Yellow Color. Salmon.

Scientific American 41, 1.7.1848

For the Scientific American.

This is a color which our country people frequently dye their flannels. It is a color that washes very well and is the easiest dyed in the whole scale. It is one of the primary colors - there being only three of them, viz. red, blue and yellow. Sir Isaac Newton's theory placed seven colors in the primary scale, but this is now known to be incorrect.

To dye flannel yellow, a quantity of quercitron bark, which will be found at any druggist's is scalded in a clean vessel. The clear liquor is then put into the dye kettle, when a teacup full of the sulpha muriate of tin is added and the flannel entered loosely while the liquor is boiling. About three pounds of the quercitron bark will make a very dark yellow for ten pounds of flannel, or coarse woollen yarn. It is best to give the stuff or bark liquor, at three different times, taking the goods out after 20 minutes boiling and airing them well, when they are agaiin to be entered with a little fresh liquor, and when dark enough washed and dried. This bark will not impart its color without boiling, but the same process will dye cotton. Silk never should be boiled for any color. This bark was discovered as a dye drug by Bancroft, and was a source of great profit to America at one period, but the bichromate of potass has superseded it for may purposes, and in many colors not for the better, we think. Bancroft recommended the use of quercitron in the dyeing of scarlet wool, and he advocated the uselessness of tartar where the bark was used. In this respect, that great chemist was incorrect.


Salmon

On white woolen goods, such as flanels and such like fabrics, a good salmon color, or orange, may be dyed with equal qualities of cochineal and quercitron bark dyed as described in the foregoing, only a little cream of tartar whould be added along with the spirits (muriate of tin.) The orange is just a salmon in excess of color, only inclining to the yellow shade, therefore a greater quantit of the same stuffs that can dye a salmon color, will produce an orange. For a salmon color, it is positively necessary to have a clear white ground. Ther are other ways of dyeing yellow, salmon and orange colors, but no stuffs like those in this receipt can equal the color which they make either in richness or permanency. We speak of the salmon and orange only for woolen goods. The cochineal will not by the process described impart any color to cotton. By following the above, having the goods perfectly chean, no erson need be afraid not dyeing the color, we warrant that. Cochineal is more than two dollars per pound, but an ounce ground up fine, will dye a good scarlet on one pound of wool, that is the best cochineal. Fine goods require less stuff than coarse; the reason of this would be unfrofitable to many to explain, the practical is only set forth, and then the operator can reflect from experience - a snuff of cochineal will dye a salmon on a pound of wool.