOL. X. um tingit, omnefque alios B b upon upon the leaves of a little fhrub, of the holm · fpecies, called ilex aculeata cocciglandifera. This excreffence is caufed by the bite of an infect, which lays its eggs in it. The Arabians term this grain Kermes; the Latines, Coccus and vermiculus; from whence the words vermilion, and Cufculum or quifquilium, are derived. A great quantity of it is gathered in Provence and Languedoc. The water of the Gobelin's river is proper for dying fcarlet. There are two kinds of fcarlet. The fcarlet of France or of the Gobelins, which is made of the grain I have mentioned; and the scarlet of Holland, which derives itself from cochineal. This is a drug that comes from the East-Indies. Authors do not agree upon the nature of cochineal. Some believe it a kind of worm, and others, that it is only the feed of a tree. The firft kind is feldom ufed fince the difcovery of cochineal, which produces a much more beautiful and lively fcarlet, than that of the Kermes, which is deeper, and comes nearer to the Roman purple. It has, however, one advantage of the cochineal-fcarlet; which is, that it does not change colour when wet falls upon it, as the other does, that turns blackifh immediately after. SECT. SİLK, SECT. IX. Of filken ftuffs. ILK, as Monfieur Mahudal obferves in the differtation * he has given us on this fubject, of which I fhall make great use in this place; filk, I fay, is one of the things made ufe of for many ages almost throughout all Afia, in Africa, and many parts of Europe, without peoples knowing what it was; whether it was, that the people, amongst whom it grew, gave ftrangers little accefs to them; or that jealous of an advantage peculiar to themfelves, they apprehended being deprived of it by foreigners. It was undoubtedly from the difficulty of being informed of the origin of this precious thread, fo many fingular opinions of the most antient authors took birth. To judge of the defcription Herodotus Herod. 1. makes of a kind of wool much fubtler and 3. c 106. more beautiful than the ordinary kind, and which, he fays, was the growth of a tree in the Indies, (the most remote country known by the eastern people of his times to the eastward) that idea feems the firft they had of filk. It was not extraordinary, that the people fent into that country to make discoveries, feeing only the bags of the filk worms hanging from the trees in a climate, where thofe infects breed, feed upon the leaves, and naturally afcend the branches, fhould take those bags for lumps of wool. * Memoirs of the academy of Inscriptions. Vol. V. VOL. X. Bb 2 It |