A Dictionary of Arts: Madder.

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

MADDER. (Garance, Fr.; Farberröthe, Germ.), a substance very extensively used in dyeing, is the root of the Rubia tinctorum, a plant, of which two species are distinguished by Linnæus.

The best roots are those which have the size of a writing quill, or, at most, of the little finger. They are semi-transparent, and reddish; have a strong odor, and a smooth bark. They should be of two or three years' growth.

The madder, taken from the ground and picked, must be dried in order to be ground and preserved. In warm climates it is dried in the open air; but, elsewhere, stoves must be employed.

The stingy filaments and epidermis are to be removed, called mulle; as also the pith, so as to leave nothing but the ligneous fibres.

The preparation of madders is carried on in the department of the Rhone, in the following manner.

The roots are dried in a stove heated by means of a furnace, from which the air is allowed to issue only at intervals, at the moment when it is judged to be saturated with moisture. The furnace-flue occupies a great portion of the floor; above sare three close gratings, on which the roots are distributed in layers of about two decimetres (nearly 8 inches). At the end of 24 hours, those which are on the first grated floor directly above the stove are dry, when they are taken away and replaced by those of the superior floors. This operation is repeated whenever the roots over the stove are dry. The dry roots are thrashed with a flail, passed through fanners similar to those employed for corn, and then shaken upon a very coarse sieve. What passes through is farther winnowed and sifted through a finer sieve than the first. These operations are repeated five times, proceeding successively to sieves still finer and finer, and setting aside every time what remains on the sieve. What passes through the fifth sieve is rejected as sand and dust. After these operations, the whole fibrous matters remaining on the sieve are cleaned with common fanners, and women separate all the foreign matters which had not been removed before. For dividing the roots, afterwards, into different qualities, a brass sieve is made use of, whose meshes are from six to three millimetres in diameter (from ¼th to inch E.) What passes through the finest is rejected; and what passes through the coarsest is regarded as of the best quality. These roots, thus separated, are carried into a stove, of a construction somewhat different from the first. They are spread out in layers of about a decimetre in thickness (nearly 4 inches E.), on large lattice-work frames, and the drying is known to be complete, when on taking up a handful and squeezing it, the roots break easily. On quitting the stove, the madder is carried, still hot, into a machine, where it is minced small, and a sieve separates the portion of the bark reduced to powder. This operation is repeated three or four times, and then the boulter is had recourse to. What passes through the sieve, or the brass meshes of the boulter, is regarded as common madder; and what issues at the extremity of the boulter is called the flour. Lastly, the madder which passes through the boulter is ground in a mill with vertical stones, and then passed through sieves of different sizes. What remains above is always better than what goes through.

The madder of Alsace is reduced to a very fine powder, and its colouring matter is extracted by a much longer ebullition than is necessary for the lizari of the Levant. The prepared madders ought to be carefully preserved from humidity, because they easily imbibe moisture, in which case fermentation spoils their colour.

D'Ambourney and Beckman have asserted, that it is mode advantageous to employ the fresh root of madder than what has been submitted to desiccation, especially by means of stoves. But in its states of freshness, its volume becomes troublesome in the dyeing bath, and uniform observation seems to prove that it ameliorates by age. Besides, it must be rendered susceptible of keeping and carrying easily.

It appears that madder may be considered as composed of two colouring substances, one of which is dun (tawny), and the other is red. Both of these substances may combine with the stuff. It is of consequence, however, to fix only the red part. The dun portion appears to be more soluble, but its fixity on stuffs may possibly be increased by the affinity which it has for the red portion.

The different additions made to madder, and the multiplied processes to which it is sometimes exposed, have probably this separation for their chief object.

The red portion of madder is soluble, but in small quantity, in water. Hence but a limited concentration can be given to its solution. If the portion of this substance be too much increased, so far from obtaining a greater effect, we merely augment the proportion of the dun part, which is the more soluble of the two.

In consequence of the Sociétié Industrielle of Mulhausen having offered in the year 1826 large premiums to the authors of the best analytical investigation of madder, eight memoirs were transmitted to it in the year 1827. They were examined with the greatest care by a committee consisting of able scientific and practical men. None of the competitors however fulfilled the conditions of the programme issued by the society; but four of them received a tribute of esteem and gratitude from it; MM. Robiquet and Colin at Paris, Kuhlmann at Lille, and Houton-Libillardière. Fresh premiums were offered for the next year, to the amount of 2000 francs.

