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ded, they serve to point out means,which may be convenientand useful on some occasions, of marking linen with acolour, pale indeed, but sufficiently visible, which soapdoes not discharge.

In the fifth volume os the celebrated Linnæus’s Atnœ-nitates academicce, mention is made of a black colour ob-tained from the berries of two plants, which grow wild insome of the northern parts of England, and which I havenot hitherto had an opportunity of trying. One is theaBœa Jpicata or chrijtophoriana , herb-christopher or bane-berries ; the other empetrum procumbens or erica bacciferanigra, black-berried heath, crow-berries, or crake-berries.The juice of the bane-berries, boiled with alum, is said toyield a black ink; and the heath-berries, boiled also withalum, to dye cloths of a purple-black.

VI. Cuttle JiJh ink.

The cuttle fish, said to be pretty common in the Me-diterranean, is not wholly a stranger to our own seas, as-appears from its bone found on our shores. This bone ishard on one side, but soft and yielding on the other, so asreadily to receive pretty neat impressions from medals, &c.and afterwards to serve as a mould for the casting of me-tals, which thus take the figure of the original; the boneis frequently employed likewise for polishing or cleaningsilver. Mr. Borlase, in his natural history of Cornwal, faysthat these bones, whose characters are so obvious and sosingular that they cannot be mistaken, are found frequentlyon the shores of Mounts bay; and likewise gives a descrip-tion of the fish itself as caught there on the sands in 1756.Dr. Leigh also, in his natural history of Lancashire andCheshire, relates that he has seen the fish several times onthe shores of those counties.

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