Egyptian history, is often employed to explain what people cannot otherwise explain, because so little is known of both that much contradiction is not to be apprehended. Others wish to make scarlet from the quisquilium, cusculium, or scolecium of Pliny. To some the word appears to be composed of the first half of kermes and lack, with the addition of only an S, and every one is left at liberty to determine at pleasure, whether lack is to be understood as the Arabic for red, or the German word lacken cloth. In the first case it signifies the same as vermiculare rubrum; in the latter pannus vermicularis. Stiler! says scarlach is entirely German, and compounded of schor the fire, and lacken cloth, so that its real signification is firecloth, fire-coloured cloth. Reiske, on the other hand, asserts, that the word is originally the Arabic scharal, which means the kermes-dye 2. Which of these conjectures is most agreeable to truth, cannot with certainty be concluded; but that the word is older than Dillon affirms it to be, on the authority of a Spaniard, can be proved. Dillon says that it was first used by Roderick, archbishop of Toledo, who finished his history of Spain in 1243 3. Vossius has quoted several writers who use escarletum or scarletum. The oldest is Cæsarius, who lived about the year 1227. Matthew Paris, who wrote about the year 1245, used the word in referring to the year 1134. But I find that the emperor Henry III. in the middle of the eleventh century, conferred upon the count of Cleves the burg-graviate of Nimeguen, on condition of his delivering to him yearly three pieces of scarlet cloth made of English wool 5. The word may Spaten (Stiler) der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum, 1691, 4to, p. 1062. 2 In his annotations on Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzantinæ, ii. p. 137. Reiske also on this occasion gives the derivation from Charlatan, a mountebank, juggler, circumforaneus, agyrta, because such people formerly on account of their red clothes were called scarlatati or scarlatani. Other conjectures respecting this word may be found in Menage, Dictionnaire Etymologique. See in the same work also, p. 498, the word écarlate. In ancient French writers the highest degree of any colour in its perfection is called écarlate, and we therefore meet with écarlate blanche, écarlate verte. Braun de Vestitu Sacerd. Hebræor. Amstelod. 1701, 4to, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 229, says, "Salacka, Tyrian red, from sar, Tyrus." He controverts the opinion of Gronovius that scarlatum is derived from Galaticum. 3 Dillon's Travels through Spain, 1780, p. 21. Rod. Toletanus De Rebus Hispan. lib. vii. 1. 4 G. J. Vossius De Vitiis Sermonis. 5 Pontani Historia Gelrica, 1639, fol. p. 83: "Tres pannos scarlitinos Anglicanos." The year seems to have been 1050. In Lunig's Codex Diplom. Germaniæ, ii. p. 1739, may be seen a document of the year 1172, in 2 D VOL. I. be often found in the twelfth century. It occurs in Petrus Mauritius', who died in 1157, and also in the writings of Arnold, who, in 1175, was the first abbot of Lubeck. Of the preparation and goodness of the ancient scarlet we certainly know nothing: but as we find in many old pieces of tapestry of the eleventh century, and perhaps earlier, a red which has continued remarkably beautiful even to the present time, it cannot at any rate be denied that our ancestors extolled their scarlet not without reason. We may however venture to assert, that the scarlet prepared at present is far superior, owing principally to the effects of a solution of tin. This invention may be reckoned among the most important improvements of the art of dyeing, and deserves a particular relation. The tincture of cochineal alone yields a purple colour, not very pleasant, which may be heightened to the most beautiful scarlet by a solution of tin in aqua regia, or muriatic acid M. Ruhlenkamp at Bremen, one of the most learned dyers of Germany, and who has studied with great care every new improvement of his art, gave me the history of this scarlet dye, as I have already related in my Introduction to Technology 3. The well-known Cornelius Drebbel, who was born at Alkmaar, and died at London in 1634, having placed in his window an extract of cochineal, made with boiling water, for the purpose of filling a thermometer, some aqua regia dropped into it from a phial, broken by accident, which stood above it, and converted the purple dye into a most beautiful dark red. After some conjectures and experiments, he discovered that the tin by which the window-frame was divided into squares had been dissolved by the aqua-regia, and was the cause of this change. He communicated his observation to Kuffelar, an ingenious dyer at Leyden, who was afterwards his son-in-law 4. The latter brought the discovery to perfection, and employed it some years alone in his dye-house, which gave rise to the which the emperor Frederick I. confers on the count of Gueldres the heritable jurisdiction of Nimeguen, on condition, "ut ipse et ejus successores imperatori de eodem telonio singulis annis tres pannos scarlacos bene rubeos Anglicenses ardentis coloris-assignare deberet." 1 In Statutis Cluniacensibus, cap. 18. 2 See Porner's Anleitung zur Farbekunst. Leipzig, 1785, 8vo, p. 16. 3 Page 113. 