A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

“To what language the word originally belongs cannot with certainty be determined. There are grounds for conjecturing several derivations from the Arabic, for example, karasa, extremis digitis tenuit, which would not ill-agree with στόνυξ; and karmis signifies imbecillus; but this word may be derived from the small insect, as well as the insect from it. As all these derivations, however, are attended with grammatical difficulties, and as the Arabians, according to their own account, got the dye and the word from Armenia, it appears rather to be a foreign appellation which they received with the thing signified, when they overran Upper Asia. Jbn Beithar in Bochart, Hierozoicon, ii. p. 625, calls kermes an Armenian dye; and the Arabian lexicographers, from whom Giggeus and Castellus made extracts, explain the kindred word karmasal, coccineus, vermiculatus, as an Armenian word.

“This dye however was undoubtedly known to the Hebrews, the Phœnicians, and the Egyptians, long before the epoch of the Arabians in the East. Among the Hebrews the dye occurs, though not clearly, under other names, tola schani, or simply tola, in their oldest writer, Moses. Tola is properly the worm, and according to the analogy of kermes, worm-dye, scarlet. The additional word schani signifies either double-dyed, or, according to another derivation, bright, deep red dye. For both significations sufficient grounds and old authorities might be quoted; but the former is the most usual, and on account of its analogy with δίβαφον, seems to be the most probable.

“But was the coccus known so early? Is not tola, the worm-dye, perhaps the same with purple, because the ancients made no distinction between vermis and snail? I believe not. For purple the Orientals have a particular name, argaman, argevan, which is accurately distinguished from tola, and is often added to it as something distinct. All the ancients therefore translate the Hebrew word tola by κόκκος, kermes, zehori and zehorito (deep red, bright dye), which words they never put for argaman. As the Phœnicians traded at so early a period with Spain and other countries, where the kermes are indigenous, it may be readily comprehended how that dye was known in Palestine about and before the time of Moses.

“It must have been known also in Egypt about the same epoch; for when Moses, in the wilderness, required scarlet to ornament the tabernacle, it could have been procured only from that country. Whether kermes be indigenous in Egypt, I do not know. On the word καλάϊνον, quoted by Bochart from Hesychius as Egyptian, the abbreviation of which, laia, in the Ethiopic language signifies scarlet, I lay no great stress, because it cannot be proved, – 1st, that the word is originally Egyptian, as it occurs several times in the Greek writers and in various significations; and 2ndly, that it signifies scarlet dye, because the ancients explain it sometimes by purple, sometimes by sea-colour. See Bochart, l. c. p. 730. If the word be Egyptian, it signifies rather red dye in general than defines purple colour. At any rate, there is in Coptic for the latter a peculiar word, scadschi, or sanhadschi. The latter is explained by Kircher in Prodrom. Copt. p. 337, ‘mercator purpuræ, vermiculus coccineus, purpura,’ which is altogether vague and contradictory. The Arabic lexicographer, whom he ought to have translated, gives a meaning which expresses only purple ware.

“If one might venture a supposition respecting the language of a people whose history is almost bare conjecture, I would ask if the Coptic dholi was the name of scarlet in Egypt. The lexicographers explain it by a worm, a moth; but in those passages of the translation of the Bible which I have compared another word is always used, when allusion is made to worms which gnaw or destroy. Was dholi the name of the worm that yields a dye? As dholi sounds almost like the Hebræo-Phœnician tola, we might farther conjecture that the Egyptians received both the name and the thing signified from the Phœnicians. But this is mere opinion. The following conclusions seem to be the natural result of the above observations: —

“1st. Scarlet, or the kermes-dye, was known in the East in the earliest ages, before Moses, and was a discovery of the Phœnicians in Palestine, but certainly not of the small wandering Hebrew tribes.

“2nd. Tola was the ancient Phœnician name used by the Hebrews, and even by the Syrians; for it is employed by the Syrian translator, Isaiah, chap. i. v. 18. Among the Jews, after their captivity, the Aramæan word zehori was more common.

“3rd. This dye was known also to the Egyptians in the time of Moses; for the Israelites must have carried it along with them from Egypt.

“4th. The Arabs received the name kermes, with the dye, from Armenia and Persia, where it was indigenous, and had been long known; and that name banished the old name in the East, as the name scarlet has in the West. For the first part of this assertion we must believe the Arabs.

“5th. Kermes were perhaps not known in Arabia; at least they were not indigenous, as the Arabs appear to have had no name for them.

“6th. Kermes signifies always red dye; and when pronounced short, it becomes deep red. I consider it, therefore, as a mere error of the translation when, in Avicenna, iii. Fen. 21, 13, kermesiah is translated purpureitas. It ought to be coccineum.”

