[1152] [The powder spread out by the female insect just before laying
the eggs.]
[1153] [Stephens in his Catalogue of British Insects enumerates no less
than thirty species as inhabitants of these islands.]
[1154] By Dioscorides they are called κόκκος βαφική. Dioscorides,
iv. 48, p. 260. Respecting the tree, Pausanias, lib. x. p. 890, seems
to raise some difficulty, as he compares it to the σχῖνος, lentiscus,
or, as others read the word, σχοῖνος. But it has been remarked long
ago, that the reading ought to be πρῖνος, ilex; and this alteration is
supported by some manuscripts.
[1155] [Kirby and Spence and Stephens state that the _Coccus Ilicis_
is found upon the _Quercus coccifera_. Moreover Beckmann’s description
of the “low evergreen oak” does not apply to _Q. Ilex_, but does to
_coccifera_; _Ilex_ grows sixty feet high, _coccifera_ only ten; in the
other respects detailed by him they agree.]
[1156] Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ix. cap. 41; lib. xvi. cap. 8; lib. xxii.
cap. 2; lib. xxiv. cap. 4.
[1157] Bochart. Hierozoicon, vol. ii. lib. iv. cap. 27, p. 624.
[1158] Tyson’s Anatomy of a Pigmy, 1751, 4to.--Delaval’s Experimental
Inquiry into the Cause of the Changes of Colours in Opake Bodies, 1777,
4to.
[1159] The insect is not natural to the tree, but adventitious. As all
rosebushes have not tree-lice, nor all houses bugs; so all _ilices_, or
oaks, have not kermes.
[1160] Bellonii Itin. i. 17.--Tournefort, Voy. du Levant, i. p. 19.
[1161] Bellon. ii. 88.--Roger, Voyage de la Terre Sainte, i.
2.--Voyages de Monconys, i. p. 179.--Brown’s Travels in Africa, &c.
[1162] In opposition to this account some have asserted that Spanish
kermes are praised in Petronius, cap. 119; but the passage varies so
much, in different editions, that no certain conclusion can be drawn
from it. See the excellent edition of Mich. Hadrianides. Amstelod.
1669, 8vo, p. 419. If we even read, with Hardouin and others,
Hesperium coccum laudabat miles,
the soldier might mention kermes among those productions of Spain of
which he was fond, though he did not consider it as the best. Hardouin
says, “Loquitur de minio Hispanico;” but that was a colour for painting.
[1163] Cap. 311, p. 210.
[1164] These writers propose to read ἐν τῷ θέρει instead of τῷ
στόματι; but the variation here is too great to be admitted.
[1165] Garidel, p. 254.
[1166] Having mentioned the above passage to Professor Tychsen, he
suggested an emendation which, in my opinion, is preferable to any
I have hitherto seen: “We must read,” said he, “τῷ στόνυχι, which
transcribers may have readily mistaken and changed into the word
στόματι, with which, perhaps, they were better acquainted. Στόνυξ
signified not only the extremity of the nail but also any kind of
instrument, and even weapons, in which last sense it occurs more than
once in Lycophron.” See Hesychius. Much more forced and improbable
is the amendment proposed by Salmasius, which may be found in his
Annotations on Solinus.
[1167] The following passage, highly worthy of notice, taken from
Gervasii Tilberiensis Otia Imperialia ad Ottonem IV. Imperatorem, iii.
55; a work which the author, a very learned man for his time, wrote
in the year 1211, will serve to illustrate what I have said above:
“De vermiculo. In regno Arelatensi (kingdom of Arles, which formerly
belonged to the dukes of Burgundy) et confinio maritimo est arbor
cujus sarcina pretium facit duodecim nummorum Wighorniensium. Ejus
fructus in flore facit pretium quinquaginta librarum. Ejus cortex ad
onus vestis pretium habet quinque solidorum. Vermiculus hic est, quo
tinguntur pretiosissimi regum panni, sive serici, ut examiti, sive
lanci, ut scharlata. Et est mirandum, quod nulla vestis linea colorem
vermiculatum recipit, sed sola vestis quæ ex vivo animanteque vel
quovis animato decerpitur.” [The author here is undoubtedly right, as
animal substances take a dye more readily than vegetable.] “Vermiculus
autem ex arbore, ad modum ilicis et quantitatem dumi pungitiva folia
habente, prodit ad pedem, nodulum faciens mollem ad formam ciceris”
(the same comparison as that of Dioscorides), “aquosum, et, cum
exterius colorem habeat nebulæ et roris coagulati, interius rubet;
et cum ungue magisterialiter decerpitur, ne, tenui rupta pellicula,
humor inclusus effluat, postquam exsiccatur et corio includitur.--Cum
enim tempus solstitii æstivi advenerit, ex se ipso vermiculos generat,
et nisi coriis subtiliter consutis includerentur, omnes fugerent ut
in nihilum evanescerent. Hinc est, quod vermiculus nominatur propter
dissolutionem quam in vermes facile facit, ex natura roris Maialis,
a quo generatur; unde et illo tantum mense colligitur. Arbor autem
vermiculum generans vulgo Analis nuncupatur.”--This book may be found
in Leibnitii Scriptor. Rerum Brunsvic. 1.
