A Dictionary of Arts: Kermes.

A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines; containing A Clear Exposition of Their Principles and Practice

by Andrew Ure, M. D.;
F. R. S. M. G. S. Lond.: M. Acad. M. S. Philad.; S. PH. DOC. N. GERM. Ranow.; Mulh. Etc. Etc.

Illustrated with nearly fifteen hundred engravings on wood
Eleventh American, From The Last London Edition.
To which is appended, a Supplement of Recent Improvements to The Present Time.

New York: D Appleton & company, 200 Broadway. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 148 Chestnut St.
MDCCCXLVII

1847


There are two substances so called, of totally different natures. Kermes mineral is merely a factitious sulphuret of antimony in a state of impalpable comminution, prepared in the moist way. Its minute examination belongs to pharmaceutical chemistry. It may be obtained perfectly pure, by diluting the proto-chloride of antimony with solution of tartaric acid, and precipitating the metal with sulphureted hydrogen; or by exposing the finely levigated native sulphuret to a boiling solution of carbonate of potash for some time, and filtering the liquor while boiling hot. The kermes falls down in a brown-red powder, as the liquor cools.

Kermes-grains, alkermes, are the dried bodies of the female insects of the species coccus ilicis, which lives upon the leaves of the quercus ilex (prickly oak). The word kermes is Arabic, signifies little worms. In the middle ages, this dye stuff was therefore called vermiculus in Latin, and vermilion in French. It is curious to consider how the name vermillion has been since transferred to red sulphuret of mercury.

Kermes has been known in the East since the days of Moses; it has been employed from time immemorial in India to dye silk; and was used also by the ancient Greek and Roman dyers. Pliny speaks of it under the name of coccigranum, and says that there grew upon the oak in Africa, Sicily, &c. a small excrescence like bud, called cusculium; that the Spaniards paid with these grains, half of their tribute to the Romans; that those produced in Sicily were the worst; that they served to dye purple; and that those from the neighborhood of Emerita in Lusitania (Portugal) were the best.

In Germany, during the ninth, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the rural serfs were bound to deliver annually to the convents, a certain quantity of kermes, the coccus polonicus, among the other products of husbandry. It was collected from the trees upon Saint John's day, between eleven o'clock and noon, with religious ceremonies, and was therefore called Johannisblut (Saint John's blood), as also German cochineal. At the above period, a great deal of the German kermes was consumed in Venice, for dyeing thescarlet to which that city gives its name. After the discovery of America, cochineal having been introduced, began to supersede kermes for all brilliant red dyes.

The principal varities of kermes are the coccus quercus, the coccus polonicus, the coccus fragariæ, and the coccus uva ursi.

The coccus quercus insect lives in the south of Europe upon the kermes oak. The female has no wings, is of the size of a small pea, of a brownish-red color, and is covered with a whitish dust. From the middle of May to the middle of June the eggs are collected, and exposed to the vapour of vinegar, to prevent their incubation. A portion of eggs is left upon the tree for the maintenance of the brood. In the department of the Bouches-du-Rhone, and half of the kermes crop is dried. It amounts annually to about 60 quintals or cwts., and is warehoused at Avignon.

The kermes of Poland, or coccus polonicus, is found upon the roots of the scleranthus perennis and the scleranthus annuus, in sandy soils of that country and the Ukraine. This species has the same properties as the preceding; one pound of it, according to Wolfe, being capable of dyeing 10 pounds of wool; but Hermstaedt could not obtain a fine colour, although he employed 5 times as much of it as of cochineal. The Turks, Armenians, and Cossacks, dye with kermes their morocco leather, cloth, silk, as well as the manes and tails of their horses.

The kermes called coccus fragariæ, is found principally in Siberia, upon the root of the common strawberry.

The coccus uva ursi is twice the size of the Polish kermes, and dyes with alum a fine red. It occurs in Russia.

Kermes is found not only upon the lycopodium complanatum in the Ukraine, but upon a great many other plants.

Good kermes is plump, of a deep red color, of an agreeable smell, and a rough and pungent taste. Its colouring matter is soluble in water and alcohol; it becomes yellowish or brownish with acids, and violet or crimson with alkalis. Sulphate of iron blackens it. With alum it dyes a blood-red; with copperas an agate gray; with copperas and tartar, a lively gray; with sulphate of copper and tartar, an olive green; with tartar and salt of tin, a lively cinnamon yellow; with more alum and tartar, a lilac; with sulphate of zinc and tartar, a violet. Scarlet and crimson dyed with kermes, were called grain colours; and they are reckoned to be more durable than those of cochineal, as is proved by the brilliancy of the old Brussels tapestry.

Hellot says that previous to dyeing in the kermes bath, he threw a handful of wool into it, in order to extract a blackish matter, which would have tarnished the colour. The red caps for the Levant are dyed at Orleans with equal parts of kermes and madder and occasionally with the addition of some Brazil wood.

Cochineal and lac-dye have now nearly superseded the use of kermes as a tinctorial substance, in England.