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Commercium philosophico-technicum, or, the philosophical commerce of arts : designed as an attempt to improve arts, trades, and manufactures / by W. Lewis
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colour being more perishable is called faise : but theblack baize, which we export to Spain and Portugal, aredyed chiefly of the madder black, a species of blacknesswhich there, it seems, is in estimation.

If, instead of madder, the purer red of cochineal be ap-plied on blue cloth, the colour hence resulting, is not Aall black, but purple. Cochineal, independently of itstoo great expensivenefs for purposes of this kind, is toobright a colour to have a place in the composition ofblackness : to change the purple into a colour approach-ing to black, the addition of other colours is necessary,for it is not to be expected that a mixture of simple blueand red should produce a black (see page 355.) Butmadder is both a dark and a compound colour, in whichan admixture of brown or tawny with the red is verymanifest. If the madder be slightly infused in warm water,and afterwards boiled in a fresh quantity of water, thefirst liquor will appear of a pretty good red colour, theother remarkably more dark and brownish. Hence fordying a good madder red, a boiling heat should be avoid-ed ; but for the black dye the madder ought to be wellboiled, that the brown as well as the red parts may beextracted.

The madder black might probably be deepened bymaking it still more compounded, as particularly by theaddition of a dark yellow ; but any improvement of thiskind would be of little advantage to the dyer, who find-ing the dye already too expensive, endeavours to imitate itwith the cheaper vitriolic black. And indeed, indepen-dently of considerations of this kind, he is here ratherconfined to a particular shade or species of colour, whichfashion has brought into esteem, than solicitous aboutdeepening the dye or making it more perfectly black.

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