The above is all that the ancients have told us respecting this plant.
The information is indeed very scanty, and at the same time it is not
altogether certain; but even if it were, it would be sufficient only
to confute some conjectures, but not to establish the systematic name
of the plant. I call the properties of it described to us uncertain:
first, because I do not know whether Pliny did not mean to distinguish
the wild plant from that which was cultivated, and many have understood
as alluding to the former that which I have applied to both: secondly,
because the words of Theophrastus, being in one passage evidently
corrupted, will admit of various constructions; and because in another,
on account of some exceptions, of which he speaks, they appear at
least to me unintelligible: thirdly, because Pliny, who gives us the
best account of it, is the only author who calls the _struthium_ or
soap-plant _radicula_, a name by which is rather to be understood a
dye-plant of the same kind as madder. We have reason therefore to
suspect that he has confounded the properties of the two plants,
especially as the fourth property was ascribed by others to a _Rubia_,
_Asperula_, or _Galium_, which was cultivated in Syria, and named
often _radicula Syriaca_. On the other hand, this diminutive is very
ill-suited to a root which Pliny himself calls large.
The words of that author, “tingenti, quicquid sit cum quo decoquatur,”
have been by some explained as if he meant that the _struthium_ was
a dye-plant, though as a soapy plant it must have been destitute of
colour; and they have hence deduced a proof that Pliny confounded the
_struthium_ with the _radicula_ used in dyeing. On the other hand,
Hardouin reads _unguentis_ instead of _tingenti_. He assures us that he
found the former in manuscripts, and is of opinion that the sap of the
_struthium_ was used also for ointments.
In my opinion, however, _tingenti_ must be retained; and the meaning
is that when cloth was to be dyed it was necessary to prepare it
for that purpose by soaking it and washing it with the sap of this
plant. This he expressly tells us himself; “tingentibus et radicula
lanas præparat.” It is probable that the ancient dyers mixed their
dye-liquors with the juice of the _struthium_, for the same purpose as
bran and the seeds of fenugreek are added to dye-liquors at present;
that is, to render them thicker and more slimy, in order that the
colouring particles may be longer and more equally suspended in or
diffused through them[254]. The words _quidquid sit cum quo decoquatur_
will now become intelligible. Whatever may be employed for dyeing, says
the author, the addition of the juice of the _struthium_ is serviceable.
As what has been said contains nothing that can enable us to determine
the genus of the _struthium_ according to the rules of botany, we may
be allowed to conjecture that it was one of those plants still used
for the like purpose in Italy and other neighbouring countries. Fuchs
thinks it must have been the _Saponaria officinalis_ (soap-wort), the
roots of which indeed contain a saponaceous juice that readily changes
the saliva into froth. The root was employed for that purpose by the
impostor in Lucian; and the juice is used at present for cleaning wool
and cloth. In the Helvetian Alps, the sheep, before they are shorn, are
washed with a decoction of the plant and its roots; and with a mixture
of ashes it serves for cleaning linen. The taste of it is so sharp,
that it is compared by some to that of the small burnet-saxifrage.
This _Saponaria officinalis_ however differs too much from the
remaining properties[255] of the _struthium_. Its root is as thick
only as a quill, or at most as one’s finger. The stem, which is three
feet in height, throws out many branches, and cannot be called _caulis
ferulaceus, tenuis_. It is not rough and prickly, and, instead of
growing in poor rocky soil, it is rather fond of deep ground and the
borders of corn-fields.
We may therefore conjecture with more probability that the _Gypsophila
Struthium_, Linn.[256], a plant still used for washing in the lower
part of Italy and Spain, is the _struthium_ of the ancients. This
opinion acquires some strength by its being adopted among the Italians
and Spaniards; and because the plant, as Pliny says, grows in a rocky
soil and on the mountains. It is also still called _lanaria_ by the
Calabrian peasants. It has a tender stem; its leaves are so like those
of the olive-tree that they might be compared to them by those who
are not botanists; and its root is large, but it is neither rough nor
prickly. This contradiction may be accounted for by supposing that
Pliny, through a mistake, of which I have already accused him, ascribed
falsely to the soap-plant the prickly or rough leaves of the dye-plant
which had an affinity to madder. But even after this explanation there
still remains to be got over a dubious passage of Theophrastus, who
indeed seems to make the plant prickly also.
