240 plint's natural HISTOET. [Book XXXV. 



mode of preparing sandarach we have described** already : 

 there is a spurious kind also, prepared by calcining ceruse in 

 the furnace. This substance, to be good, ought to be of a 

 flame colour ; the price of it is five asses per pound. 



CHAP. 23. SANDTX. 



Calcined with an equal proportion of rubrica, sandarach 

 forms sandy X ;*^ although I perceive that Virgil, in the fol- 

 lowing line,*^ has taken sandyx to be a plant — 



" Sandyx itself shall clotlie the feeding lambs." 



The price of sandyx*' is one half that of sandarach; these 

 two colours being the heaviest of all in weight. 



CHAP. 24. STEICTJM. 



Among the artificial colours, too, is syricum, which is used 

 as an under-coating for minium, as already*^ stated. It is 

 prepared from a combination of sinopis with sandyx. 



CHAP. 25. ATEAMENTUM. 



Atramentum,*Hoo, must be reckoned among the artificial co- 

 lours, although it is also derived in two ways from the earth. 



4* In B. xxxiv. c. 55. "Pliny speaks of different shades of sandaraca, 

 the pale, or massicot, (yellow oxide of lead), and a mixture of the pale 

 with minium. It also signified Ilealgar, or red sulphuret of arsenic." 

 — Wornum, in Smith's Diet. Antiq. Art. Colores. 



*^ Sir H. Davy supposes this colour to have approached our crimson. 

 In painting, it was frequently glazed with purple, to give it an additional 

 lustre. 



*6 Eel. iv. 1. 45. '* Sponte sua sandyx pascentes vestiet agnos." Ajasson 

 thinks that '* Sandyx" may have been a name common to two colouring 

 substances, a vegetable and a mineral, the former being our madder. Beck- 

 mann is of the same opinion, and that Virgil has committed no mistake in 

 the line above quoted. Hist.Inv.Vol.il. p. 110. Bohn^s Edition. See 

 also B. xxiv. c. 56. 



*' The form " sand,^' in these words, Ajasson considers to be derived 

 either from " Sandes," the name of Hercules in Asia Minor, or at least 

 in Lydia : or else from Sandak, the name of an ancestor of Cinyras and 

 Adonis. 



*^ In B. xxxiii. c. 40. According to Aetius, syricum was made by the 

 calcination of pure ceruse, (similar to tlie " usta" above mentioned). He 

 states also that there was no difference between sandyx and syricum, the 

 former being the term generally used by medical men. 



*^ " Black colouring substance."^ 



