COTTON or CALICO PRINTING. This art been practised from time immemorial in India. Pliny describes a mode which was adopted by the Egyptians in staining cotton cloth, evidently similar to the modern process of employing wood-cuts. In India, not only is the art of using wood printing-blocks well known, but also that of applying resist-pastes, in order to preserve the cloth from the action of the dye-bath in any desired figures or spots. Processes of printing, similar to the Indian, have been long practised in Asia Minor and in the Levant; but they were not attempted in Europe till about the middle of the 17th century. The first print-ground in England was established near Richmond, in Surrey, in 1636; but it was not till the year 1768 that the business was carried into Lancashire, where it now constitutes one of the most in teresting and productive branches of English manufactures. From its outset the printing of cotton goods encountered the keenest hos tility from the silk weavers of Spitalfields ; and it was not till 1831 that printed cottons were relieved from the burdens thrown on them by protection.
Calicoes, muslins, 8:c., intended for printing are first of all freed from their fibrous down by the action of the singeing machine. This consists either of a semi-cylinder of iron or copper, laid horizontally, and kept at a bright red heat by a furnace, or by a horizontal range of gas jet flames : over one of these the plain of cloth is drawn with a steady continuous motion, and at a rate suited to its Mature. The cotton cloth is next well bleached [BLEACHING], because, the whiter it is the more light it will reflect from its surface, and the more brilliant will be the colour of its dyes. The goods are next rinsed, dried, and sometimes smoothed under the calender. If they are not calendered, they are run through a machine called. in Lancashire the candroy, which spreads them smoothly in the act of rolling them upon a cylinder.
There are four mechanical modes of print ing calicoes: first, by small wooden blocks, worked by hand ; second, by large wooden blocks, set in a frame, and worked by a ma chine called the Perrotine ; third, by flat copper plates (a method now nearly obsolete) ; and fourth, by copper cylinders.
The blocks are made of sycamore wood, or of deal faced with sycamore. They are about ten inches long and five broad, with an arched handle on the back for convenience of holding. The face is either cut in relief into the design required, or the same object is obtained by the insertion edgewise into the wood of nar row slips of flattened copper wire in the de sired configurations. These narrow fillets have one edge inserted into the wood, are fixed by the taps of a light hammer, and are all filed down and polished into one horizon tal plain, to secure equality of impression in the several lines. The interstices between the copper ridges are filled up with felt-stuff. Occasionally both the wood-cutting and inser tion plan are combined in one block.
Calico-printing by hand is performed by ap plying the face of the block to a piece of woollen cloth stretched over one end of a sieve-hoop, and imbued with a colouring matter of a thin pasty consistence by means of a fiat brush. The block is then applied to the surface of the cotton cloth while extended upon a flat table covered with a blanket, and the impression is transferred to it by striking the back of the block with a light mallet. This method, besides the great cost of labour which it involves, has the inconvenience of causing many irregularities in the execution of the work. It has been superseded to a considerable extent, both in France and Belgium, by the Perrotine. Three thin wooden blocks, engraved in relief, about three feet long, and from two to five inches broad, are successively brought to bear on three of the four faces of a prismatic roller of iron, round which the cloth is successively wound. Each block rests, on springs, which enable it to press with the delicacy of a skilful arm ; and each receives its peculiar-coloured paste from a woollen surface imbued by a mechanical brush in rapid alternation. In England a machine has been introduced in which three or more oblong blocks are laid side by side, and are imbued with different colours all at the same time, from a trough arranged for the purpose.