I do not therefore place entire confidence in this opinion; but suspect
rather that we shall receive from the East an account of a plant, still
used there, which will correspond more exactly with the soap-plant
described by Pliny. I am inclined to think that I have already found
some precursory information respecting it in Bauhin, who says that in
Syria there is another kind of soap-plant, which has prickly leaves
like the thistle, and a thick root of a sharp acrid taste. The root, he
adds, was employed for washing clothes and wool; and the confectioners
of Damascus formed of it, with honey and wine, a kind of sweetmeat
which appeared as white as if it had been made of the finest flour and
sugar, and which was so hard that it could scarcely be broken with the
teeth. This plant seems to belong to those, the cultivation of which
was abandoned in Europe, after the use of them was rendered superfluous
by newer discoveries.
That the ancients employed their _struthium_ for washing wool is
confirmed by various authorities; but I do not remember to have found
any evidence of its being used for cleaning clothes which had been
worn. Salmasius however quotes a passage from the works, unfortunately
never printed, of the old chemist Zosimus, in which he gives directions
for restoring, by means of the soap-plant, the lustre of pearls which
have become yellow[257].
The meal of many kinds of seeds may be used for washing, as well as
various kinds of bran. That of almonds, which on account of its oil is
remarkably soft, is employed at present for washing the hands by those
who are desirous of having a white delicate skin. Cloth, the colours of
which easily fade, and which will neither endure soap nor hard rubbing,
may be washed extremely well with bran. Our fullers, therefore, and
stocking manufacturers use oat-, barley- and bean-meal, especially when
they wish the cloth to be slowly milled. Whether the ancients employed
bran in the same manner I have not had an opportunity of examining.
I am rather inclined to think that they did; and there is a passage
of Galen which seems to allude to the use of bean-meal[258]. In all
probability the beans of the ancients were the smallest and roundest
variety of our horse-beans, or those used as fodder.
In the last place, the ancients, at those periods of which I speak,
used fullers-earth much oftener than it is used at present. Till the
countries where it was procured be described by travellers who unite
a knowledge of antiquities with skill in mineralogy, the species of
this earth, mentioned in the works of ancient authors, cannot be
distinguished with accuracy. But from the purposes to which they were
applied, we can with certainty conclude that they must have been partly
of the nature of marl and partly of the nature of soapstone.
According to the then usual method of washing, by which the clothes
were stamped with the feet, the _cretæ fulloniæ_, as Pliny[259]
calls them, acted in the same manner as our fullers-earth employed
at present, partly by scouring and partly by absorbing the greasy
dirt. The ancients, after their manner, gave them names only from the
countries where they were produced; and hence we find mention made
of _terra Cimolia_[260], _Chia_[261], _Lemnia_[262], _Sarda_[263],
_Umbria_[264], _Samia_, _Tymphæa_[265], and others. Many of them, like
that brought from Sardinia, could not be used in cleaning coloured
stuffs; and for this reason, perhaps, because some colours would not
stand hard scouring, or endure their caustic nature.
The fullers, however, did not use these earths merely for washing, but
also for whitening many kinds of cloth. This was done by rubbing fine
white earth into the cloth, in the same manner as soldiers do to give
some parts of their dress a brighter appearance. A like process is
employed by glovers and those who wash or clean leather. The earth used
by the latter is a yellowish-white iron-ochre, called from the purpose
to which it is applied collar-earth[266]. When a perfect white was
required, a kind of white potters-clay or marl was employed; and the
closer it adhered to the cloth, and the less easily it could be rubbed
out, it was so much the better. The poor at Rome rubbed it over their
clothes on festivals, in order that they might appear brighter[267].
It deserves here to be particularly remarked, that some of these
earths, such as that of Chios, were employed in the baths instead of
nitrum; and this is the case in the Levant still. De la Valle extols
in this respect a kind of reddish earth, and says that people of the
first distinction never bathe without it. Perfumes are often mixed with
it; and it is formed into small balls, which when used are suffered to
dissolve in the water. Different kinds of vessels, and particularly
those in which wine and oil had been kept, were cleansed with these
earths also[268]. Glass flasks which have had oil in them, cannot be
cleansed better or more speedily than by shaking in them a mixture
of fullers-earth or potters-clay. When these are not to be had,
blotting-paper may be used. The oil is absorbed by the earth or the
paper, and with them can be easily washed out.
