To Dye Wool with Animal Substances.

Scientific American 17, 15.1.1848

For the Scientific American.

LAC RED.
Mix oxygenised muriate of tin with lac dye till thick as treacle, and set it aside for six hours. Have a well tinned copper boiler nearly filled with scalding water, into which throw some bran, and a sufficient quantity of newly made nitro-muriate of tin, (tin dissolved in one part nitric and sixteen parts muriatic acid,) add cream of tartar in nearly equal weight to the solution of tin employed, pour in the lac dye, and set aside and work in your wool.

SCARLET.
To a dye prepared as directed for lac red, add either sumac, American bark, or young fustic, in quantity according to the shade required, cool down with cold water, turn in the wool and boil it for an hour, then rinse it and the color will be permanent.

CRIMSON.
Use only half the quantity of tartar specified for lac red, and omit the yellow coloring matter; after rinsing the wool, pass it through a fresh scalding liquor, with archil or cudbear.

PURPLE.
Follow the directions given for crimson, substituting logwood for archil or cudbear.

COCHINEAL RED.
Put two pints of the best Dutch aquafortis into two pints of water, and from one to two ounces of sal-ammoniac in powder; add franulated tin, a small bit at a time, till sufficient is dissolved, and cream of tartar as for lac dye, with well-powdered cochineal in quantity according to the deepness of the shade required. Cool down the preparation with cold water, put in your wool, and boil it for two hours, then rinse in cold water. It is far better, however, to use this quantity in two boils leaving out the cream of tartar in the second, and adding instead starch, and sometimes common salt also.

COCHINEAL CRIMSON.
After rinsing the wool out of the red dye, pass it through a fresh scalding liquor of archil or cudbear as for lac crimson, or through a warm solution of liquid manure from the cow yard.

COCHINEAL PURPLE.
Proceed as for crimson, substituting Saxon blue (sulphate of indigo) for the archil or cudbear.

COCHINEAL SCARLET.
Same as for red, using young fustic, turmeric, or American bark (Quercitron) in the first bath, and omitting it in the second. It is indispensable that for cochineal scarlet the wool should have two boilings.
The colors obtained from cochineal, though superior in brilliancy, have not the permanent qualities of the lac dye or the madder red.