PURPLE DYEING, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 395 



exactly alike, there may be a difference, iu both brilliaucy and durability, of 

 from one to two hundred per cent. Another important question is thi?; : llow 

 much mordant docs the particular ultramarine require ? Nor is this important 

 only in those great factories where the mordants are a considerable item of cx- 

 penr^e, for the artist also should be aware that every addition of mordant di- 

 minishes the clearness of the color. The less mordant the finer color, and vice 

 ver.sa. 



It admits of no doubt that from remote antiquity the art of coloring of the 

 raiment with which mm invested himself had acquired a certain degree of 

 proficiency. Pliny, though he gives no particulars of the processes, yet assures 

 as that the ancients were well acquainted with the use of mordants, by which 

 fixity is given to colors which otherwise would gradually change by successive 

 gradations, or disappear altogether from the dyed fabric. Of those mordants 

 he mentions human urine, ammonia, and certain salts, including rock salt and 

 soda, as serving to give at once brilliancy and fixity of color to spun and woven 

 stuffs. And in another passage he intimates a still more advanced knowledge 

 of the art of dyeing as practiced by the ancients. " In Egypt," he says, 

 " cloths are dyed in a quite peculiar manner. The cloth is first thoroughly 

 cleansed and then successively dipped into one or more solutions, and finally 

 into the fluid color for Av^hich the previously used solution has so great an affin- 

 ity that the cloth is dyed as permanently as instantaneously. What is most 

 remarkable about this process is the fact, that though the dye-vat contains dye 

 of only one color, the web of cloth is dyed of one, two, or several colors, ac- 

 cording to the kind of solutions used for the preliminary washings or dippings. 

 And further, not only is the cloth so permanently dyed that the color cannot 

 be washed out, but the cloth itself is rendered stronger and more durable." 



This language of Pliny shows, that our knowledge of the uses and effects of 

 various mordants to heighten and fix color, and rather to improve than to injure 

 the fabric of the stuff to be dyed, though doubtless much indebted to modern 

 chemistry, is, substantially, as old as chemistry itself. In the case of ancient 

 Egypt, such a knowledge need scarcely excite our surprise, that antique and 

 mysterious land having been the source of the chemical science of at least 

 all the people of antiquity. As nature herself suggested colored ornamenta- 

 tion, and the fugitive qualities of the earlier dyestuffs forced chemistry into 

 the discovery of mordants, so the lack of a cultivated taste made the glaring 

 scarlet and tawdry yellow the favorites of the earlier ages ; just as, in our day, 

 the same lack or imperfection of taste is apt to recommend those vivid hues 

 to the favor of the childish and the unrefined. Next to the Egyptians the 

 people of ancient India evinced most skill in the art of coloring.^ Job speaks 

 with great admiration of the brilliant colors of Indi;in cloths. There is at this 

 day iu the museum of the Industrial ^^ociclij at Paris a large and valuable 

 collection of Indian colored stuffs, together with the utensils by which they 

 were prepared. These stuffs should be called painted rather than dyed ; the 

 absorbent and mordant fluids were first applied with a brush, and the; desired 

 colors then laid on ; those portions which were to remain Avhite were at the 

 outset covered with wax, and the outlines of the pattern traced on the remainder. 

 There is also at Paris a shawl, ten feet long and five feet wide, the handiwork 

 of Indian princesses, and so elaborately as well as beautifully executed that it 

 must have employed the skill and industry of more than one generation of the 

 royal and dusky )vorkwomen. But everything else in ancient dyeing was sur- 

 passed by the proverbially pre-eminent 



TYUIAN PURPLE. 



Inventions have their place in Mythology, and not improperly ; for if chance 

 plays no inconsiderable part in the inventions and discoveries of the present days, 

 BO also, it did in the days of old. All have heard, or read, the story of the dog 



