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The Buccinum derives its name from the form of the shell, which has a wide mouth, like that of a trumpet, and which after one or two twists terminates in a pointed head. The Murex trunculus has the same general form as the Buccinum; but the shell is more rough and spinous, being armed with a number of long thin projections which terminate in a sharp point.
I had learnt from Lenormant that at a certain spot, Fontanella, by the shore of the Little Sea, were observable great ancient heaps of murex shells the murex precious for its purple, that of Tarentum yielding in glory only to the purple of Tyre. I hoped to see these shells, perhaps to carry one away.
It had grown out of an assemblage of "fishermen's" huts, and Said the god of the fishermen continued to preside over it to the last. The fishermen became in time sailors and merchant-princes, and the fish for which they sought was the murex with its precious purple dye. Tyre, the city of the "rock," which in later days disputed the supremacy over Phoenicia with Sidon, was of younger foundation.
The Murex trunculus, according to some, is just as abundant, in a crushed state, in the vicinity of Sidon, great banks of it existing, which are a hundred yards long and several yards thick. It is a more spinous shell than the M. brandaris, having numerous projecting points, and a generally rough and rugged appearance.
In the case of the Murex brandaris one element only has been found: it is an oxide, which has received the name of oxyde tyrien. No naturalist has as yet discovered what purpose the liquid serves in the economy, or in the preservation, of the animal; it is certainly not exuded, as sepia is by the cuttle-fish, to cloud the water in the neighbourhood, and enable the creature to conceal itself.
She knew that the Greek and Roman ladies were painted with the purple that came from the murex, and that therefore our scarlet is the purple of the ancients; that there was more saffron in the rouge of Spain, and more cochineal in that of France. She saw how they made her stockings by loom; and the machine transported her with amazement.
Four existing species have been regarded as more or less employed in the manufacture, and it seems to be certain, at any rate, that the Phoenicians derived the dye from more shell-fish than one. The four are the Buccinum lapillus of Pliny, which is the Purpura lapillus of modern naturalists; the Murex trunculus; the Murex brandaris; and the Helix ianthina.
In the four veils of the tabernacle, the white or fine linen signified the earth, from which flax was produced; the scarlet signified fire, appropriately represented by its flaming color; the purple typified the sea, in allusion to the shell-fish murex, from which the tint was obtained; and the blue, the color of the firmament, was emblematic of air.
It is quite possible that they were all, more or less, made use of by the Phoenician dyers; but the evidence furnished by existing remains on the Tyrian coast is strongly in favour of the Murex brandaris as the species principally employed. The mineral treasures of Phoenicia have not, in modern times, been examined with any care.
By far the greater number of the living marine species included in these tables are still inhabitants of the British seas; but even these differ considerably in their relative abundance, some of the commonest of the Crag shells being now extremely scarce; as, for example, Buccinopsis Dalei; and others, rarely met with in a fossil state, being now very common, as Murex erinaceus and Cardium echinatum.
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