730 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



flint implement, was discovered, nor any metal of any sort, nor any 

 fragment of pottery. 



It is qnite possible that a storm might expose something we could 

 jiot find ; but the search made was pretty exhaustiye, assisted as 

 I was by Dr. D'Evelyn, of Ballymena, my brother F. C. Bigger, 

 K. J. Welch, of Belfast (to whom I am obliged for the accompanying 

 photographs then taken), E. Standen and E. Collier, of Manchester, 

 to whom I am indebted for conehological information. 



In placing on record some details in regard to this settlement 

 of an unknown people, I feel I am fully rewarded in pointing out 

 one more feature that cannot fail to add to the interest of all visitors 

 to Connamara in general, and Eoundstone in particular. 



On looking further into the subject of dyes, I find that jjurple 

 robes were in frequent use in Ireland during ancient times. In 

 the tale of Eithne and King Cormac, quoted by "Whitley Stokes 

 in his introduction to the Irish " Tripartite Life of St. Patrick," 

 I., p. xxx-^dii, fifty maidens in purple mantles are mentioned. In 

 the " Book of E,ights," p. 65, cloaks trimmed with purple are 

 noticed; at p. 87, the King of Ara is said to be entitled to six 

 purple mantles from the King of Erie ; at p. 147, the stipend of 

 the King of Ui Breasail includes three purple cloaks. We are told 

 that Medb presented Eerdiad with a girsat cocra or purple waist 

 scarf to induce him to fight Cuchulaind. It will thus be seen that 

 purple was a royal colour and was much prized. May not the 

 Purpura lapillus of Portnafeadog have been used for such a purpose ? 

 Both the works of Pliny and Aristotle contain accounts of shell-fish being 

 employed for dyeing purposes, and of the processes by which the dye 

 was extracted. These observations have been quoted in Eab. Columna's 

 De aquatilibus aliisque nonnullis animalibus, Bomae, 1616, and some 

 critical remarks added. In 1710, Reaumur (Mem. de I'Acad. Boyale 

 des Sciences, 1711) found the Purpura lapillm on the coast of Poitou, 

 and made numerous experiments on the formation of the purple 

 colour. The observations of Beaumui" and others proved that the 

 colour -producing secretion, resembling pus in appearance, was con- 

 tained in a small vessel lying in contact with the shell close to the 

 animal's head. This matter when applied to cloth and exposed to 

 sunlight rapidly changes its colour from yellow to green and then 

 to purple, which is remarkably stable and scarcely destroyablc. 

 Don Antonio de Ulloa, in his " Physical and Historical Account of 

 Southern and North-Eastem America," describes how dyeing from 

 shell-fish is still carried on. He says: — "On the coasts belonging 



