136 On the Ancient Purpurissum. (Fes. 
it, however, the larvae were dead, and only one of them had un- 
dergone the transformation into the imago state. ‘This one was also 
dead, and, although quite perfect, was of a wax-yellow colour. A 
considerable quantity of excrement, however, was deposited, which 
I dissolved in water, to which it imparted a portion of its red 
colour; but much of the cotton, although macerated into the most 
minute particles, had evidently suffered no material alteration in the 
stomach of the larve. Having, however, had it so far decomposed 
by the process as to have its colour reduced to a state in which 
water acted upon it as a solvent, my point was in a great degree 
gained; for by adding a solution of alum to the fluid, and precipi- 
tating the alumina from the mixture by an aqueous solution of soda, 
Iam certain that I should have obtained a more elegant pigment 
than the creta argentaria dyed according to the process of Chaptal, 
narrated by him in his essay on the encaustic painting of the an- 
cients. Could the larvee of the clothe’s moth be made to thrive on 
cotton, it is thus evident that any quantity of such a pigment might 
be procured in this way by artists, at hardly any expense or trouble. 
I regret, however, that the quantity I obtained was not sufficient to 
enable me to precipitate the colouring matter from the mixture ; 
and the death of the larve, and more important concerns, have 
prevented me from repeating the experiment. I can account for 
the larvee not thriving upon the cotton from the circumstance of 
that which I had used being full of the oil employed in the dyeing 
process : perhaps if this were remedied, and if the larve were re- 
moved from the woollen cloth where they had been hatched at a 
different season of the year, or at a different stage of their exist- 
ence, this evil might be avoided. 
Perhaps it will not be considered out of place if I subjoin 
some observations tending to illustrate an opinion which I have 
formed giving a higher antiquity to the process of dyeing with 
madder than the one usually entertained, and by which I have been 
induced to believe that the subjects of the Greek empire were ac- 
quainted, in the time of Justinian, with a method of dyeing silk, 
woollen, and linen, by means of madder. Independent of Chaptal’s 
assertion, that the ancients knew how to dye creta argentaria of a 
red colour, Gibbon, in the seventh volume of his History, in 
quoting Cassiodorus, says, that the Phenician purple obtained from 
the murex was of a dark cast, as deep as bull’s blood—‘‘ obscu- 
ritans rubens, nigrido sanguinea.” He adds, that ‘ the use of 
cochineal now enables us far to surpass the beauty of the colours of 
antiquity.” In his History, vol. ix. p. 57, the same author says, 
that “an apartment of the Byzantine Palace was lined with por- 
phyry, and reserved for the use of the pregnant empresses ; and 
that the royal birth of their children was expressed by the appella- 
tion porpherogenito, or born in the purple. In the Greek language 
purple and porphyry are the same words; and as the colours of 
nature are invariable, we may learn, says the historian, that a dark 