[1168] Muratori has published, in the second part of Antiquitat.
Italic. Medii Ævi, p. 379, a treatise which appears to have been
written in the ninth century, or in the time of Charlemagne, and which
contains a great many receipts respecting dyeing and other arts. Among
these is the receipt then commonly used for dyeing red, _Compositio
vermiculi_. It is much to be regretted that the manuscript was so
illegible that there are whole passages entirely destitute of sense,
and that many words occur of which no one has given, or perhaps ever
will be able to give, an explanation. We find, however, that the
kermes were boiled with urine in a linen bag (_in linteolo raro_):
_addis hurinam expumatam_. The other ingredients I confess I do not
understand. What is _luzarim_, _lulacim_, _quianus_, _coccaris_? Many
of these words seem to signify not simple but compounded pigments.
Lulacim, by p. 378, appears to have been the expressed juice of some
plant boiled with alum. “Coccarin nascitur in folio cedrin non tritæ.”
Besides the word _vermiculum_, the word _coccum_ also occurs: “Coccum
delabas in urina.” In the last sentence we ought to read _coctum_.
[1169] See Barth. ad Guil. Britonis Philippidos libr. xii. Arnoldus
Lubecensis, at the end of Helmoldi Chronicon Slavorum, lib. iii. cap.
4: “Præmiserat autem dux munera multa et optima juxta morem terræ
nostræ, equos pulcherrimos sellatos et vestitos, loricas, gladios,
vestes de scharlatto et vestes lineas tenuissimas.” See Fischer’s
Geschichte des Teutschen Handels, Hanover, 1758, 8vo, i. p. 490. But
can “munera juxta morem terræ nostræ” be with propriety translated “the
productions of the country?” With all due respect to the extensive
reading and great learning of Professor Fischer, I must warn the
reader against some errors which occur in his book, and against his
too bold assertions. From what he says, p. 448, one would suppose
that he compared the kermes to our acorns; but the fruit only of the
kermes-tree, as being a species of oak, has the figure of an acorn.
In p. 493, he ventures to criticise Professor J. H. Schulze, who, in
Dissertat. de Granorum Kermes Coccionellæ Convenientia, Viribus, et
Usu, Halæ, 1743, adopts the opinion of a Dutchman (not an Englishman)
De Ruuscher, which has been completely justified, that cochineal is an
insect. According to Professor Fischer, both the insect and the acorn
are cochineal. He talks of plantations of the kermes-tree among the
ancients, and seems to believe that the Celts brought kermes along with
them to Galatia, from their original country, in the same manner as
the Europeans carried with them to America the corn of Europe. Kermes,
however, are insects which cannot be transplanted, and I do not find
any proof that there were ever plantations of them. [This assertion is
far from correct. The true cochineal insect has been introduced from
Mexico into Java, Spain, and recently into Algiers. The Journal de
Pharmacie for Feb. 1844, contains a long account, by M. Simounet, of
the success of the cochineal plantations in Algiers.] People collected
kermes in the places where they happened to find them. The comparison
of cochineal with the lady-cow, or lady-bird, as it is called, p. 493,
is altogether improper, as that insect is the _Coccinella_, which has
no affinity to cochineal. His proposal to place the _Coccinellæ_, or
lady-birds, on the kermes-oak, or on the _Scleranthus_ (perennial
knawell), is totally impracticable; and even were they to remain there
for eternity, they would never become cochineal or kermes.
[1170] Matthiolus, in his Annotations on Dioscorides, p. 725, says that
the monks who wrote a Commentary on Mesues assert that the kermes of
the Arabians, the _Coccus radicum_, is not the _Coccus arborum_; but
he refutes this idea upon the grounds that the Arabians themselves say
everything of their kermes that is related of them by Dioscorides. I
am almost induced to conjecture that the monks made this assertion in
order to render more agreeable that tribute which was paid to them, in
some countries, under the name of St. John’s blood.
