240 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOKY. 



mode of preparing sandarach we have described 44 already : 

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

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

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



CHAT. 23. SANJJYX. 



Calcined with an equal proportion of rubrica, sandarach 

 forms sandyx ;** although I perceive that Virgil, in the fol- 

 lowing line," lias taken sandyx to be a plant 



" Sandyx itself shall clothe the feeding lambs." 



The price of sandyx 47 is one half that of sandarach; these 

 two colours being the heaviest of all in weight. 



CHAP. 24. SYR I CUM.. 



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

 as an under-coating for minium, as already 4 " stated. It is 

 prepared from a combination of siuopis with sandyx. 



CHAP. 25. ATHAMKNTUM. 



Atramentum, 4 * too, must be reckoned among the artificial co- 

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



44 In B. xixiv. c. 55. " Pliny speaks of different shades of sandaraea, 

 the pale, or massicot, (yellow oxid' of lead), ami a mixture of the pale 

 with minium. It also signified Realgar, or red iulphurct of arsenic." 

 AVornum, in Smith's Diet. Antiq. Art. Culorcs. 



45 Sir II. Davy supposes this colour to have approaclu-d our crimson. 

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

 lustre. 



* 6 Eel. iv. 1. 45. " Sponte sml sandyx paseentes vcstiet ngnos." 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- 

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

 tlie line above quoted. Hist, I u'. Vol. 11. p. 110. Jinhn'a Edition. See 

 also H. xxiv. c. 5G. 



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

 cither from *' Sandes," the name of Hercules in Asia Minor, or at least 

 in Lydia : or else from Saridak, the name of an ancestor of Ciuyras and 

 Adonis. 



48 In "B. xxxiii. c. 40. According to Aotius, syricum was made by the 

 Calcination of pure ceruse, (timilar to the '* usta" above nientiomxl). lie 

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

 former bt-ing the term generally used by medical men. 



48 " Black coloui-ing'aubstuuce." 



