a very bright and beautiful red colour, in great esteem among the ancients, under the name of minium. There are two kinds of it, the one natural, the other fictitious. The natural is found in some silver mines, in the form of a ruddy sand, which is afterwards prepared and purified by several lotions and coctions. The artificial is made of mineral cinnabar, ground up with aqua-vitæ and urine, and afterwards dried.

It is also made of lead burnt and washed, or of cerus prepared by fire: but this is not properly called vermilion, but minium, or red-lead.