Every real discovery made concerning this precious root, would be of vast consequence to dyers and calico-printers. Both M. Kuhlmann, and Robiquet and Colin, conceived that they had discovered a new principle in madder, to which they gave the name alizarine. The latter two chemists treated the powdered madder with sulphuric acid, taking care to let it heat as little as possible. By this action the whole is carbonized, except perhaps the red matter. The charcoal thus obtained is pulverized, mixed with water, thrown upon a filter, and well washed in the cold. It is next dried, ground, and diffused through fifty parts of water, containing six parts of alum. This mixture is then boiled for one quarter of an hour, and thrown upon a filter cloth while boiling hot. The residuum is once more treated with a little warm alum water. The two liquors are to be mixed, and one part of sulphuric acid poured into them; when they are allowed to cool with occasional agitation. Flocks now make their appearance; the clear liquid is decanted, and the grounds are thrown upon a filter. The precipitate is to be washed, first with aciculated water, then with pure water, and dried, when the colouring matter is obtained in a red or purple state. This purple substance, when heated dry, gives out alizarine, and an empyreumatic oil, having an odor of animal matter; while a charcoally matter remains.

M. Dan. Koechlin, the justly celebrated calico-printer of Mulhausen, has no faith in alizarine as the dyeing principle of madder; and thinks moreover that, were it of value, it could not be extracted on the great scale, on account of the destructive heat which would result from the acid acting upon a considerable body of the ground madder. Their alizarine is not a uniform substance, as it ought to be, if a proximate principle; for samples of it obtained in different repetitions of the process have produced very variable effects in dyeing. The madders of Avignon, though richer in colour than those of Alsace, afford however little or no alizarine. In fact, purpurine, the crude substance from which they profess to extract alizarine, is a richer dye than this pure substance itself.

Madder contains so beautiful and so fast a color, that it has become of almost
universal employment in dyeing; but that colour is accompanied with so many other substances which mask and degrade it, that it can be brought out and fixed only after a series of operations more or less difficult and precarious. This dye is besides so little soluble, that much of it is thrown away in the dye-house; the portion supposed to be exhausted being often as rich as other fresh madder; hence it would be a most valuable improvement in this elegant art to insulate this tinctorial body, and make it a new product of manufacture.

Before the time of Haussmann, an apothecary at Colmar, the madder bath was subject to many risks, which that skilful chemist taught dyers how to guard against, by introducing a certain quantity of chalk into the bath. A change of residence led Haussman to this fortunate result. After having made very fine reds at Rouen, he encountered the greatest obstacles in dyeing the same reds at Logelbach near Calmar, where he went to live. Numerous trials, undertaken with the view of obtaining the same success in his establishment, proved that the cause of his favorable results at Rouen existed in the water, which contained carbonate of lime in solution, whilst the water of Logelbach was very pure. He then tried a factitious calcareous water, by adding chalk to his dye bath. Having obtained the most satisfactory results, he was not long of producing here as beautiful and as solid reds as he had done at Rouen. This practice became soon general among the calico-printers of Alsace, though in many dye-works the chalk is now replaced by lime, potash, or soda. But when the madder of Avignon is used, all these antacid correctives become unnecessary, because it contains a sufficient quantity of carbonate of lime; an important fact first analytically demonstrated by that accurate of chemist M. Henri Schlumberger of Mulhausen. Avignon madder indicates the presence of cabonate of lime in it, by effervescing with dilute acids, which Alsace madder does not.

M. Kuhlman found a free acid resembling the malic, in his analysis of madders. But his experiments were confined to those of Alsace. The madders of Avignon are on the contrary alkaline, as may be inferred from the violet tint of the froth of their infusions; whereas that of the Alsace madders is yellowish, and it strongly reddens litmus paper. This important difference between the plants of these two districts, depends entirely upon the soil; for madders grown in a calcareous shelly soil in Alsace, have been found to be possessed of the properties of the Avignon madder.

The useful action of the carbonate and the phosphate of lime in the madder of Avignon, explains why madders treated with acids which remove their calcareous salts, without taking away their colouring matter, lose the property of forming fast dyes. Many manufacturers are in the habit of mixing together, and with advantage, different sorts of madder. That of Avignon contains so much calcareous matter that, when mixed with the madder of Alsace, it can compensate for its deficiency. Some of the latter is so deficient as to afford colours nearly as fugitive as those of Brazil wood and quercitron. The Alsace madders by the addition of chalk to their baths, become as fit for dyeing Turkey reds as those of Avignon. When the water is very pure, one part of chalk ought to be used to be used to five of Alsace madder, but when the waters are calcareous, the chalk should be omitted. Lime, the neutral phosphate of lime, the carbonate of magnesia, oxide and carbonate of zinc, and several other substances, have the property of causing madder to form a fast dye, in like manner as the carbonate of lime.

