Geographical Distribution of the Shell-Purple Industry. 19 
England. The famous Wilfred ordered a copy of the 
four Gospels to be written for the church of Ripon, in 
letters of the purest gold, upon leaves of parchment, 
purpled in the ground, and variously coloured on the 
surface. 
The Gregorian Bible, presented by a monkish mis- 
sionary and his companions to the first Christian church 
erected at Canterbury, was also of a similar description. 
Eastward of the Mediterranean we find several indi- 
cations and curious survivals of this ancient purple 
industry. 
According to Johnston,” the Chinese make use of a 
similar dye. The extreme conservatism of Chinese tastes 
suggests that the art is no recent importation amongst 
them. Bancroft” also gives an interesting quotation 
regarding the use of shell-purple by the Chinese settlers 
in the Malay region. Hetells usthat “ Mr. John Nicuhoff 
relates that ‘abundance of purple snails are found in the 
islands over against Batavia. They are boiled and eaten 
by the Chinese, who have a way of polishing the shells, 
and prick out of the middle of the snail a certain purple- 
coloured substance which they use in colouring and 
making red ink.’” . 
That the purple was appreciated and sought for by 
the ancient inhabitants of Japan is implied from the 
discovery of certain broken shells in their “ Kitchen- 
middens.” Professor Edward S. Morse, in his paper on 
“ Shell Mounds of Omori,” tells us that along with such 
species as Fusus.tnconstans, Hemifusus tuba, Eburna 
japonica, etc., the shells of Rapana bezoar were exceedingly 
abundant in the mounds and of large size with massive 
74 Johnston, of. czt., p. 74. 
7> Bancroft, ‘* Philosophy of Permanent Colours,” i., 1794, pp. 93—4. 
76 Memozrs of the Sctence Dept., Univ. of Tokio, Japan, vol. i., pt. i., 
No. 2539, 1879. 
