PURPLE DYEING, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 



TRANSLATED FOR THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FROM THE GERMAN 

 PERIODICAL, "AUS DER NATUR," &c. 



The idolatry of classical antiquity finds its chief antagonism in the natural 

 sciences. It would be easy to show how many illusions, nestling in the heads 

 of the admirers of the olden time, have been dispelled by modern chemistry 

 alone ; and, although our present purpose is to deal with two objects of sub- 

 ordinate importance, yet these also serve to show how very broad is the line of 

 separation between our own times and the remote ages, to whose languages and 

 ideas so much of the time and training of our youth are commonly devoted. 



The colors of azure and purple were amoi\g the most highly priced as well 

 as the most highly prized productions of antiquity. The former was sold for 

 its weight in gold, and the latter was especially reserved for the noble and the 

 powerful; its use was in some ages even forbidden to all beneath those of the 

 highest rank on pain of death. Science and art have wrought here a striking 

 change ; being no longer limited to the direct gifts of nature, we are able, from 

 the most apparently unpromising raw material, to furnish for the use of the 

 whole community what could then be but scantily produced for the ruling few 

 The contrast is certainly suggestive. 



As early as three hundred and fifteen years before the Christian era, Theoph- 

 rastus drew a distinction between natural and artificial azure, the latter of 

 which, he tells us, was manufactured in Egypt. It seems most probable, how- 

 ever, that the terms natural and artificial indicate in this case only the greater 

 or the less degree of care with which the color was prepared from the beautiful 

 stone which we call Liapis lazuli, to which the ancients gave the name of sap- 

 phire. While in some cases the stone was merely reduced to a fine powder, in 

 others, probably, the coloring matter was more carefully separated, as is done 

 in our own day. 



The Lapis lazuli, or sapphire, is found in the least accessible parts of Little 

 Bucharest, Thibet, China, and Siberia, in layers or strata of granite or limestone. 

 Of old, as at the present day, it was polished and wrought as a gem, and it is 

 almost the only member of the large f imily of gems that has an intrinsic value. 

 This distinction it owes to the fact that, in addition to its great beauty, it yields 

 for the use of the painter one of his most beautiful colors, which, moreover, is 

 unaffected by air or heat ; that color is ultramarine. 



As lately as the commencement of the present century, ultramarine, or azure 

 blue, was not simply a fine powder of the gem, but the result of a long and 

 troublesome process. The stone was first broken into small pieces, and even 

 this first step in the process was no easy one, the stone being exceedingly hard. 

 The pieces, of the size of a hazelnut, were cleaned by means of lukewarm water, 

 then made red-hot, and afterwards slacked in a mixture of water and acetic 

 acid. The cohesion of the particles is so great that this process must be repeated 

 from six to ten times before the mineral can be transformed into a fine powder. 

 It is afterwards rendered still finer by trituration with the muller stone of the 

 painter, having been first mixed with water, honey, and dragon's blood, then 

 treated' with the ley of the ashes of the grapevine, and finally dried. The pow- 

 der is next compounded into a mass with turpentine, rosin, wax, and linseed oil, 

 25 s 