[1171] Salmasius in Solinum, p. 854.
[1172] Histoire Naturelle de Languedoc. Par. 1737, 4to, p. 472.
[1173] “The word _kermes_, _karmes_, and, with the article, _al
kermes_, is at present in the East the common name of the animal which
produces the dye, as well as of the dye itself. Both words have by the
Arabs and the commerce of the Levant been introduced into the European
languages. _Kermes_, Span. _al charmes_, _al quermes_, or more properly
_alkermes_, _alkarmes_. Ital. _cremesino_, &c.
“To what language the word originally belongs cannot with certainty
be determined. There are grounds for conjecturing several derivations
from the Arabic, for example, _karasa_, _extremis digitis tenuit_, which
would not ill-agree with στόνυξ; and _karmis_ signifies _imbecillus_;
but this word may be derived from the small insect, as well as the
insect from it. As all these derivations, however, are attended with
grammatical difficulties, and as the Arabians, according to their own
account, got the dye and the word from Armenia, it appears rather to
be a foreign appellation which they received with the thing signified,
when they overran Upper Asia. Jbn Beithar in Bochart, Hierozoicon, ii.
p. 625, calls kermes an Armenian dye; and the Arabian lexicographers,
from whom Giggeus and Castellus made extracts, explain the kindred word
_karmasal_, _coccineus_, _vermiculatus_, as an Armenian word.
“This dye however was undoubtedly known to the Hebrews, the Phœnicians,
and the Egyptians, long before the epoch of the Arabians in the East.
Among the Hebrews the dye occurs, though not clearly, under other
names, _tola schani_, or simply _tola_, in their oldest writer, Moses.
_Tola_ is properly the worm, and according to the analogy of _kermes_,
worm-dye, scarlet. The additional word _schani_ signifies either
double-dyed, or, according to another derivation, bright, deep red dye.
For both significations sufficient grounds and old authorities might be
quoted; but the former is the most usual, and on account of its analogy
with δίβαφον, seems to be the most probable.
“But was the _coccus_ known so early? Is not _tola_, the worm-dye,
perhaps the same with purple, because the ancients made no distinction
between _vermis_ and snail? I believe not. For purple the Orientals
have a particular name, _argaman_, _argevan_, which is accurately
distinguished from _tola_, and is often added to it as something
distinct. All the ancients therefore translate the Hebrew word _tola_
by κόκκος, kermes, _zehori_ and _zehorito_ (deep red, bright dye),
which words they never put for _argaman_. As the Phœnicians traded at
so early a period with Spain and other countries, where the kermes are
indigenous, it may be readily comprehended how that dye was known in
Palestine about and before the time of Moses.
“It must have been known also in Egypt about the same epoch; for when
Moses, in the wilderness, required scarlet to ornament the tabernacle,
it could have been procured only from that country. Whether kermes
be indigenous in Egypt, I do not know. On the word καλάϊνον, quoted
by Bochart from Hesychius as Egyptian, the abbreviation of which,
_laia_, in the Ethiopic language signifies scarlet, I lay no great
stress, because it cannot be proved,--1st, that the word is originally
Egyptian, as it occurs several times in the Greek writers and in
various significations; and 2ndly, that it signifies scarlet dye,
because the ancients explain it sometimes by purple, sometimes by
sea-colour. See Bochart, l. c. p. 730. If the word be Egyptian, it
signifies rather red dye in general than defines purple colour. At any
rate, there is in Coptic for the latter a peculiar word, _scadschi_,
or _sanhadschi_. The latter is explained by Kircher in Prodrom. Copt.
p. 337, ‘mercator purpuræ, vermiculus coccineus, purpura,’ which is
altogether vague and contradictory. The Arabic lexicographer, whom he
ought to have translated, gives a meaning which expresses only _purple
ware_.
“If one might venture a supposition respecting the language of a
people whose history is almost bare conjecture, I would ask if the
Coptic _dholi_ was the name of scarlet in Egypt. The lexicographers
explain it by a worm, a moth; but in those passages of the translation
of the Bible which I have compared another word is always used, when
allusion is made to worms which gnaw or destroy. Was _dholi_ the name
of the worm that yields a dye? As _dholi_ sounds almost like the
Hebræo-Phœnician _tola_, we might farther conjecture that the Egyptians
received both the name and the thing signified from the Phœnicians. But
this is mere opinion. The following conclusions seem to be the natural
result of the above observations:--
“1st. Scarlet, or the kermes-dye, was known in the East in the
earliest ages, before Moses, and was a discovery of the Phœnicians
in Palestine, but certainly not of the small wandering Hebrew
tribes.
