a beautiful bright red colour given to cloth, either by a preparation of kermes (See that article in Suppl.), or more completely by the American cochineal. Professor Beckmann, in the second volume of his History of Inventions, seems to have established the following conclusions:

1st, Scarlet, or the kermes-dye, was known in the East in the earliest ages, before Moses, and was a discovery of the Phoenicians in Palestine, but certainly not of the small wandering Hebrew tribes. 2nd, Tola was the ancient Phoenician name used by the Hebrews, and even by the Syrians; for it is employed by the Syrian translator, Isaiah, chap. 1, ver. 18. Among the Jews, after their captivity, the Aramean word אָדָם 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 Scarlet, deep red.

Concerning the origin of the name scarlet, which was in use so early as the 11th century, our author has many conjectures, which we need not transcribe, as he seems not quite satisfied with any of them himself. The following reflections upon the comparative excellence of the ancient and modern scarlet, together with the progress of the art of dyeing that colour, are worthy of notice:

"Of the preparation and goodness of the ancient scarlet we certainly know nothing; but as we find in many old pieces of tapestry of the 11th century, and perhaps earlier, a red which has continued remarkably beautiful even to the present time, it cannot at any rate be denied, that our ancestors extolled their scarlet not without reason. We can, however, venture to assert, that the scarlet prepared at present is far superior, owing principally to the effects of a solution of tin. This invention may be reckoned amongst the most important improvements of the art of dyeing, and deserves a particular mention.

"The tincture of cochineal alone yields a purple colour, not very pleasant, which may be heightened to the most beautiful scarlet by a solution of tin in aqua-regia (nitro muriatic acid). This discovery was made as follows: Cornelius Drebbel, who was born at Alkmaar, and died at London in 1634, having placed in his window an extract of cochineal, made with boiling water, for the purpose of filling a thermometer; some aqua-regia dropped into it from a phial, broken by accident, which stood above it, and converted the purple dye into a most beautiful dark red. After some conjectures and experiments, he discovered that the tin by which the window-frame was divided into squares had been dissolved by the aqua regia, and was the cause of this change. He communicated his observation to Kuffler, that excellent dyer at Leyden, who was afterwards his son-in-law. The latter brought the discovery to perfection, and employed it some years alone in his dye house, which gave rise to the name of Kuffler's colour. In the course of time the secret became known to an inhabitant of Menin, called Gulich, and also to another person of the name of Van der Vecht, who taught it to the brothers Gobelin in France. Giles Gobelin, a dyer at Paris, in the time of Francis I., had found out an improvement of the then usual scarlet dye; and as he had remarked that the water of the rivulet Bievre, in the suburbs St Marceau, was excellent for his art, he erected on it a large dye-house; which, out of ridicule, was called Folie Gobelin, Gobelin's Folly. About this period, a Flemish painter, whom some name Peter Koek, and others Kloek, and who had travelled a long time in the East, established, and continued to his death in 1650, a manufactory for dyeing scarlet cloth by an improved method. Through the means of Colbert, one of the Gobelins learned the process used for preparing the German scarlet dye from one Gluck, whom some consider as the above-mentioned Gulich, and others as Kloek; and the Parilian scarlet dye soon rose into so great repute, that the populace imagined that Gobelin had acquired his art from the devil. It is well known that Louis XIV., by the advice of Colbert, purchased Gobelin's building from his..." his successors in the year 1667, and transformed it into a palace, to which he gave the name of Hôtel royal des Gobelins, and which he assigned for the use of first-rate artists, particularly painters, jewellers, weavers of tapestry, and others. After that time the rivulet was no longer called Bievre, but Gobelins. About the year 1643, a Fleming, named Kepler, established the first dye-house for scarlet in England, at the village of Bow, not far from London; and on that account the colour was called, at first, by the English, the Bow dye. In the year 1657, another Fleming, named Brewer, invited to England by King Charles II., with the promise of a large salary, brought this art there to great perfection.