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odour. Pliny, moreover, speaks of both, and hence it cannot be 

 doubted that the purple was produced formerly exactly as at present, 

 unless we admit that the animals and their dye-stuff have changed, 

 which would be an altogether gratuitous hypothesis. The conclusion 

 to which we are driven then is this : the colour was produced formerly 

 as at present, under the same conditions and with the same characters, 

 so that it ought to have been similar to that which we now obtain. 



In simple and natural experiments the violet has never failed to 

 appear, while pure red has always been absent. One is led to con- 

 clude, therefore, that the natural and unmodified purple of the 

 ancients was violet, as it is now ; for whoever discovered it must 

 have made the experiment, as it has been so often repeated, on the 

 sea-shore, by breaking a purpuriferous mollusk, and crushing its 

 mantle on moist linen which is exposed to the sun. 



Pliny cites Cornelius Nepos, who states positively that at first 

 the violet purple was esteemed ; and the passages of Plato and of 

 Aristotle, which relate to the colour, lead to the same conclusion. 

 However, it cannot be doubted that though the colour of purple 

 stuffs was primitively violet, the requirements of taste and of fashion 

 led to the variation of its shades. Thus some stuffs were dyed 

 twice, to give them a richer and more vivid colour the so-called 

 'purpurea dibapha.' The mixture of species also contributed to 

 modify the hues. 



Murex trunculus gives an almost blue shade. The fishermen of 

 Port Mahon told me that it always yielded that colour, and especially 

 that it would give a fixed and permanent colour. On the contrary, 

 Purpura hcemastoma (which they call f cor de fel ') was known to 

 them as staining their linen very permanently and ineffaceably. 



It ought also to be recollected that when mineral colours replaced 

 the animal matter of mollusks, the hue varied ; and though the term 

 * purple' might be retained, it was easy to pass by degrees to the 

 deep red which rises in the mind when we recollect the purple worn 

 by cardinals. 



Perhaps also the manipulations to which the molluscan dye-stuff 

 may have been subjected by the dyers, and of whose nature we know 

 nothing, approximated the purple to the red, which Pliny compares 

 to that of coagulated blood. 



But it remains none the less demonstrated, both by the passages 