“2nd. _Tola_ was the ancient Phœnician name used by the Hebrews,
and even by the Syrians; for it is employed by the Syrian
translator, Isaiah, chap. i. v. 18. Among the Jews, after their
captivity, the Aramæan word _zehori_ was more common.
“3rd. This dye was known also to the Egyptians in the time of
Moses; for the Israelites must have carried it along with them from
Egypt.
“4th. The Arabs received the name kermes, with the dye, from
Armenia and Persia, where it was indigenous, and had been long
known; and that name banished the old name in the East, as the name
scarlet has in the West. For the first part of this assertion we
must believe the Arabs.
“5th. Kermes were perhaps not known in Arabia; at least they were
not indigenous, as the Arabs appear to have had no name for them.
“6th. Kermes signifies always _red dye_; and when pronounced short,
it becomes _deep red_. I consider it, therefore, as a mere error of
the translation when, in Avicenna, iii. Fen. 21, 13, _kermesiah_ is
translated _purpureitas_. It ought to be _coccineum_.”
[1174] Beschreibung von Allerley Insekten. Berl. 1736, 4to, vol. v. p.
10.
[1175] The ancient Spaniards, according to Pliny’s account, were
obliged to pay tribute in kermes to the Romans; and we are told by
Bellon, that the Turks exacted a tribute of the like kind from the
modern Greeks. It appears, therefore, that the monks imitated the
example of the Romans.
[1176] See Krunitz’s Encyclopedie, xliv. p. 2.
[1177] In Leibnitii Collectanea Etymologica, Hanoveræ, 1717, 8vo, p.
467, there is a catalogue of the effects and revenues of the church
at Prüm, where a monastery of Benedictines was established as early
as the eighth century. This catalogue, which was drawn up in the year
1222, says, “Solvit unusquisque pro vermiculo denarios sex.” But as
allusion is made here to people who lived near Metz in Lorraine, it
may be conjectured that we are to understand not _Coccus radicum_, but
_Coccus arborum_, which they might have procured from thence. For this
doubt, however, there is no room in Descriptio Censuum, Proventuum,
ac Fructuum ex Prædiis Monasterii S. Emmerammi, in the year 1301,
to be found in Pezii Thesaurus Anecdotorum Novissimus, i. p. 69. We
are there told, “Singuli dant sex denarios pro vermiculo;” and p. 69
and 74, “singuli dant vasculum vermiculi;” p. 76, “reddunt vermiculi
coppos duo.” The people of whom these passages speak belonged to the
monastery of St. Emmeran, at Regensburg, and were settled in Bavaria.
Papon relates in Histoire Générale de Provence, ii. p. 356, that the
archbishop of Arles, in the middle of the twelfth century, sold to the
Jews the kermes collected at St. Chamas and other parts of his diocese.
[1178] In Dioscoridem, iv. 39.
[1179] De subtilitate; exercit. 325, § 13.
[1180] The price of cochineal has in latter times fallen. In the year
1728 it cost fifty-eight schellings Flemish per pound; but in May 1786
it cost only twenty-seven and a half. [In 1814 the price of the best
cochineal in this country was as high as 36_s._, 39_s._, but it has
since gone on regularly declining till it has sunk to from 4_s._ to
6_s._ per pound.] Sifted cochineal is dearer than unsifted. It is often
adulterated in Spain, but oftener in Holland, with the wild cochineal,
as it is called. Some years ago an Englishman adulterated this article
by mixing it with red wax; but the fraud required too laborious
preparation, and was attended with too little profit to be long
continued. [In France it is frequently adulterated with talc and white
lead with a view of increasing its weight; and in London with sulphate
of baryta or heavy spar and bone or ivory black].
[1181] There is reason to think that the Spaniards gave as names to
several American articles the diminutives of like Spanish or European
productions. Thus _sarsaparilla_ signifies prickly vine-stock;
_platina_ little silver. Is the cause of this to be referred to the
Spanish _grandezza_?
[1182] Raynal, Histoire des Indes. Gen. 1780, 4 vols. ii. p. 77.
[1183] Algemeine Geschichte der Länder und Völker von Amerika, Halle
1753, 2 vols. 4to, ii. p. 7.
[1184] See Anderson’s Hist. Commerce, iv. p. 73. It is possible however
that Guicciardini may have meant Spanish kermes.
[1185] Histoire Naturelle et Générale des Indes. Paris, 1556, fol. p.
