[312] See Elton’s “Origins of English History.”
[313] The Cretan tincture was extracted from a plant which Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny respectively name. The last calls it the Phycos thalassion. This was not a sea-weed, but a lichen—probably the same from which the orchid purple of modern art is prepared. See Birdwood, “Indian Arts,” i. p. 238.
[314] The same scale of colour varies as much on the different textiles employed, as it does from the colours extracted from other chemicals. Silk, wool, cotton, flax, give very different results. The colouring matter may be identical, yet you cannot place them side by side without being aware that they may be repellant, instead of harmonious in tone. The scale is sometimes removed to another pitch, and they will no more harmonize than instruments that have not been attuned to the same diapason. See Redgrave’s Report on Textile Fabrics.
[315] With the changes in colouring materials has arisen the necessity for discovering new mordants. The gas colour of madder is exactly the same chemically as that extracted from the vegetable, but the old mordant does not fix it, and it changes very soon to a dull blackish-purple hue.
[316] Pliny, “Natural History,” ix. 12. The most unnatural, and the most disagreeable dyes, are the magentas. Sir G. Birdwood tells us that the Maharajah of Cashmere has adopted a most efficient plan for the suppression of magenta dyes within his dominions—first, a duty of 45 per cent. on entering the country, and at a certain distance within the frontier, they are confiscated and destroyed.