remarkable still with the _quondam_ blue cloth, converted by sun and rain-into every shade of shabbiness, which we purchased in Europe for our soldiers at the commencement of our late war. ORIGIN AND EXTRACTION OF INDIGO. Indigo is a coloring material of vegetable origin, which owes its color and its important applications to a direct blue principle, known under the name of indigotine. It has been used as a dyestuff from time immemorial, by the inhabitants of India; and it is from the East, the cradle of the textile arts, that Europe has derived it. It was probably received from India by the Greeks, among other products first made known to them by the expeditions of Alexander the Great. Dioscorides clearly refers to indigo in mentioning the two coloring matters brought from India. Pliny mentions a coloring material, having an admirable mixture of blue and purple, as coming from India, which he calls _indicum_. That he refers to indigo is curiously manifest by the test which he gives, by which the genuine drug might always and _certainly be distinguished from the spurious_. This is by putting it on live coals, when, says he, “the true _indicum_ will burn with a flame of a most beautiful purple tint.” The purple vapor from burning indigo is still a characteristic test. The Romans, it is apparent, used indigo only as a pigment, not knowing what is still the most important art connected with its use,—how to make it soluble so as to be available in dyeing. That indigo as a commercial product was first obtained from India is not only proved by the testimony of Pliny, and other ancient writers, but is confirmed by a variety of circumstances, and particularly by its name, which is known to have been _nil_ in the Hindu language, from the earliest times of which there is mention of it. This name is still given by the Hindoos to the color blue, and to all the plants producing indigo. The Arabs and Egyptians, who obtained a knowledge of indigo from India, adopted the Hindu name, the Arabs calling it _nil_ or _nir_, and the Egyptians _nil_ or _niel_. The Portuguese preserved the Indian name, with a slight modification, the substance being called _aniliera_ in their language. The coloring substances afterwards found in coal-tar having been first found in indigo, modern science has adopted for them the name of _aniline_.