The temperature from 50° to 60° R. (145° to 167° F.), is the best adapted to the solution of the colouring matter, and to its combination with the mordants; and thus a boiling heat may be replaced advantageously by the long continuance of a lower temperature. A large excess of the dye-stuff in the bath is unfavorable in twopoints of view; it causes a waste of colouring matter, and renders the tint dull. It is injurious to allow the bath to cool, and to heat it again.

In a memoir published by the Society of Mulhausen, in September, 1835, some interesting experiments upon the growth of madders in factitious soils are related by MM. Koechlin, Persoz, and Schlumberger. A patch of ground was prepared containing from 50 to 80 per cent. of chalky matter, and nearly one fifth of its bulk of good horde-dung. Slips of Alsace and Avignon madders were planted in March, 1834, and a part of the roots were reaped in November following. These roots, though of only six months growth, produced tolerably fast dyes, nor was any difference observable between the Alsace and the Avignon species; whilst similar slips or cuttings, planted in a natural non-calcareous soil, alongside of the others, yielded roots which gave fugitive dyes. Others were planted in the soil of Palud, transported from Avignon, which contained more than 90 per cent. of carbonate of lime, and they produced roots that gave still faster dyes than the preceding. Three years are requisite to give the full calcareous impregnation to the indigenous madders of Avignon.

As to the function of the chalk, valuable observations, made long ago by M. Daniel Koechlin, have convinced him, that the combination of two different bases with a colouring matter, gave much more solidity to the dye, in consequence, undoubtedly, of a greater insolubility in the compound. Experiments recently made by him and his collagues above named, prove that in all cases of madder dyeing under the influence of chalk, a certain quantity of lime becomes added to the aluminous mordant. In the subsequent clearing with a soap bath, some of the alumine is removed, and there remains upon the fibre of the cloth a combination of these two earths in atomic proportions. Thus the chalk is not for the purpose of saturating the acid, as had been supposed, but of forming a definite compound with alumina, and probably also with the fatty bodies, and the colouring matter itself.

The red mordants are prepared commonly in Alsace, as follows: - The crushed alum and acetate of lead being weighed, the former is put into a deep tub, and dissolved by adding a proper quantity of hot water, when about one tenth of its weight of soda crystals is introduced to saturate the excess of acid in the alum. The acetate of lead is now mixed in; and as this salt dissolves very quickly, the reaction takes place almost instantly. Care must be taken to stir for an hour. The vessel should not be covered, lest its contents should cool too slowly.

The different mordants most generally employed for madder, are detailed under Colours, in CALICO-PRINTING and MORDANT.

Much mordant should not be prepared at once, for sooner or later it will deposit some sub-acetate alumina. This decomposition takes place even in corked phials in the cold; and the precipitate does not readily dissolve again in acetic acid. All practical men know that certain aluminous mordants are decomposed by heating them, and restored on cooling, as Gay Lussac has pointed out. He observed, that by adding to pure acetate of alumina, some alum or sulphate of potash, the mixture acquires the property of forming a precipitate with a heat approaching the boiling point, and of re-dissolving on cooling. The precipitate is alumina nearly pure, according to M. Gay Lussac; but, by M. Koechlin's more recent researches, it is shown to be sub-sulphate of alumina, containing eight times as much base as the neutral sulphate.

Madder dye.- On account of the feeble solubility of its colouring matter in water, we cannot dye with its decoction; but we must boil the dyes-stuff along with the goods to be dyed; whereby the water dissolves fresh portions of the dye, and imparts it in succession to the textile fibres. In dyeing with madder, we must endeavor to fix as little of the dun matter as possible upon the cloth.

Dyeing on wool. - Alumed wool takes, in the madder bath, a red colour, which is not so bright as cochineal red, but it is faster; and as it is far cheaper, it is much used in England to dye soldiers' cloth. A mordant of alum and tartar is employed; the bath of madder, at the rate of from 8 to 16 ounces for the pound of cloth, is heated to such a degree that we can just hold our hand in it, and the goods are then dyed by the wince, without heating the bath more till the colouring matter be fixed. Vitalis prescribes as a mordant, one fourth of alum, and one sixteenth of tartar; and for dyeing, one third of madder, with the addition of a 24th of solution of tin diluted with its weight of water. He raises the temperature in the space of an hour to 200°, and afterwards he boils for 3 or 4 minutes; a circumstance which is believed to contribute to the fixation of the colour. The bath, after dyeing, appears much loaded with yellow matter, because this has less affinity for the alum mordant than the red. Sometimes a little archil is added to the madder, to give the dye a pink tinge; but this is fugitive.

