374

MADDER.

cultivated kind (it must have been cultivated in his day) isreared with much benefit in Galilea, around Ravenna inItaly , and in Caria, where it is planted either among olivetrees, or in fields destined for that purpose.” In some MSS.it is remarked, the Roman name for this plant, as MarcellusVirgil observes, meant Ihe same thing as rubia saliva; andthat it was called in Hetruria lappa minor, perhaps becauseof its adhesion to oilier bodies: on account of its dye, it wasalso called cinnabaris. It is remarked, that the mime sandg.r,which Virgil gives it, in Eclogue iv. 45, where he speaks^of sheep which had eaten it, applies to the presumed effectupon the wool.

Sponte sua sandyi puscentcs testict ugnos.

Spontaneously the wool invites the ruddy tint,

And sanguine food prevents the dyer’s toil. J.F.L. \V.

Hence we learn that natural coloured wool was used by theancients. Indeed, it is of such that Martial thus expresseshimself, where he says :

Non est lana mihi mendax, nec mutor dino,

—- me mea tinxit oris.

Theophrastus very nearly agrees with Dioscorides in thepreviously cited opinion.

Pliny thus expressly describes it. “ Sponte provenit,seriturque. Similitudine erviliae, verum spinosus ei caulis.”In another place, he has given it the epithet rubia, doubtlessalluding to its red roots, lib. xix. 3. The previously citedexpression similitudine, has been conceived to allude to theste'm of the plant running like a pulse upon the ground; *and, perhaps, also, from the like effect being observed in it,as is produced by the roots themselves. It should be no-ticed, that in the middle ages this plant was called varantia,which implies a red dye; whereas aurantia signifies yellow.Until 1736, this plant was esteemed by dyers, fanners, andmerchants only; but it afterwards obtained new importancein the philosophical world, from the following circumstance.

John Belchier, an English surgeon, having dined with acotton-printer, observed that the bones of the pork, of whichthey had just been eating, were red;—he appeared surprisedat the circumstance,—his host informed him, that " thecolour was occasioned by the swine feeding on bran, whichhad been boiled in water where cotton cloth was coloured,and produced by the madder used in printing it.” Belchier,to whom the effect was new, convinced himself of its truthby experiment, that the colour of the bones arose from the