The Dyer's Guide. Chapter VI. On Dyeing Cotton And Silk. On aluming silk.

The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.
With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.

By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.

"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.

"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.

Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.

London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.
We have treated of this before at the commencement of the third Chapter , but a few more observations may be useful.

The silk being first well washed and beetled, and the hanks tied loose so that every thread may take alike, should be turned and returned in the alum liquor and worked, cooled in it, at intervals, from morning till night, afterwards taken out, beetled, and rinsed.

The above proportion of alum will do for a hundred and fifty pounds of silk, before you need replenish it; when this is necessary add twenty-five pounds more of aJLum, as at first directed in Chapter III., and so continue to replenish it till it gets a bad smell. When this is the case you may dip for browns, maroons, &c.; and afterwards throw the liquor away; the trough is then to be rinsed for a fresh liquor.

Remember always to alum cold or you will spoil the lustre of the silk.