The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-30 00:00:00

PHENICIAN PURPLE,

It is generally known this colour was extracted
by the ancients from a mollusk, but of what kind
has been the subject of long disputes. De Lamark,
in his magnificent work on invertebrate, adopts the
opinion that the species known among naturalists
under the name of murex brandaria was that
which yielded the purple of the first quality.
M. Boblaye proved the soundness of this opinion
during his travels as a member of the scientific
expedition to the Peloponnesus. Following the
sea-coast, be was surprised te find at short
distances certain considerable deposits of the murex
brandaris. At first he was inclintd to attribute
them to some geological cause ; bat, on examining
the neighbourhood, he ascertained that these depo-
sits were in every instance close to some ruin, gene-
rally bearing traces of having once been dyeing
establishments. Several other species of murex seem
to have been used for a purple of an inferior
quality. Subsequently M. Fr. Lenormant found
similar and much more numerous deposits on the
coasts of Cerigo and Gy thium. It was, therefore,
on those islands chiefly that purple used to be
manufactured from the murex brandaris. M. de
Saulcy, nevertheless, does not consider the question
as definitively set at rest, and is of opinion that
the best colour was derived from another mollusk.
He states that in going from Ty re, now called Sour,
to Sidon, now Sayda, and entering the latter by a
staircase built near the coast, and adjoining the rope
yards, an enormous mass of shells is perceived, all
belonging to the single species called murex trun-
eulus. The deposit is upwards of 100 metres in
length, and between 6 and 8 metres in height, with
a considerable breadth which cannot be ascertained
because the deposit is one side covered with the soil.
All the shells without exception are broken in ex-
actly the same manner, evidently with the view to
get at the animal itself. This is certainly not the
effect of mere accident, and it can only be explained
as having been done by the Sidonian dyers, who
extracted their purple from this species, while in
Greece they used the other.

PUBLIC HEALTH.—It appears from a careful
analysis, extending over a lengthened term of years,
that the annual death-rate at all ages and from all causes
was as follows in various parts of England and Wales—Lon-
don, 2363 per cent., the southeastern counties, 1.955 per
cent., the south midland counties 2.044 per cent., the eastern
counties 2.058 per cent., the south-western counties 2.001
per cent, the west midland counties 2.237 per cent., the
north midland counties 2111 per cent., the north-
western counties 2.550 per cent. ; Yorkshire 2.309 per
cent., the northern counties 2.199 per cent, and Monmouth-
shire and Wales 2.126 per cent. The south-eastern coun-
ties would thus appear to be the healthiest, and the
north-western counties the unhealthiest, in England. The
expression " London" includes, of course, the whole metro-
politan disteict, in which a population of 2,803,989 was
congregated in 1861, and which extends over part of
Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent. The south-eastern coun-
ties include the extra-metropolitan part of Kent, the extra-
metropolitan part of Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire. and
Berkshire, the district having an aggregate population
of 1,847,661 in 1861, . The south midland counties include
the extra-metropolitan part of Middlesex, Hertfordshire,
Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Hunt-
ingdonshire, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, the dis-
trict having a population of 1,295,497 in 1861. The eastern
counties include Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, which
mustered 1,142,580 in 1861. The south-western counties
comprise Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire,Cornwall, and
Somersetshire, which furnished a contingent of 1,835,714 in
1861. The west midland counties are Gloucestershire, Here-
fordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, and
Warwickshire, which figured altogether for 2,436,568 in
1861. The north midland counties are Leicestershire,
Rutlandshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derby-
shire, which had 1,288,928 inhabitants in 1861. The
north-western counties are Cheshire and Lancashire, in-
habited by 2,935,540 in 1861. Yorkshire, which, of
course, requires no subdivision, had a population of
2,016,511 in 1861; and the northern counties, Northum-
berland, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, had
1,151,372 residents in the same year. Finally, Monmouth-
shire and Wales had a population of 1,312,834 in 1861. It
will be observed that the rate of mortality in Lancashire
and Cheshire is relatively very high, and the sanitary re-
forms likely to be secured by the Public Works Act, 1863,
are evidently urgently needed. Thus, the death-rate from
all causes and at all ages in Lancashire and Cheshire has
averaged 2.550 per cent. per annum. Assuming that it
could be reduced one-half per cent., 14,678 lives would be
saved annually, or 146,730 in ten years, without allowing
for the increase of population naturally arising, and taking
the census numbers of 1861 as the basis of the calculation.
THE GARIBALDI PROCESSION.—At a meeting of
the trades' delegates, held last night, it was resolved
that the reception should take place at the Vauxhall
Station, and that the route suggested by the sub-committee,
namely, from Vauxhall. Station along Kennington-road,
Westminster-road, Westminster-bridge, Parliament-street,
St, James's, Piccadilly, Knightsbridge, Kensington-road,
Princes-gate, should be the route taken by the procession
on the arrival of Garibaldi.
Advices from Vienna state that the Archduke
Maximilian has made a present of the island of
Lacroma to his sister-in-law, the Empress of Austria. This
island is in the Adriatic, over against Ragusa, and is his-
torically famous as being the spot where Richard Coeur de
Lion was confined on his return from the Holy Land. The
Empress of Austria intends to pass some time at Lacroma
for the benefit of her health,