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The Tyrian purple, an animal juice found in a shell-fishcalled murax and purpura, on the coast of Tyre, is the mostancient dye recorded in history. The discovery of thetinging quality contained in the fish, was owing to a doghaving caught one in the rocks, and by bruising it stained hismouth with the liquor, which appeared of so beautiful acolour to the eyes of a Tyrian nymph, that she refused herlover, Hercules, any favours till he had brought her a mantleof the same colour. This event is stated to have happenedfifteen hundred years before the Christian iEra, and fortu-nately for Hercules he succeeded in procuring a sufficientnumber of shells to colour the robe for his mistress.

The Greeks had made but little progress in the art of dye-ing, till the conquests of Alexander, and the discoveriesresulting from his invasion of India , had opened new re-sources to them ; for the art of printing calicoes had beenfor many ages practised in India ; and flowered cloths orchintz were common in that country at the period of Alex-ander’s invasion. The Greeks in general, however, despisedthe useful arts, and the Romans paid but little attention tothem, for the use of vegetable dyes, was, in a great measure,unknown to them, though their neighbours , the Gauls ,according to Pliny , imitated all colours, even the Tyrianpurple, and the scarlet, by means of certain herbs : Pliny alsonotices the Egyptian method of dyeing linen, by staining thewhite cloth with certain drugs, which exhibited no appearanceof dye till it had been sometime boiled in a cauldron, butwhen drawn out was found to be painted or stained of variouscolours ; and what is most extraordinary, Pliny adds, is (hatthe cauldron containing only colour of one kind, should im-part to the cloth shades of various hues, according to thenature of the drugs previously laid on it.

On the general dissolution of the Roman empire in thefifth century, the art of producing permanent colours oncloths was totally lost; nor was it recovered till the period ofthe Crusades , when Europe became a second time indebted to