Silk is seldom dyed with madder, because cochineal affords brighter tints.

>Dyeing on cotton and linen. - The most brilliant and fastest madder red is the Turkey or Adrianople. The common madder reds are given in the following way: - The yarn or cloth is boiled in a weak alkaline bath, washed, dried, and galled, by steeping the cotton in decoction of bruised galls or of sumach. After drying, it is twice alumed; for which purpose, for every 4 parts of the goods, one part of alum is taken, mixed with 1.16th of its weight of chalk. The goods are dipped into a warm solution of the alum, wrung out, dried , and alumed afresh, with half the quantity. The acetate of alumina mordant, described above, answers much better than common alum for cotton. After the goods are dried and rinsed, they are passed through the dye-bath, which is formed of 3/4 lb. of good madder for every pound of cotton; and it is raised to the boiling point by degrees, in the space of 50 or 60 minutes. Whenever the ebullition has continued a few minutes, the goods must be removed, washed slightly, and dyed a second time in the same way, with as much madder. They are then washed and passed through a warm soap bath, which removes the dun colouring matter.

Hölterfoff describes for ordinary madder red the following proportions: - 20 pounds of cotton yarn; 14 pounds of Dutch madder; 3 pounds of nut-galls; 5 pounds of alum; to which ½ lb. of acetate of lead has been first added, and then a quarter of a pound of chalk.

In the calico-print works the madder goods are passed through a bran bath first, immediately after dyeing; next, after several days exposure to the air, when the dun dye has become oxidized, and is more easily removed. An addition of chalk, on the principles explained above, in sometimes useful in the madder bath. If bran be added to the madder bath, the colour becomes much lighter, and of an agreeable shade. Sometimes bran-water is added to the madder bath, instead of bran.

Adrianople or Turkey red. - This is the most complicated and tedious operation in the art of dyeing; but it produces the fastest colour which is known. This dye was discovered in India, and remained long a process peculiar to that country. It was afterwards practised in other part of Asia and in Greece. In 1747, Ferquet and Goudard brought Greek dyers into France, and mounted near Rouen, and in Languedoc, Turkey-red dye works. In 1765, the French government, convinced of the importance of this business, caused the processes to be published. In 1808, Reber, at Mariakirch, furnished the fines yarn of this dye, and M. Köchlin became celebrated for his Turkey-red cloth.

Process of Turkey-red. - The first step consists in clearing the yarn or cloth in alkaline baths, and dipping them in oily liquors, to which sheep's dung was formerly added. This operation is repeated several times, the goods being dried after each immersion. There next follows the cleansing with alkaline liquors to remove the excess of oil, the galling, the aluming, the maddering, the brightening or removing the dun part of the dye by boiling, at a high temperature, with alkaline liquid, and the rosing by boiling in a bath of salt of tin. We shall give some details concerning this tedious manipulation, and the differences which exist in it in the principal dye-works.

At Rouen, where the process was first brought to perfection, two methods are pursued, called the gray and the yellow course or marsh. In the gray, the dye is given immediately after the cotton has received the oily mordant, the gall, and the alum, as it has then a gray colour. In the yellow course, it is passed through fresh oils, alum, and galls before the maddering, the cotton having then a yellow tint.

Different vews have been taken of the principles of the Turkey-red dye, and the object and utility of the various steps. The most ancient notion is that of animalizing the cotton by dung and blood, but experience has proved that without any animal matter the finest colour may be obtained. According to Dingler, the cotton is imbued with oil by steeping it in combinations of oil and soda; the oil is altered by repeated dryings at a high temperature; it attracts oxygen from the air, and thereby combines intimately with the cotton fibre, so as to increase the weight of the stuff. The dung, by a kind of fermentation, accelerates the oxidizement, and hence crude oil is preferable to pure. In England, the mucilaginous oils of Gallipoli are preferred, and in Malabar, oils more or less rancid. The drying oils do not answer. The subsequent treatment with the alkaline liquors removes the excess of oil, which has not been oxidized and combined; a hard drying completely changes that which remains in the fibred; the aluming which follows combines alumina with the cotton; the galling tans the fibres, producing a triple compound of oil and alum, which fixed the colouring matter. The object of the other steps is obvious.

According to Wuttich, the treatment with oil opens the cotton so as to admit the mordant and the colouring matter, but the oil and soap do not combine with the fibres. In the alkaline baths which follow, the oil is transformed into soap and removed; whence the cotton should not increase in weight in the galling and aluming; the cotton suffers a kind of tanning, and the saline parts of the blood assist in fixing the madder dye.

