Besides these, there is the putty printing, a laborious process, peculiarly Indian in its concep tion, con.sisting of designs in putty executed over a dark ground, without the use of the stamper. Then we come to printing in metallic leaf, by which process cloths are printed with gold, silver, copper, or tin leaf. The better patterns are in Upper India. The process is simple.
Dyeing of silk- is carried on iu Bombay principally by Hindus, who are natives of Sind. The raw silk comes from China, Bengal, and Persia, the first being the most pure in colour, and is strong and lustrous. In the Panjab and Kashmir, woollen fabrics of beautiful colours are extensively manu factured. Dyeing in ivory is a branch of the art which is practised to only a small extent, in Bombay by Parsces, but in Surat and other places by. Hindus chiefly. The process is not so com plicated as in the other branches of cotton, silk, or wool, and the colours produced are few, only red. , deep green, parrot green, yellow, and black being the colours obtained, but fancy colours may be produced by the application of wax as a resist, on the same principle as is done in calico printing.
Europe can no doubt work by cheaper processes. For instance, in the early part of the 19th century, the bandana (bandhna, to tie) handker chiefs of India were in great demand, and were there dyed by the knot process. The demand stimulated competition and improved processes in Europe, and presses adapted for them, which could generate a pressure several times greater than 300 tons, so as even to bend the iron sides, which were 6 inches thick. A press cost £4000. They completely superseded the Indian plan of knotting to prevent the colouring matter having access to the cloth.
The following mineral and vegetable dyes are in general use in India and Southern and Eastern Asia :— Acacia Arabica, tho babul tree ; ita bark is used for tanning, barking sails, nets, and fishing lines. With sulphate of iron it yields • blru:k colour, raid with alum a brown colour, both on cotton and wool.
Of Burmese green dye-plants, the turmeric and the leaves of the soap-acacia, Acacia rugats, afford a beautiful green dye.
Acids obtained from the leaves, flowers, and fruits of the tamarind, inango, the limo and citron, are much employed to assist in fixing the dye on the cloths ; safflower is almost always used with an acid of some sort.
Adenanthera pavonina wood dyes red.
Adhatoda vasica leaves in decoction dye yellow. 10 lbs. are bruised, soaked, and boiled in 16 lbs. of water, till half of it evaporate. Alum, lime, and citron juice aro the mordants, and the cloth is three times dipped into it. It yields a dark blue with indigo.
yEgle marmelos, the bel, is cultivated tree ; the rind of its fruit is used with myrobalans by calico printers. The rind and the leaves produce bright yellow dyes.
Albizzia odoratissima bark is boiled, in Assam, with the leaves of tho dagal tree (Tarcochlamys pulcherrima), and gives a brownish dye.
Alpinia galanga, the Kulinjan. A decoction of its wood is used along with myrobalan.
Alum is largely used as a mordant with the colours yielded by turmeric and madder. Alumi nous earth, called cliaulu in Mysore, is largely used in dyeing cotton cloth in permanent colours. It is a clay impregnated with alum or soda, or both. Alumina, in combination with a vegetable dye, constitutes tho lake class of fast dyes, render ing the original colours more vivid and durable.
Anchusa tinctoria mot is the alkanet or dyer's bugloss. In the Panjab, a root is in uso as a dye to which the name of alkanet ifi given. It is pro bably the root of Onosma emcxli, Wall., as other species of Onosma, also Echium rubrum and Lithospermum tinctorium are in Europe and else where substituted for alkanet.
Aniline dyes. Faraday's discovery of benzol in 1825 led to the knowledge of the aniline dyes. By the action of nitric acid, benzol is converted into a dense yellow oil, called nitro-benzol; and by the action of nascent hydrogen, this new com pound is transformed into aniline. The names of linverdorben (1826), Runge (1835), W. 11. Perkins (1858), Griebe and Lieberniann (1868), and Baeyer (1878), are all honourably connected with tho subsequent discoveries of multitudinous colours, ivith a great increase in tho beauty and tinctorial effect of the dyes obtained, and with a diminished cost of their manufacture. At the pre sent time (1883), every colour, and all tints and shades of colours, are produced from aniline. The processes employed and the combinations formed are very numerous, and the conamercial names given to tlae new dyestuffs may be said to be endless. The aniline dyes are cheaper than those obtained from cochineal, madder, safflower, and turmeric, and are more easily worked. The aniline dye is even finer than that of the safflower, and gives a greater variety of shades. The aniline is, in Europe, displacing the. turmeric, as it furnishes a great variety of the shades of yellow. In Europe, the dye from the madder and manjith roots has been largely displaced. In the year 1877, 39,166 cwt. of these two were imported into Great Britain, but iu 1881 only 18,129 cwt. Even cochineal is being displae,ed, as aniline scarlet is much cheaper and quite as fine. The imports of aniline into India for the years ending 31st March were 1879. 1880. 1881. 1882.