A French naturalist, named Lacazo Duthiers, was on board a ship, when, one day, he saw a sailor marking his clothes and the sails of the ship with a sharp-pointed stick, which, every now and then, he dipped into a little shell held in his other hand. At first, the lines were only a faint yellow in color; but, after being a few minutes in the sun, they became greenish, then violet, and last of all, a bright, beautiful purple, the exact shade called by the ancients "Tyrian purple"—a color that never fades by washing, or exposure to heat or damp, but ever grows brighter and clearer! The naturalist was rejoiced, and after trial found that he really had discovered again the long-lost secret. He felt well repaid for keeping his eyes open. The little shell was the "wide-mouthed purpura," as some call it, some three inches long, found in the Mediterranean Sea, and on the coasts of France, Ireland and Great Britain. My book says that the difficulty of obtaining and preserving these shells must always render "Tyrian purple" a rare and expensive color.
I remember, too, that the Babylonians thought "Tyrian purple" too sacred for the use of mortals, so they used it only in the dress of their idols. Romulus, king of Rome, adopted it as the regal color, and the Roman emperors forbade any besides themselves to wear it, on penalty of death.—Yours truly, F. R. F.
The boys and girls who solved the poetical charade printed on page 639 of the July number, must have noticed that it is an unusually good one, and we are sure that all our readers will admire the charade, after comparing it with its solution, which we publish upon page 704 of this number.
Alexandria, Ohio.
Dear St. Nicholas: I should like to know who would succeed to the throne in case of Queen Victoria's and her eldest son's deaths. My brother and I sold hickory-nuts and onions to get the St. Nicholas last fall. We have taken it ever since it was published. I am ten years old.
Willie Castle.
Prince Albert Victor, the Prince of Wales's eldest son, if then alive, would succeed to the English throne after Queen Victoria, in case of the previous death of her eldest son,—the Prince of Wales. A general answer to this question will be found in the "Letter-Box" for May, 1877 (Vol. IV., page 509), in a reply to an inquiry from "Julia."
Brunswick, Maine.
Dear St. Nicholas: It has occurred to me that some of my St. Nicholas friends may like to know what I have learned from ancient books about the constellation Ursa Major, or the Dipper, which, in St. Nicholas for January, 1877 (vol. iv., p. 168), Professor Proctor has likened to a monkey climbing a pole. It is about the other title of this constellation, "Great Bear." I need not describe the group itself, for that has been done already by Professor Proctor in St. Nicholas for December, 1876.
Sailors, in very ancient times, were without compasses and charts, and when voyaging guided themselves by studying the situations and motions of the heavenly bodies. They saw that most of the stars passed up from the horizon and rose toward the zenith, the point right over head, and then dropped westward to hide themselves beyond the earth. After a time they noted some stars which never set, but every night, in fair weather, were seen at that side where the sun never appears, or, in other words, were seen at their left side, when their faces were toward the sunrise. They did not long hesitate how to use these stars. And when, during foul weather, the sailors were tossed to and fro, these same constant stars, that again appeared after the storm, indicated to them their true position, and, as it were, spoke to them. This caused them to give more exact study to the constellations in that same part of the heavens. None appeared more remarkable than that among which they reckoned seven of the brightest stars, taking up a large space. Some who watched this star-group, as it seemed to turn around in the sky, named it the "Wheel," or "Chariot." The Phœnician pilots called it, sometimes, "Parrosis," the Indicator, the Rule, or "Callisto," the Deliverance, the Safety of Sailors. But it was more commonly named "Doubé," signifying the "speaking constellation," or the "constellation which gives advice." Now, the word "Doubé" signified also to the Phœnicians a "she-bear," and the Greeks are supposed to have received and used the word in its wrong sense, and to have passed it down to us without correction. This explanation seems plausible to me; and now, whenever I see the star-group we call the "Dipper," I think how gladly it was hailed by poor storm-tossed sailors upon the narrow seas, in the early ages, before the "lily of the needle pointed to the pole."—Yours truly,