The German process improved, according to Dingler, consists of the following operations: mordant of an oily soap or a soapy liniment, hard drying; alkaline bath, drying, steeping, rinsing away of the uncombined mordant, drying; galling, drying; aluming, drying, steeping in water containing chalk, rinsing; maddering, airing, rinsing; brightening with an alkaline boil, and afterwards in a bath containing salt of tin; then washing and drying.

The yarn or the cloth must be first well worked in a bath of sheep's dung and oil, compounded as follows: - 25 pounds of sheep's dung are to be bruised in a solution of pure caustic potash of hydrometer strength 3°, and the mixed liquor is to be passed through a sieve. Two pounds of fine oil are now to be poured into 16 pounds of this lye, after which 30 pounds of coarse oil are to be added, with agitation for ¼ of an hour. Other 4 pounds of hot ley are to be well stirred in, till the whole is homogeneous. This proportion of mordant is sufficient for 100 pounds of cotton yarn, for 90 pounds of unbleached or 100 pounds of bleached cotton goods. The cotton stuff, after being well wrung out, is to be laid in a chest and covered with a lid loaded with weights, in which state it should remain for five days. At the end of 24 hours, the cotton becomes hot with fermentation, gets imbued with the mordant, and the oil becomes rapidly altered. The goods are next exposed freely to the air during the day, and in the evening they are dried in a hot chamber, exposed to a temperature of 158° F., for 6 or 8 hours, which promotes the oxidizement of the oil.

The goods are now passed the second time through a soapy-oil mordant similar to the first, then dried in the air by day, and in the hot stove by night. The third and fourth oil-soap steeps are given in the same way, but without the dung. The fifth steep is composed of a ley at 2°, after which the goods must also be dried. Indeed, from the first to the fourth steep, the cotton stuff should be put each time into a chamber heated to 145° F. for 12 or 15 hours, and during 18 hours after the fifth steep.

The uncombined oil must, in the next place, be withdrawn by the degraissage, which consists in steeping the goods for 6 hours in a very weak alkaline ley. After rinsing and wringing, they are dried in the air, and then put into the hot stove.

The goods are now galled in a bath formed of 36 pounds of Sicilian sumach, boiled for 3 hours in 260 pounds of water, and filtered. The residuum is treated with 190 fresh pounds of water. This decoction is heated with 12 pounds of pounded nut-galls to the boiling point, allowed to cool during the night, and used next morning as hot as the hand can bear; the goods being well worked through it. Theyr are again dried in the air, and afterwards placed in a stove moderately heated. They are next passed through a tepid alum bath, containing a little chalk; left afterwards in a heap during the night, dried in the air, and next in the stove. The dry goods are finally passed through hot water containing a little chalk, wrung out, rinsed, and then maddered.

For dyeing, the copper is filled with water, the fire is kindled, and an ounce and a half of chalk is added for every pound of madder; a pound and a quarter of madder being taken for every pound of cotton yarn. The goods are now passed through the bath, so that they penetrate to near its bottom. The fire must be so regulated, that the copper will begin to boil in the course of from 2%frac12; to 3 hours; and the ebullition must be continued for an hour; after which the yarn is aired and rinsed. Cloth should be put into the dye-bath when its temperature is 77° and winced at a heat of from 100° to122° during the first hour; at 167° during the second; and at the boiling point when the third hour begins. It is to be kept boiling for half an hour; so that the maddering lasts four hours. Dingler does not add sumach or galls to the madder bath, because their effect is destroyed in the subsequent brightening, and he has no faith in the utility of blood.

After being dyed, the goods are washed, pressed, and subjected to a soapy alkaline bath at a high heat, in a close boiler, by which the dun parts of the galls and the madder are dissolved away, and the red colour remains in all its lustre. This operation is called brightening. It is repeated in a similar liquor, to which some muriate of tin is added for the purpose of enlivening the colour and giving it a rosy tint. Last of all, the goods are rinsed, and dried in the shade.

The Elberfeld process consists for 100 lbs. of the following steps: -

1. Cleaning the cotton by boiling it for four hours in a weak alkaline bath, cooling and rinsing.

2. working it thoroughly four times over in a steep, consisting of 300 pounds of water, 15 pounds potash, 1 pailful of sheep's dung, and 12½ pounds of olive oil, in which it should remain during the night. Next day it is drained for an hour, wrung out and dried. This treatment with the dung steep, and drying, is repeated 3 times.