122, 130. [Figures of the _Opuntia cochinillifera_ and of the cochineal
insects, will be found in Pereira’s Materia Medica, vol. ii. p. 1850.]
[1186] The title in the original is, Natuerlyke Historie van de
Couchenille, &c. Amst. 1729, 8vo. This work is scarce. A German
translation of it may be found in (C. Mylius) Physikalischen
Belustigungen. Berlin, 1751, 8vo, i. p. 43.
[1187] Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary.
[1188] Traité de la culture du nopal et de l’éducation de la
cochenille. Au Cap-Francois 1787, 8vo.
[1189] In Vita Aureliani, cap. 29.
[1190] Those who are desirous of further information respecting the
_sandix_, may consult Salmasius on Solinus, p. 810, and the editor of
the Cyneget of Gratius Faliscus, x. 86. p. 46.
[1191] Some have considered sandix as a mineral. Minerals however can
be used for painting but not for dyeing. It may be replied that the
Romans themselves dyed with kermes at this period, and that they must
have easily procured it. But they understood the art of dyeing with
it so badly that they employed it only for giving the ground of their
purple, and on that account it must have appeared improbable to them
that the people in India could produce by it a more beautiful colour
than their purple was. From the like ignorance in modern times, indigo
was decried, because people imagined that a complete colour could
not be communicated by it; and this false conclusion retarded many
improvements in the art of dyeing. It is very likely that the Greeks
and the Romans were unacquainted with the effect produced upon kermes
by acids, which the Persians and Indians used.
[1192] Antiquit. Celt. p. 69, 70.
[1193] Spaten (Stiler) der Teutschen Sprache Stammbaum, 1691, 4to, p.
1062.
[1194] In his annotations on Constantini Libri de Ceremoniis Aulæ
Byzantinæ, ii. p. 137. Reiske also on this occasion gives the
derivation from _Charlatan_, a mountebank, juggler, _circumforaneus_,
_agyrta_, because such people formerly on account of their red clothes
were called _scarlatati_ or _scarlatani_. Other conjectures respecting
this word may be found in Menage, Dictionnaire Etymologique. See in
the same work also, p. 498, the word _écarlate_. In ancient French
writers the highest degree of any colour in its perfection is called
_écarlate_, and we therefore meet with _écarlate blanche_, _écarlate
verte_. Braun de Vestitu Sacerd. Hebræor. Amstelod. 1701, 4to, lib. i.
cap. 15, p. 229, says, “_Salacka_, Tyrian red, from _sar_, Tyrus.” He
controverts the opinion of Gronovius that _scarlatum_ is derived from
_Galaticum_.
[1195] Dillon’s Travels through Spain, 1780, p. 21. Rod. Toletanus De
Rebus Hispan. lib. vii. 1.
[1196] G. J. Vossius De Vitiis Sermonis.
[1197] Pontani Historia Gelrica, 1639, fol. p. 83: “Tres pannos
scarlitinos Anglicanos.” The year seems to have been 1050. In Lunig’s
Codex Diplom. Germaniæ, ii. p. 1739, may be seen a document of the
year 1172, in which the emperor Frederick I. confers on the count
of Gueldres the heritable jurisdiction of Nimeguen, on condition,
“_ut_ ipse et ejus successores imperatori de eodem telonio singulis
annis tres pannos scarlacos bene rubeos Anglicenses ardentis
coloris--assignare deberet.”
[1198] In Statutis Cluniacensibus, cap. 18.
[1199] See Porner’s Anleitung zur Farbekunst. Leipzig, 1785, 8vo, p. 16.
[1200] Page 113.
[1201] Monconys mentions in his Travels, p. 408, Dr. Keiffer, a
son-in-law of Drebbel, who was a good chemist.
[1202] In Borrichii Dissertat. ii. p. 104: Color Kufflerianus.
[1203] Rabelais, xi. 22. Menage, Diction. Etymol. i. p. 682.
[1204] Francheville, in Dissertat. sur l’Art de la Teinture des Anciens
et Modernes, in Histoire de l’Académ. de Berlin, 1767, p. 67. In this
dissertation, however, there is neither certainty nor proof.
[1205] Suite de Teinturier parfait. Paris, 1716.
[1206] Anderson’s History of Commerce.
[1207] Cary’s Bemerkungen über Grossbritanniens Handel; übersetzt von
Wichmann. Leipzig, 1788, i. p. 372. Boyle remarks in his Experimenta de
Coloribus, Coloniæ, 1680, 4to, that a bright scarlet colour was never
produced except when tin vessels were used. It appears, therefore, that
he had observed the good effects of a solution of tin.