1174

Beschreibung von Allerley Insekten. Berl. 1736, 4to, vol. v. p. 10.

1175

The ancient Spaniards, according to Pliny’s account, were obliged to pay tribute in kermes to the Romans; and we are told by Bellon, that the Turks exacted a tribute of the like kind from the modern Greeks. It appears, therefore, that the monks imitated the example of the Romans.

1176

See Krunitz’s Encyclopedie, xliv. p. 2.

1177

In Leibnitii Collectanea Etymologica, Hanoveræ, 1717, 8vo, p. 467, there is a catalogue of the effects and revenues of the church at Prüm, where a monastery of Benedictines was established as early as the eighth century. This catalogue, which was drawn up in the year 1222, says, “Solvit unusquisque pro vermiculo denarios sex.” But as allusion is made here to people who lived near Metz in Lorraine, it may be conjectured that we are to understand not Coccus radicum, but Coccus arborum, which they might have procured from thence. For this doubt, however, there is no room in Descriptio Censuum, Proventuum, ac Fructuum ex Prædiis Monasterii S. Emmerammi, in the year 1301, to be found in Pezii Thesaurus Anecdotorum Novissimus, i. p. 69. We are there told, “Singuli dant sex denarios pro vermiculo;” and p. 69 and 74, “singuli dant vasculum vermiculi;” p. 76, “reddunt vermiculi coppos duo.” The people of whom these passages speak belonged to the monastery of St. Emmeran, at Regensburg, and were settled in Bavaria. Papon relates in Histoire Générale de Provence, ii. p. 356, that the archbishop of Arles, in the middle of the twelfth century, sold to the Jews the kermes collected at St. Chamas and other parts of his diocese.

1178

In Dioscoridem, iv. 39.

1179

De subtilitate; exercit. 325, § 13.

1180

The price of cochineal has in latter times fallen. In the year 1728 it cost fifty-eight schellings Flemish per pound; but in May 1786 it cost only twenty-seven and a half. [In 1814 the price of the best cochineal in this country was as high as 36s., 39s., but it has since gone on regularly declining till it has sunk to from 4s. to 6s. per pound.] Sifted cochineal is dearer than unsifted. It is often adulterated in Spain, but oftener in Holland, with the wild cochineal, as it is called. Some years ago an Englishman adulterated this article by mixing it with red wax; but the fraud required too laborious preparation, and was attended with too little profit to be long continued. [In France it is frequently adulterated with talc and white lead with a view of increasing its weight; and in London with sulphate of baryta or heavy spar and bone or ivory black].

1181

There is reason to think that the Spaniards gave as names to several American articles the diminutives of like Spanish or European productions. Thus sarsaparilla signifies prickly vine-stock; platina little silver. Is the cause of this to be referred to the Spanish grandezza?

1182

Raynal, Histoire des Indes. Gen. 1780, 4 vols. ii. p. 77.

1183

Algemeine Geschichte der Länder und Völker von Amerika, Halle 1753, 2 vols. 4to, ii. p. 7.

1184

See Anderson’s Hist. Commerce, iv. p. 73. It is possible however that Guicciardini may have meant Spanish kermes.

1185

Histoire Naturelle et Générale des Indes. Paris, 1556, fol. p. 122, 130. [Figures of the Opuntia cochinillifera and of the cochineal insects, will be found in Pereira’s Materia Medica, vol. ii. p. 1850.]

1186

The title in the original is, Natuerlyke Historie van de Couchenille, &c. Amst. 1729, 8vo. This work is scarce. A German translation of it may be found in (C. Mylius) Physikalischen Belustigungen. Berlin, 1751, 8vo, i. p. 43.

1187

Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary.

1188

Traité de la culture du nopal et de l’éducation de la cochenille. Au Cap-Francois 1787, 8vo.

1189

In Vita Aureliani, cap. 29.

1190

Those who are desirous of further information respecting the sandix, may consult Salmasius on Solinus, p. 810, and the editor of the Cyneget of Gratius Faliscus, x. 86. p. 46.

1191

Some have considered sandix as a mineral. Minerals however can be used for painting but not for dyeing. It may be replied that the Romans themselves dyed with kermes at this period, and that they must have easily procured it. But they understood the art of dyeing with it so badly that they employed it only for giving the ground of their purple, and on that account it must have appeared improbable to them that the people in India could produce by it a more beautiful colour than their purple was. From the like ignorance in modern times, indigo was decried, because people imagined that a complete colour could not be communicated by it; and this false conclusion retarded many improvements in the art of dyeing. It is very likely that the Greeks and the Romans were unacquainted with the effect produced upon kermes by acids, which the Persians and Indians used.

1192

Antiquit. Celt. p. 69, 70.

1193