412 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1950 



Cumberland at 1 shilling 1 penny per pound in 1854, while the manu- 

 facturers of woolens and silks paid 10 shillings a hundredweight for 

 it with a profit of 8 pence to the middleman. The manufacture of 

 cudbear flourished about Leith and Glasgow because Ochrolechia 

 {Lecanora) tartarea^ from which it was prepared, first came from the 

 western Highlands and islands around Scotland and was a chief source 

 of revenue to the "poor Highlanders" whose other source of income, 

 gathering seaweed for potash salts, ceased. The value of this lichen 

 to Scotland was said to have averaged £10 per ton, though other 

 species, as ParmeUa perlata Ach., sold at from £190 to £225 per ton in 

 1851. The manufacture of cudbear moved into the hands of English 

 orchil makers who imported their materials from Norway and Sweden 

 for the London market. From 1785 to 1788, 24,000 kilos were shipped 

 from Fleklierjored, Norway (9). 



For home use (see p. 419) the cotters would mix the crotals treated 

 with graith into a coarse paste rolled into small balls or cakes with 

 lime or burnt shells. These were wrapped in dock leaves and hung 

 up to dry over peat fires, which accounts for the peat-smoke odor 

 peculiar to homespun Harris tweed. In this fashion the dye 

 would keep for a year or more; when needed, it was redissolved in 

 warm water. 



The colors of cudbear and of orchil are so similar as to be com- 

 mercially indistinguishable. They dye best in a neutral bath produc- 

 ing a bluish-red or dull magenta shade but are frequently applied with 

 sulfuric acid in conjunction with other vegetable dyes and coal-tar 

 dyes, especially magenta. Addition of indigo and the dye of lung- 

 wort gives a permanent black dye Roccella tinctoria was used as the 

 first dye for blue British broadcloth, having a purple tint against 

 light. A variety of colors and shades can be obtained by the use of 

 different species of lichens, varying the treatment with oil of vitriol, 

 logwood, or chemicals. Thus acids produce yellows, alkalies produce 

 blues, lead acetate gives a crimson precipitate, calcium chloride a red 

 precipitate, stannous chloride a red then yellow, while alum is more 

 generally used by country folk for reds. The color of cudbear is said 

 to possess great beauty and luster at first, but quickly fades and 

 should never be employed unless for the purpose of giving body and 

 luster to blue dyes, as indigo ("bottoming") , or as a ground for madder 

 reds (12). In deep shades the color has an intensity and body that 

 cannot be equaled by coal-tar substances, and though they are not fast 

 to light, milling, or scouring, t.hey do resist soaping but become bluer. 

 Silks, and occasionally linens, have the dye applied in a soap solution 

 with or without acetic acid. 



Cudbear and orchil have both been used in Holland for the manu- 

 facture of litmus, known to the French as tournesol. After the dye 