3. It is now worked in a bath containing 120 quarts of water, 18 pounds of potash, and 6 quarts of olive oil; then wrung out and dried. This steep is also repeated 4 times.

4. Steepingfor a night in the river is the next process; a slight rinsing without wringing, and drying in the air.

5. Bath made of a warm decoction (100° F.) of sumach and nut-galls, in which the goods remain during the night; they are then strongly wrung, and dried in the air.

6. Aluming with addition of potash and chalk; wringing; working it well through this bath, where it is left during the night.

7. Draining, and strong rinsing the following day; piling up in a water cistern.

8. Rinsing repeated next day, and steeping in water to remove any excess of alum from the fibres; the goods continue in the water till they are taken to the dyeing-bath.

9. The maddering is made with the addition of blood, sumach, and nut-galls; the bath is brought to boil in 1 hour and 3/4, and kept boiling for half an hour.

10. The yarn is rinsed, dried, boiled from 24 to 36 hours in a covered copper, with an oily alkaline liquid; then rinsed twice, laid for two days in clear water, and dried.

11. Finally, the greatest brightness is obtained by boiling for three or four hours in a soap bath, contaiining muriate of tin; after which the yarn is rinsed twice over, steeped in water, and dried.

Process of Haussmann. - He treats cotton twice or 4 times in a solution of aluminated potash, mixed] with one thirty-eight part of linseed oil. The solution is made by adding caustic potash to alum. He dries and rinses each time, and dries after the last operation. He then rinses and proceeds to the madder bath. For the rose color, he takes one pound of madder for one pound of cotton; for carmine red, he takes from 2 to 3 pounds; and for the deepest red, no less than 4 pounds. It is said that the colour thus obtained surpasses Turkey red.

The French process, by Vitalis of Rouen. - First operation. Scouring with a soda lye, of 1° Baumé, to which there is usually added the remainder of the white preparation bath, which contains of oil and soda with water. It is then washed, wrung out, and dried.

In the second operation, he states that from 25 to 30 pounds of sheep's dung are commonly used for 100 pounds of cotton yarn. The dung is first steeped for some days in a lye of soda, of 8° to 10° B. This is afterwards diluted with about 500 pints of a weaker ley, and at the same time bruised with the hand in a copper basin whose bottom is pierced with small holes. The liquor is then poured into a vat containing 5 or 6 pounds of fat oil (Gallipoli), and the whole are well mixed. The cotton is washed in this, and the hanks of yarn are then stretched on perches in the open air, and turned from time to time, so as to make it dry equably. After receiving thus a certain degree of desiccation, it is carried into the drying house, which is heated to 50° Reaumur (144° Fahrenheit), where it loses the remainder of its moisture, which would have prevented it from combing with the other mordants which it is afterwards to receive. What is left of the bath is called avances, and is added to the following bath. Two, or even three dung baths are given to the cotton, when it is wished to have very rich colours. When the cotton has received the dung baths, care must be taken not to leave it lying in heaps for any length of time, lost it should take fire; and accident which has occasionally happened.

The white bath is prepared by pouring 6 pounds of fat oil into 50 pints of soda water, at 1° or sometimes less, according as, by a preliminary trial, the oil requires. This bath ought to be repeated two, three, or even a greater number of times, as more or less body is to be given to the color.

To what remains of the white bath, and which is also styled avances, about 100 pints of soda lye of two or three degrees are added. Through this the cotton is passed as usual. Formerly it was the practice to give two, or three, or even four oils. Now, two are found to be sufficient.

The cotton is steeped for five or six hours in a tepid solution of soda, of 1° at most; it is set to drain, is then sprinkled with water, and at the end of an hour is washed, hank by hank, to purge it entirely from the oil. What remains of the water of degraissage, serves for the scouring or first operation.

For 100 pounds of cotton, from 20 to 25 pounds of galls in sorts must be taken, which are bruised and boiled in about 100 pints of water, till they crumble easily between the fingers. The galling may be done at two operations, dividing the above quantity of galls between them, which is thought to give a richer and more uniform color.

The aluming of 100 pounds of cotton requires from twenty-five to thirty pounds of pure alum, that is, alum entirely free from ferruginous salts. The alum should be dissolved without boiling, in about 100 pints of river or rain water. When the alum is dissolved, there is to be poured in a solution of soda, made with the sixteenth parts of the weight of the alum. A second portion of the alkaline solution must not be poured in till the effervescence caused by the first portion has entirely ceased - and so in succession. The bath of saturated alum being merely tepid, the cotton is passed through it, as in the gall bath, so as to impregnate it well, and it is dried with the precautions recommended above. The dyers who gall at two times, alum also twice, for like like reasons.

