CALICO PRINTING. This art was common to the Egyptians and the Hindus, and is still largely practised by the latter, with a skill which produces much to be admired, even in the midst of the productions of the world, and after so many attempts have been made to improve this art, certainly imported from the East. Pliny was ac quainted with the wonderful art by which cloths, though immersed in a heated dyeing liquor of one uniform colour, came out tinged with different colours, which afterwards could not be discharged by washing. The people of India apply the mor dants both by pencils and by engraved blocks. The cloth-printers at Dacca stamp the figures on cloth which is to be embroidered. The stamps are formed of small blocks of kantul (artocarpus) wood, with the figures carved in relief. The colouring matter is a red earth imported from Bom bay, probably the so-called 'Indian earth' from the Persian Gulf. Though the art is now practised
to much perfection in Britain, Indian patterns still retain their own particular beauties, and command a crowd of admirers. This is no doubt due in a great measure to the knowledge which they have of the effect of colours, and the proportions which they preserve between the ground and the pattern, by which a good effect is procured both at a distance and on a near inspection. Printing in gold and in silver is a branch of the art which has been carried to great perfection in India, as well upon thick calico as upon fine muslin. The size which is used is not mentioned, but in the Burmese territory the juice of a plant is used, which no doubt contains caoutehouc in a state of solution.— Rovle, Arts, etc., of India, p. 483 ; Pennant's Hindoostan, i. p. 132 ; 211‘Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, p. 215.