4 Monconys mentions in his Travels, p. 408, Dr. Keiffer, a son-in-law of Drebbel, who was a good chemist. name of Kuffelar's-colour 1. Becher calls him Kuffler. Kunkel, in a passage which I cannot again find, makes his name Kuster, and says that he was a German. In the course of a little time the secret became known to an anabaptist called Gulich, and also to another person of the name of Van der Vecht, who taught it to the brothers Gobelins in France. Giles Gobelin, a dyer at Paris, in the time of Francis I. had found out an improvement of the then usual scarlet dye; and as he had remarked that the water of the rivulet Bievre, in the suburbs of St. Marceau, was excellent for his art, he erected on it a large dye-house, which, out of ridicule, was called Folie-Gobelins 2, Gobelin's-Folly. About this period, a Flemish painter, whom some name Peter Koek, and others Kloek, and who had travelled a long time in the East, established, and continued to his death in 1550, a manufactory for dyeing scarlet cloth by an improved method3. Through the means of Colbert, one of the Gobelins learned the process used for preparing the German scarlet dye from one Gluck, whom some consider as the above-mentioned Gulich, and others as Kloek; and the Parisian scarlet dye soon rose into so great repute, that the populace imagined that Gobelin had acquired his art from the devil. It is well known that Louis XIV. by the advice of Colbert, purchased Gobelin's building from his successors in the year 1667, and transformed it into a palace, to which he gave the name of Hôtel Royal des Gobelins, and which he assigned for the use of first-rate artists, particularly painters, jewellers, weavers of tapestry, and others. After that time the rivulet was no longer called Bievre, but Gobelins. About the year 1643, a Fleming, named Kepler, established the first dyehouse for scarlet in England, at the village of Bow, not far from London; and on that account the colour was called at first, by the English, the Bow-dye. In the year1667, another Fleming, named Brewer, invited to England by king Charles II. with the promise of a large salary, brought this art there to great perfection. 1 In Borrichii Dissertat. ii. p. 104: Color Kufflerianus. 2 Rabelais, xi. 22. Menage, Diction. Etymol. i. p. 682. 3 Francheville, in Dissertat. sur l'Art de la Teinture des Anciens et Modernes, in Histoire de l'Académ. de Berlin, 1767, p. 67. In this dissertation, however, there is neither certainty nor proof. 4 Suite de Teinturier parfait. Paris, 1716. 5 Anderson's History of Commerce. Cary's Bemerkungen über Grossbritanniens Handel; übersetzt von Wichmann. Leipzig, 1788, i. p. 372. Boyle remarks in his Experimenta All these accounts, however, and the names of the persons, are extremely dubious. [Mr. Ward states in his Mexico in 1827, vol. i. p. 84, that the plantations of the Nopal (Opuntia cochinillifera), on which the cochineal insects feed, are confined to the district La Misteca in the state of Oaxaca, in Mexico. The animals are domesticated and reared with the greatest care. When the females have become fecundated and enlarged, the harvest commences. The insects are brushed off with a squirrel's tail, and killed by immersing them in hot water, and afterwards drying them in the sun, or by the heat of a stove. Three harvests are made annually; the first being the best, since the impregnated females alone are taken; in the second the young females are also collected; and in the third both old and young ones, and skins are collected indiscriminately. Before the rainy season commences, branches of the nopal plant loaded with young insects are cut off and preserved in the houses to prevent the animals being destroyed by the weather. stated in a letter from Mr. Faber to Dr. Pereira (Chemical Gazette for January 15th, 1845), that the more extensive cultivators never kill the insect by immersion, but only by the baskets being placed in heated rooms or stoves. It is Three kinds of cochineal are now met with in the English market: the black, silver, and foxy. Silver cochineal is the impregnated female insect, just before laying eggs; black cochineal is the female after laying and hatching the eggs. That technically known in London as " foxy" cochineal is composed of the insects of silver cochineal which have been killed by boiling water. They are thus burst, and acquire a peculiar reddish colour, very different from the fine transparent red which forms the finest black. It is said that on the average one pound of cochineal contains 70,000 dried insects. The quantity exported from and consumed in England in 1844, amounted to no less than 1,569,120 lbs.!] de Coloribus, Coloniæ, 1680, 4to, that a bright scarlet colour was never produced except when tin vessels were used. It appears, therefore, that he had observed the good effects of a solution of tin. 405 WRITING-PENS. As long as people wrote upon tables covered with wax, they were obliged to use a style or bodkin made of bone, metal, or some other hard substance; but when they began to write with coloured liquids, they employed a reed, and afterwards quills or feathers. This is well-known, and has been proved by various authors 1. There are two circumstances however in regard to this subject, which require some further research; and which I shall endeavour to illustrate by such information as I have been able to collect. With what kind of reeds did people write? When, and where were feathers first employed and for that purpose? It is rather astonishing that we are ignorant of what kind of reeds the ancients used for writing, though they have mentioned the places where they grew wild, and where, it is highly probable, they grow still. Besides, we have reason to suppose that the same reeds are used even at present by all the Oriental nations; for it is well known, that among the people of the East old manners and instruments are not easily banished by new modes and new inventions. Most authors who have treated on the history of writing have contented themselves with informing their readers that a reed was employed; but the genus of plants called by the ancients Calamus and Arundo, is more numerous in species than the genus of grasses, to which their corn belonged; and it might perhaps be as difficult to determine with accuracy what kind of reed they employed for writing, as to distinguish the species of grain called far, alica, and avena. The most beautiful reeds of this kind grew formerly in Egypt2; near Cnidus, a city and district in the province of Caria, in Asia Minor 3; and likewise in Armenia and Italy. Those which grew in the last-mentioned country, seem to 1 See Fabricii Bibliotheca Antiquaria, p. 959. matis Antiquitatis Litterariæ, 1718, 8vo, p. 169. gress of Writing, 4to. Reimmanni Idea Syste 2 Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 35. Martial, lib. xiv. epigram. 38. 3 Plin. lib. c. Catullus, carm. xxxvi. 13, mentions Cnidus arundinosa. Ausonius, epist. iv. 75, calls the reeds Cnidii nodi. 4 Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 36. |