For 25 pounds of cotton, 25 pints of blood are prescribed, and 400 pints of water. Whenever the bath begins to warm, 50 pounds of madder are diffused through the bath; though sometimes the maddering is given at two operations, by dividing the madder into two portions.

The brightening bath is prepared always for 100 pounds of cotton, with from four to five pounds of rich oil, six pounds of Marseilles white soap, and 600 litres of soda water of 2° B.

The rosing is given with solution of tin, mixed with soap water.

The Turkey-red dye of Messrs. Monteith and Co., of Glasgow, is celebrated all over the world, and merits a brief description here.

The calico is taken as it comes from the loom without bleaching, for the natural colour of cotton wool harmonizes well with the dye about to be given; it is subjected to a fermentative steep for 24 hours, like that preliminary to bleaching, after which it is washed at the dash wheel. It is then boiled in a ley, containing about 1 pound of soda crystals for 12 pounds of cloth. The oiling process now begins. A bath is made with 10 gallons of Gallipoli oil, 15 gallons measures of sheep's dung not indurated; 40 gallons of solution of soda crystals, of 1.06 specific gravity; 10 gallons of solution of pearl-ash of spec. grav. 1.04; and 140 gallons of water; constituting a milk-white, soapy solution of about spec. grav. 1.022. This liquor is put into a large cylindrical vat, and constantly agitated by the rotation of wooden vanes, which are best constructed on the plan of the smashing apparatus of a brewery, but far slighter. This saponaceous compound is let off as wanted by a stopcock into the through of a padding machine, in order to imbue every fibre of the cloth in its passage. This impregnation is still more fully ensured by laying the padded cloth aside in wooden troughs during 16 or 18 days. The sheep's dung has been of late years disused by many Turkey-red dyers, both in England and France, but it is found to be advantageous in producing the very superior colour of the Glasgow establishment. It is supposed, also, to promote the subsequent bleaching during the exporuse on the green; which is the next process in favorable weather, but in bad weather the goods are dried over a hot-flue.

The cloth is padded again with the saponaceous liquor; and again spread on the grass, or dried hard in the stove. This alternation is repeated a third time, and occasionally, even a fourth.

The cloth by this time is varnished as it were with oil, and must be cleansed in a certain degree by being passed through a weak solution of pearl-ash, at the temperature of about 122° F. It is then squeezed by the rollers and dried.

A second system of oiling now commences, with the following liquor: - 10 gallons of Gallipoli oil; 30 gallons of soda crystals ley, of spec. grav. 1.06; and 10 gallons of caustic potash ley, of specific gravity 1.04, thoroughly diffused through 170 gallons of water. With this saponaceous liquor the cloth is padded as before, and then passed between squeezing-rollers, which return the superfluous liquor into the padding-trough The cloth many be now laid on the grass if convenient; but at any rate it must be hard dried in the stove.

These saponifying, grassing, and drying processes, are repeated three times; whereby the cloth becomes once more very oleaginous, and must be cleansed again by steeping in a compound ley of soda crystals and pearl-ash of the spec. grav. 1.012, at the temperature of 122°. The cloth is taken out, squeezed between rollers to save the liquor, and washed. A considerable portion of the mingled alkalis disappear in this operation, they entered into combination with the oil in the interior of the cotton filaments. The cloth is now hard dried.

Galling is the next great step in the Turkey-red preparation; and for its success all the oil should have been perfectly saponified.

From 18 to 20 pounds of Aleppo galls (for each 100 lbs. of cloth) are to be bruised and boiled for 3 or 4 hours, in 25 gallons of water, till 5 gallons be evaporated; and the decoction is to be then passed through a searce. Two pounds of sumach may be substituted for every pound of galls. The goods must be well padded with this decoction, kept at 90° F., passed through squeezing-rollers, and dried. They are then passed through a solution of alum of the spec. grav. 1.04, to which a certain portion of chalk is added to saturate the acid excess of that supersalt; and in this cretaceous mixture, heated to 110°, the cloth is winced and steeped for 12 hours. It is then passed between squeezing-rollers, and dried in the stove.

The maddering comes next.

From two to three pounds of madder, ground to powder in a proper mill, are taken for every pound of cloth. The cloth, as usual in maddering, is entered into the cold bath, and winced by the automatic reel during one hour that the bath takes to boil, and during an ebullition of two hours afterwards. One gallon of bullock's blood is added to the cold bath for every 25 pounds of cloth; being the quantity operated upon in one bath. The utility of the blood in improving the colour has been ascribed to its colouring particles; but it is more probably owing to its albuminous matter combining with the margarates of soda and potash condensed in the fibred.

