500 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"i S. VII. June 18. '59. 



1839, there was again a sudden fall, and the re- 

 ceipts were only four pounds seventeen shillings. 

 Ten pounds, eight pounds, six pounds, five pounds 

 ten, are sums that follow, and the decay is at last 

 to fourteen shillings in the year 1853, which was 

 the last year of the fair's proclamation. 



Other details, founded on the Bartholomew Pie- 

 powder Book, which I have yet to send you, illus- 

 trate the jurisdiction of this Court. 



Hbnrt Morley. 



SILK. 



(2"3 S. vii. 456.) 



With regard to the former part of this Query, 

 the readiest mode of answering it will be to take 

 each word separately, in the passage translated 

 " blue and purple, and crimson, and fine linen." 

 The first of these represents the Hebrew word 

 n?3J|l (t'cheleth), on which Bochart (Hierozoic. 

 Pt. II. bk. v. ch. 10.) has a long disquisition. He 

 says it occurs thirty times in Exodus alone, and 

 several times in other parts of Scripture, and 

 means "cserulean, or hyacinthine, a colour like 

 that of the sea or sky." Gesenius says the ori- 

 ginal meaning is "a species of muscle found in 

 the Mediterranean Sea with a blue shell, from 

 which cerulean purple is made." Luther wrongly 

 translates it in Exodus, " yellow silk " (geler 

 seide), but in the passage before us geelwerck. 



The next word is \'0i')'^ (argaman), which Bo- 

 chart (Ibid. ch. 11.) proves to be another species 

 of marine blue of a reddish tint. In Tregelles's 

 edition of Gesenius' Lexicon it is traced to the 

 Sanscrit ragaman, " tinged with a red colour." 



The third word is ?''p'p3 (carmil), which the 

 Hebrews are said to have adopted from the 

 Persian herm, Sansc. hrimi, a worm, or insect, 

 from which, as from the cochineal insect, if they 

 be not the same, a bright crimson dye was ob- 

 tained. Compare carmine, a colour obtained 

 from the cochineal, and Fr. vermeil, Eng. vej-mi- 

 lion, from vermiculus. 



The last word is pa (butz), i.e. byssus, Gr. 

 0v(Tffos, fine linen of a bright white colour, as was 

 shown by microscopic examination of some ancient 

 specimens, by which the threads were proved to 

 be linen. 



It would seem therefore that silk was not the 

 material intended to be understood from any of 

 the words in the passage under notice. 



With regard to the second part of the Query, I 

 beg to oflfer the following extract from a little 

 work I have been for some time back preparing : 



" Silk occurs six times in the Authorised Version, in- 

 cluding Gen. xli: 42. niarg., where the text has 'fine 

 linen' (K'K^), and Exod. xxv. 4., where the text has 



' blue ' (n.^an). in Ezek. xvi. 10. 13., the Heb. root 



leads to the meaning * drawn out into threads,' and no- 

 thing more. In Prov. xxxi. 22. the word is K^ (from a 



root * to be white '), which in most other passages where 

 it occurs is rendered ' fine linen.' The other instance is 

 in Rev. xviii. 12., which is the only passage in which 

 what we call silk can with any certainty be said to be 

 intended. The Vnlgate understands silk in Esth. viii. 15. 

 where our version has ' fine linen,' and Ezek. xvii. 16., 

 where we read * coral.' " 



The earliest use of the word silk given by 

 Eichardson is Piers Plowman, p. 148. Chaucer 

 also uses it, and so does Wiclif in the passage in 

 Revelation^above referred to. It is usually de- 

 rived from sericum, through the A.-S. seolc. 



J. Eastwood. 



Braunius is decidedly of opinion that there is 

 no mention of silk in the Old Testament, and that 

 it was unknown to the Hebrews in ancient times. 

 (De Vestitu Heb. Sacerdotum, lib. i. cap. viii. § 8.) 

 The only text supposed to denote that material, 

 and therefore rendered silk ('•E^D, meshi, sericum) 

 in our common version, is to be found in Ezek. 

 xvi. 10. ; but which, it is thought, refers more 

 probably to some valuable article of female at- 

 tire. The marginal reading of Gen. xli. 42.,. 

 where it is said that Pharaoh " arrayed Joseph 

 in a vesture of silk," is considered by the best 

 modern lexicographers and commentators quite 

 unauthorised. 



Aristotle is the first ancient author who affords 

 any evidence respecting the use of silk (Hist. 

 Anim. v. c. 19.) Mr. Yates, in his profoundly 

 learned fragment, entitled Textrinum Antiquorum : 

 An Account of Weaving among the Ancients (p. 

 163. et seq., 8vo. edition, London, 1843), has 

 analysed the meaning of the important passage 

 just referred to, as well as shown how much Pliny, 

 Clemens Alexandrinus, and Basil have borrowed 

 from the great Stagirite in their respective ac- 

 counts of the worm and its silken products. 



The art of weaving silk was first practised in 

 China 2600 years before our era (vide Du Halde's 

 Hist. China, vol. ii. pp. 355-6. 8vo. edit. Lond. 

 1736); in which country the labours of the silk- 

 worm were wholly confined until the time of the 

 Emperor Justinian. Long before the latter pe- 

 riod, however, the Chinese had largely exported 

 the raw material to Persia, Tyre, Berytus, &c., 

 where it was wrought into various forms. Doubt- 

 less the famous Coan gauze — the " glorious " 

 invention of which is attributed by Pliny (N.H. 

 lib. xi. c. 26.) to Pamphile, a woman of Cos — 

 was fabricated out of silk obtained from the Seres, 

 or the inhabitants beyond the Ganges (i. e. the 

 Chinese). 



The material used by Solomon in the veil of 

 the Temple (2 Chron. iii. 14.), was, as the text 

 correctly defines it, " fine linen," composed of 

 flax, and procured, no doubt, from that land of 

 primitive looms, Egypt. " Blue, and purple, and 



