THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 1 65 



took place, but there is every reason to suppose the Irish people 

 learned the secret from their neighbors at a very early period. 



The mortars, or stone vats used for dyeing, cut from the rocks 

 near ancient Tyre, were discovered by Dr. Wilde half a century ago. 

 He noticed fragments of a small murex ( M trunculus) cemented together, 

 lying at the bottom of the caldrons and heaps of the same shell close 

 by. Phny, the Roman naturalist, who witnessed the process of 

 dyeing, has left us an interesting account of it. But the shell which he 

 calls a purpura (purple), wasamurex not a buccinum. The truepurpura 

 produces a crimson dye. The difference in the appearance of both 

 is exceedingly slight. Woodward and other conchologists held quite 

 recently the same view as Pliny respecting a purpura. 



The royal Tyrian dye, Pliny states, owed its rich color 

 also partly to another mollusc, a species of patella (hmpet), 

 perhaps the blue so common on the shores of the Adriatic. If the 

 purple sea snail, it would be difficult to understand how such an ac- 

 complished naturalist could have confounded lanthina fragilis, a 

 free floating shell, with the stationary one attached to rocks and un- 

 like it in every respect. The snail shell is so exceedingly thin it is 

 not likely even a fragment would have remained in the dye pots, 

 whereas the patillidse are of considerable thickness, and must have 

 been easily recognized in the conglomerate. 



Referring to an extract from Montague's " Testacea Britannica," 

 and also to a tradition that the Phoenicians obtained their colors 

 from South England and Ireland, Dr. Wilde gives us the result of 

 some experiments he made with regard to extracting coloring matter 

 from testacea: "The animal used was buccinum lapillus, and after- 

 wards turbo clathrus, tons weight of which may be collected on the 

 rocks at Howth and Malahide. The fluid will be found in a recep- 

 tacle in a sulcus, behind the neck, of worm-like appearance. On 

 applying it to silk, woollen or cotton texture, in a few seconds it 

 assumes a straw color, then light green — margin becoming pink ; red 

 deepens into vivid purple, which washing increases in lustre and 

 intensity. It must be exposed, however, to solar light. It is an 

 animal indigo, containing a mordant in itself. Mineral acids affect 

 it ; the color fades at death (unlike cochineal), and grows fainter 

 if the animal is kept long out of its natural element." Walker, in 

 enumerating the colors used by the ancient Irish in remote ages, 