As madder contains a dingy brown colouring matter associated with the fine red, the goods must be subjected to a clearing process to remove the former tinge, which is more fugitive than the latter. Every hundred pounds of cloth are therefore boiled during 12 hours at least, with water containing 5 pounds of soda crystals, 8 pounds of soap, and 16 gallons of the residual pearl-ash and soda ley of the last cleansing operation. By this powerful means the dun matter is well high removed; but it is completely so by a second boil, at the of 250° F., in a tight globular copper, along with 5 pounds of soap, and 1 pound of muriate of tin crystals, dissolved in a sufficient body of water for 100 pounds of cloth. The muriate of tin serves to raise the madder red to a scarlet hue. A margarate of tin is probably fixed upon the cloth in this operation.

When the weather permits, the goods should be now laid out for a few days on the grass. Some manufacturers give them a final brightening with a weak bath of a chloride of lime; but it is apt to impoverish the color.

According to the latest improvements of the French dyers, each of the four processes of oiling, mordanting, dyeing, and brightening differs, in some respects, from the above.

1. Their first step is boiling the cloth for four hours, in water containing one pound of soap for every four pieces. Their saponaceous bath of a creamy aspect is used at a temperature of 75° F.; and it is applied by the padding machine 6 times, with the grassing and drying alternations. In winter, when the goods cannot be exposed on the grass, no less than 12 lternations of the saponaceous or white bath are employed, and 8 in spring. They consider the action of the sun-beams to aid greatly in brightening this dye; but at Midsummer, if it be continued more than 4 hours, the scarlet colour produced begins to be impaired.

They conceive that the oiling operation impregnates the fibres with super-margarate of potash or soda, insoluble salts which attract and condense the alumina, and the red colouring particles of the madder, so firmly that they can resist the clearing boil.

2. Their second step, the mordanting, consists first in padding the pieces through a decoction of galls mixed with a solution of an equal weight of alum; and after drying in the hot-flue, &c., again padding them in a solution of an acetate of alumina, made by decomposing a solution solution of 16 lbs. of alum with 16 lbs. of acetate of lead, for 6 pieces of cloth, each 32 aunes long.

3. The maddering is given at two successive operations; with 4 pounds of Avignon madder per piece at each time.

4. The brightening is performed by a 12 hours' boil in water with soda crystals, soap, and salt of tin; and the rosing by a 10 hours' boil with soap and salt of tin. Occasionally, the goods are passed through a weak solution of chloride of potash. When the red has too much of a crimson cast, the pieces are exposed for two days on the grass, which gives them bright scarlet tint.

Process of M. Werdet to dye broadcloth and wool by madder: -
"Preparation for 24 pounds of scoured wool:
" Take 4¼ pounds of cream of tartar, 4¼ pounds of pure alum; boil the wool gently for 2 hours, transfer it into a cool place, and wash it next day in clear water.

"Dyeing. - 12 pounds of Avignon madder, infused half an hour at 30° R. (100° F.) Put into the bath 1 pounds of muriate of tin, let the colour rose for three quarters of an hour ar the same heat, and drain or squeeze the madder through canvass. The whole of the red dye will remain upon the filter, but the water which has passed through will be as deep a yellow as a weld bath. The boiler with the dye must now be filled up with clear river water, and heated to 100° F. Two ounces of the solution of the tartar and alum must be poured into it, and the wool must be turned over in it for an hour and a half, while the heat is gradually raised to the boiling point. The wool is then removed and washed. It must be rosed the following day.

Rosing. - Dissolve in hot water 1 pound of white Marseilles soap; let the bath cool, and pass the wool through it till it has acquired the desired shade; 15 or 20 minutes are sufficient. On coming out of this bath it should be washed.

Solution of deuto-muriate of tin: -

2 ounces of pure muriatic acid; 4 drachms of pure nitric acid; 1 ounce of distilled water. Dissolve in it, by small portions at a time, 2 drachms of grain tin, in a large bottle of white glass, shutting t after putting in the tin. This solution may be preserved for years, without losing its virtue."

I have inserted this process, as recently recommended by the French minister of commerce, and published by M. Pouillet in vol. i. of his Portefeuille Infustriel, to show what official importance is sometimes given by our neighbors to the most frivolous things.

Madders imported for home consumption.
1836 - Cwts. 106,172
1837 - Cwts. 79,228

Gross amount of Duty paid in
1836. £10,810
1837. £8,081