To render cloth perfectly white, it was also fumigated with sulphur by
the fullers, who were not ignorant that many colours were destroyed by
its vapours[269]. We are told by Apuleius that the wife of a scourer
concealed her gallant under a vessel of basket-work, over which cloth
used to be laid to whiten by the effects of sulphur kindled under it.
Our washer-women employ a cask in this mode of bleaching, and our
clothiers a small close apartment, in which the wet cloth is suspended
upon hooks.
Pliny has described the method of washing used at Rome, but many
things respecting it appear to me obscure[270]. The cloth was first
washed with Sardian earth; it was then fumigated with sulphur, and
afterwards rinsed with real Cimolian earth. The word _desquamatur_ was
undoubtedly a term of art, which cannot be further explained, because
we are unacquainted with the operation to which it alludes. Pliny seems
to have been particular in mentioning real Cimolian earth, because the
false kind became black by the steam of the sulphur which the cloth
absorbed. Was it adulterated with some metallic oxide or with white
lead? It was dear enough to induce people to mix it with such articles;
and in that case it must necessarily have become black.
The expression _funditur sulphure_ seems to be attended with no
less difficulty. In comparing the different readings, I find that
the oldest editions have _offunditur_, which has been changed into
_effunditur_, and lastly into _funditur_. It is probable however that
instead of _offunditur_ we ought to read _offenditur_, which would
make the whole clear. I am much surprised that this reading was not
adopted by Hardouin. As Pliny says in other parts of his work “offendit
stomachum,” and “offendit aciem oculorum,” he might undoubtedly have
applied that word to the earth and its colour.
Fast colours, which the acid of sulphur might render pale, but could
not entirely destroy, would by washing with Cimolian earth be improved
or rather restored, as the earth would absorb and carry off the acid.
There was also another kind of earth (_saxum_) which was useful in the
preparation of cloth fumigated with sulphur, but which injured the
dye, probably because it was too calcareous, and which was perhaps our
common chalk.
I do not intend to treat here of the whole art of Roman fullers, which
belongs rather to the history of weaving or manufacturing cloth in
general; but I hope I shall be forgiven if I add the few following
observations. The fullers received the cloth as it came from the loom,
in order that it might be scoured, walked and smoothed. It was walked
by being stamped upon with the feet. The rough wool raised by this
operation was combed off, partly with the skin of a hedgehog, and
partly with the tops of some plants of the thistle kind, in order to
give the cloth a nap. Shearing seems not then to have been known: I
have at least met with no passage where it is mentioned: and the case
is the same with the use of presses; which, in my opinion, were not
invented till the sixteenth century. The whole process of smoothing
seems to have consisted in making the wool or nap lie as evenly as
possible one way, which certainly must have given to the cloth a much
better appearance.
As cloth at present is more dressed and shorn on one side than another,
the ancient fullers prepared theirs in the like manner; so that clothes
could be turned, after the inside of them had been new dressed. Whether
they made felt, also, I have not yet inquired; but I conjecture that
the manufacturing it was the occupation of those called _lanarii_,
_coactores_, and _coactilarii_.
The occupation of the fullers was at Rome very extensive, and afforded
employment to a great number of people, but it at length entirely
decayed. Schöttgen is of opinion that it belongs to those arts which
have been lost. But other writers have declared arts which are
exercised now in greater perfection than formerly to be lost, merely
because they were not acquainted with them; or because, on account of
the alterations they have undergone, they did not know where to find
them. All the different operations of fulling have become so complex by
new methods, improvements, and inventions, that they can no longer be
conducted by one man; and the whole business has for that reason been
separated or divided into several distinct branches.
The scouring of cloth when it comes from the loom, was, together with
walking, separated from the rest, after the invention of the walk-mill.
How old that invention may be, I cannot accurately determine; but we
find it mentioned in the beginning of the thirteenth, and even at the
end of the tenth century. Such a mill formerly was call _fullencium_,
or _molendinum cum fullone_[271]. The dressing and smoothing of cloth,
since the invention of shearing and pressing, requires so much art,
that these operations can be performed only by skilful workmen, who are
called cloth-shearers or cloth-dressers. The scouring of cloth dirtied
in manufacturing, is by the invention of soap, bleaching, and other
processes, become so easy that it can be performed by women. The Romans
for the most part wore a white dress made in the form of a cloak; which
indeed, as shirts were not then used, must have often stood in need of
being cleaned[272]. We, on the other hand, wear in general short close
clothes of coloured cloth; which by the fashion in which they are made,
are less exposed to be dirtied; and we are more accustomed also to use
clothes of linen or cotton, which can be washed with much less labour.
