Dyes and dyeingPellew, Charles E. (Charles Ernest), Viscount Exmouth
Science
Dyes and dyeing
Pellew, Charles E. (Charles Ernest), Viscount Exmouth
Dyes and dyeing
One of the few cases where cochineal is still used on a large scale
is in England, where the scarlet coats of the British regulars are
dyed with this color, on a tin mordant. It is believed, however, that
this is not due to any real or fancied superiority of the old dye
over many of the modern colors, but simply to the terms of an old
“perpetual” contract, which, a hundred and fifty years or more ago,
gave the privilege of dyeing the English “redcoats” to one particular
firm and their successors, on condition that they use this dye and
none other. Although both dyers and government would profit by the
use of modern dyes, the terms of the old contract are still rigidly
adhered to for fear of losing the monopoly.
_Lac Dye._—The similar dyestuff called lac dye, which had been known
and used in India for hundreds of years, was introduced into Europe
towards the end of the eighteenth century. It also is the body of a
small insect, the _coccus laccae_, which lives on the twigs of the
banyan tree, and other varieties of fig trees. When these twigs are
broken off and dried to kill the insect, there is found present on
them, along with the coloring matter, a large amount of a peculiar
resinous or gummy substance, which, when extracted and purified, is
known and widely used, as “shellac.”
Lac dye was used in practically the same way as cochineal, and
produced, upon wool, scarlet, orange, and crimson shades, which
were faster and more solid, but not as brilliant, as the cochineal.
It is now used but rarely, even in the East, having been largely
superseded, there, by brilliant but, unfortunately, in many cases,
cheap and worthless modern dyestuffs.
_Fustic._—From America, also, came the excellent yellow dyestuff,
“fustic,” yielded by the tree commonly called yellow wood, Cuba wood,
etc. Its true botanical name, however, is _chlorophora tinctoria_,
and it was largely used for dyeing, either directly in the form of
chips, or as a solid or liquid extract made from the wood.
It was principally used with mordants of aluminium or tin salts,
for dyeing wool bright, fast shades of yellow, or, with the aid of
bichromate of potash as a mordant, for obtaining mixed shades, in
conjunction with indigo, cutch, madder, and logwood. It has been
almost entirely replaced now by fast modern dyestuffs.
_Logwood._—The most important of all these dyestuffs, and the only
one still used on a large scale, is logwood, a dye extracted from
the wood of quite a large tree, the _haematoxylon Campechianum_ (the
“blood-red wood from Campeachy”), which grows freely in the West
Indies and Central American states.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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