Is an ancient pigment, perhaps the earliest of the European lakes, and so called from the Arabic Alkermes. It is sometimes spelt _cermes_, whence probably cermosin and crimson, and kermine and carmine. In old books it is named vermilion, in allusion to the insect, or _vermes_, from which it is prepared. This insect is the "coccus ilicis," which feeds upon the leaves of the prickly oak in the south of Europe. Like the "coccus cacti," it is covered with a whitish dust, and yields a tinctorial matter soluble in water and alcohol. Kermes and the lac of India doubtless afforded the lakes of the Venetians, and appear to have been used by the earliest painters in oil of the school of Van Eyck. The former, under the appellation [Greek: kurno kokino], is said to be employed by the modern Greeks for dyeing their caps red. Some old specimens of this pigment which the author obtained were in drops of a powdery texture and crimson colour, warmer than cochineal lakes, and having less body and brilliancy. They worked well, however, and withstood the action of light better than the latter, though the sun ultimately discoloured and destroyed them. In other respects, they resembled the lakes of cochineal. As a colouring matter, kermes is only about one-twelfth part as powerful as that substance. 104. _Lawson's Red._ In 1861 it was stated that Professor Lawson had prepared a new dye of great richness, in the laboratory of Queen's College, Canada, from an insect, a species of coccus, found the previous summer for the first time on a tree of the common black spruce (_Abies nigra_), in the neighbourhood of Kingston. Having been but recently observed, a sufficient quantity had not been obtained for a complete series of experiments as to its nature and uses; but the habits of the insect, as well as the properties of the dye, seemed to indicate that it might become of practical importance. In colour it closely resembled ordinary cochineal, but was rather more scarlet in hue. It was described as capable of being produced in temperate countries. The colouring matter had not then been thrown upon a base, nor do we know that it has since been introduced as a pigment. If it possessed greater stability than cochineal, with equal brilliancy and depth, this dye might form one of those colours of the future, to whose possible sources we would direct attention. 105. _Manganese Red._ Bisulphide of arsenic combines with basic metallic sulphides forming a class of sulphur-salts, called by Berzelius, hyposulpharsenites. The hyposulpharsenite of manganese is a dark red precipitate, uninjured by sulphuretted hydrogen, and so far applicable as a pigment. Containing arsenic, it would of course be poisonous; and would probably be found to fade on exposure to air and light. 106. _Murexide._