4

MANUFACTURES.

521

1 ^ s ac ' nigrum ) is mentioned by Pliny , and although somedoubts have been entertained respecting the true natureof this substance, some supposing it to have been Indian ink, yet it is very probable he meant the indigo of theModerns, from the purple smoke which he describes asemitted when set on fire. It is also doubtful whetherthis substance was employed in dyeing, or merely as apigment. See Indigo Works.

The two substances, woad and madder, are used toconsiderable extent in the present dyehouses. The firstorigin of woad as a dye we cannot find any mention of,but its properties were very probably known at a veryearly period. Madder is mentioned by Dioscorides ; atleast he describes a plant called erevthodanon, whichis supposed by Beckmann to be the same.

The fruit he states is at first green, then red, andlastly black. The thin long roots, he further states, wereemployed in dyeing, and on that account the cultivatedkind was reared with much benefit in Galilea, around Ra­ venna in Italy , and in Caria, where it was planted eitherSe at , among olive trees, or in fields destined for the purpose.dve - Among the most important steps in dyeing may beclassed that of the discovery of the scarlet dye. Theorigin of the term scarlet, from which we might judge°f the time of its invention, seems very uncertain,btiler says scarlet is entirely German, and compoundedof snhor, the fire, and lacken, cloth, so that its real signifi-cation is fire-cloth, or fire-coloured cloth; while Reiske, ondie other hand, considers that the word is originally theArabic scharal, which means the kermes dye. There isno doubt that the colour must have been known at aVer y early period. Beckmann quotes a passage from theHistorica Gebrica of Pontanus, in which it is stated, thatHenry HI., j n the middle of the Xlth Century, conferredu Pon the Count of Cleves the Burg-graviate of Nime-guen, on condition of his delivering to him yearly threePieces of scarlet cloth made of English wool.

Of the preparation and goodness of the ancient scar-

let

We certainly know nothing, but, as we find in many

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old pieces of tapestry of the Xlth Century, and perhapsearlier, a red which has continued remarkably beautifuleven to the present time, it cannot at any rate bedenied that our ancestors have not extolled their scarlet"ddjoot reason.

•This colour was, however, very different to thatWhich bears its name in the present, day, the formeraving- been obtained from kermes, while the latter is1 ocured from cochineal, and exalted in brilliancy by the^PPhcation of a particular mordant. The insect to whichbefif" Ve narne cochineal was unknown in Europe

fi r ? re the discovery of America . When the Spaniardsthe Mexico , in the year 1518, they observed that

co ln habitants of that Country employed cochineal foruten .. unicat ' n s a colour to some parts of their domesticTh -p’ ornamen ts, &c., and also as a dye for cotton,a Europeans were so struck with its beauty that anwho nt ° f ^ was transmitted to the Spanish ministry,to a ’ d accordin gly» in the year 1523, ordered the Cortes0 p °Pt proper measures for increasing the producevalue COmmodit y which appeared to be of the utmost

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not \ tlnc ture of cochineal alone yields a purple colourbeaut'f'T P‘ easant ? which may be made into a mostMr R U t,i SC f r ' et ^ a s °lntion of tin in aqua regia.dyers - U "If n <a,n P at Bremen, one of the most learnedeverv m * Je . rtnan yi and who has studied with great carey new improvement of the Art, gives the following

history of the modern scarlet dye. The well-known MechanicalCornelius Drebbel, who was born at Alkmaar , and died , Proi: esses -in London in 1634, having placed in his window anextract of cochineal, made with boiling water, for thepurpose of filling a thermometer, some aqua regiadropped from a phial broken by accident which stoodabove it, and converted the purple dye into a mostbeautiful dark red. After some conjectures and experi-ments, tie discovered that the tin which had been dis-solved by the aqua regia was the cause of the change.

He communicated his observation to Kuffelar, an in-genious dyer at Leyden, who was afterwards his son-in-law. The latter brought the discovery to perfection, andemployed it some years alone in his dye-house, whichgave rise to the name of Kuffelar’s colour. In thecourse of a little time the secret became known to anAnabaptist called Gulicb, and also to another person ofthe name of Van der Vecht, through whom it becameknown to the celebrated Giles Gobelin, at Paris , whothere erected a large dye-house. About the year 1643 aFleming, named Kepler, established the first dye-housefor scarlet in England at the village ol Bow, nearLondon , on which account the colour was called at firstBow dye.

(757.) In England the Art of dyeing now began to ex- Progress cfcite some attention. At a meeting of the Royal Society dyeing inon the 30th of April, 1667, Dr. Hook was appointed to En S land -translate into English a Work entitled Plictho, whichhad been published about a century before in Italy . Atthe same-meeting Sir William Petty , one of the earliestand most active Members, in consequence of a previousrequest of the Society, laid before them An Appa-ratus to the History of the Common Practice of Byers ,which was afterwards printed in Dr. Spratt’s History ofthe Royal Society, and seems to have been the firstWork published in the English language on the pro-cesses and operations of dyeing. Nearly two yearsafterwards Mr. Boyle presented to the Society anaccount of his experiments on colours. Dr. Hoo‘k, ata meeting of the Society on the 11th of November,

1669, produced a piece of calico dyed by a method in-vented by him ; he was in consequence directed to pursuethe inquiry with respect to other colours, and accord-ingly in the following month he procured another piecedyed with yellow, blue, green, and purple, which he saidmight be washed with warm water and soap withoutremoving the colours. From this time, nothing of im-portance seems to have been done by men of Science inthis Country towards the impovements of the Art ofdyeing or calico-printing for nearly the space of a century.

In France the minister Colbert, anxious to extend Progress ofthe commerce and manufactures of his Country, dyeing inwhich had languished during the stormy administra- rance-tions of Richelieu and Mazarin, turned his attentionparticularly to the Art of dyeing. He established severalmanufactories, and invited the most skilful artists tosuperintend them. It is remarkable that those of Vau-robais and Sedan were entitled, in the letters patent,

“ Manufactories of Fine Cloth after the Dutch andEnglish fashions.” In 1762 he published a Table ofinstructions for dyeing, under the title of InstructionGenerate pour la Teinture des Laines et pour le Manu-facture des Laines de toules Nuajices, et pour la Culturedes Drogues qu’on y emploie. I his Work was of greatimportance, as it was not only intended to diffuse in-formation, but as a legislative act to control the dyers intheir operations