Felt, which is employed almost for hats alone, is manufactured by our
hat-makers. Whoever takes a general view of all these employments
together, will be readily convinced that they maintain more people, and
in a better manner, than the whole _ars fullonia_ did at Rome.
[The principal kinds of soap manufactured in this country are,--white
soap, composed chiefly of tallow and soda, but for some purposes of
olive oil and soda; yellow soap, made of tallow, rosin and soda,
a little palm oil being occasionally added; mottled soap, formed
of tallow, kitchen stuff and soda, its peculiar appearance being
communicated by dispersing the lees through it towards the end of the
operation; brown soap, made from palm oil, rosin and soda. Soft soap is
made with potash and drying oils, either alone or mixed with tallow,
and other coarse fatty matters. The fatty matter is mixed with the
alkaline ley, and the whole boiled gently for some time, until the fat
is completely saponified, which may be known by its becoming clear and
transparent, and its susceptibility of being drawn into long threads.
A quantity of common salt is then added to the boiling mixture, until
the soap loses its thready character, and drops from the spatula in
short thick lumps. The soap is then removed, either after cooling, or
at once ladled out. Common fatty matters, as tallow, fat-oils, &c.,
are compounds of a fatty acid with a base, thus resembling salts; the
base is a peculiar sweet principle, glycerine; by ebullition with
the caustic lye, the neutral fatty compound is decomposed, the fatty
acid combining with the base soda, and forming the soap, whilst the
glycerine with the excess of alkali remains in the liquid.
The so-called _silicated_ soap, of which large quantities are now
manufactured, is made by combining silicate of soda with hard soap
in the hot and pasty state; in this way from 10 to 30 per cent. of
the silicate may be introduced. Such soap possesses, according to
Dr. Ure, very powerful detergent qualities, but it is apt to feel
hard and somewhat gritty in use. The silicated soda is obtained by
boiling ground flints in a strong caustic lye. Many substances are
used to adulterate soap, such as potatoe-starch, clay, &c., for which
_improvements_, as they are termed, numerous patents have been granted
in this country.
In Great Britain the hard kind of soap is chiefly made at Liverpool
and London, but in considerable quantities also at Runcorn, Bristol,
Brentford, Hull, Bromsgrove, Plymouth and Sethwick, and at Glasgow and
Leith in Scotland; the soft soap is made principally at Liverpool,
Glasgow and Bradford; and silicated soap is likewise extensively
manufactured at Liverpool.
From the excise returns, it appears that 140,712,535 pounds of hard,
9,788,851 pounds of soft, and 3,921,862 pounds of silicated soap were
made in England in 1841; and 10,708,464 pounds of hard, and 4,535,030
pounds of soft soap in Scotland; making in all 169,666,742 pounds,
which is an increase of about 30 per cent. since 1832[273].
The excise duty on soap was first imposed in Great Britain in 1711,
when it was fixed at 1_d._ per pound. It was raised in 1713 to 1½_d._
per pound; and again, in 1782, when hard and soft soap were first
distinguished, the former being rated at 2¼_d._, and the latter at
1¾_d._ per pound. In 1816, that on hard soap was increased to 3_d._
per pound. But since May 31, 1833, the duty has been 1½_d._ per pound
on hard soap, and 1_d._ per pound on soft. In 1839, the number of soap
manufacturers in England was 177; in Scotland 19; and in Ireland 183.
Each requires an annual license, costing 4_l._
An allowance of duty is made on soap used in the woollen, silk, flax,
and cotton manufactures, which in 1841 was granted on 10,190,160 pounds
of hard, and 9,090,184 pounds of soft soap; the allowances amounting
to 78,112_l._ In the same year the net amount yielded by the soap-duty
to the public revenue was 815,864_l._ Ireland is not subject to the
soap-duty.
The soap-maker was formerly subjected to an arbitrary and vexatious
interference from the excise; but of late years the regulations have
been greatly improved, and there is now no superintendence of the
process of manufacture, which may be conducted in any way and of any
material.]