XII.-MEMORANDA OF METHODS EMPLOYED BY FISHERMEN FOR 

 "BARKING" AND IN OTHER WAYS PRESERVING NETS AND 

 SAILS. 



By F. H. Stoker. 



Seafarers are familiar with tlie fact that upon several foggy coasts, 

 notably those of Scotland and of the islands north of it, as well as the 

 coasts of Cornwall, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, 

 the fishermen habitually tan or " bark," as the saying is, the sails of 

 their boats, and their nets also, in order to protect them from rot and 

 mildew. That is to say, they are accustomed to stain the sails a dingy 

 reddish brown color by means of materials containing tannin, such as 

 are employed in the ordinary process of tanning leather. 



The process is manifestly an old one, and references to it may be found 

 very early in the works relating to technology. But the methods em- 

 ployed seem to be to the last degree empirical in most localities, and the 

 subject appears never to have received proper attention either from 

 professional dyers or from scientific men. It is regrettable that the 

 systematic works on dyeing, occupied as they have been with the prac- 

 tical and aesthetic side of the art, have hitherto paid little heed to the 

 rough domestic processes which are of special historic interest. It is 

 high time that these rough and often imperfect processes should be re- 

 corded and studied, both from the scientific and archaeological points 

 of view. 



In seeking for what I might find printed concerning the tanning of 

 sails I have come across several items which seem to be worthy of pub- 

 lication, as bearing upon the early history of the art of dyeing. I am 

 the more especially impelled to print these notes, since no chemist, in so 

 far as I am aware, has ever seriously considered the methods of coloring 

 that are employed by the fishermen. Indeed, these processes have sel- 

 dom been alluded to by chemists of late years. The common notion of 

 deep-water sailors that the canvas to be stained is simply soaked in 

 tan-pits, as hides are in the process of making leather, seems at first 

 sight hardly probable in view of the depth of the color imparted to the 

 sails in some localities, and of the well-known difficulty of dyeing 

 strong, fast colors upon either lioen or cotton except with the aid of 

 mordants. Nevertheless, it appears that the sailors are very nearly 

 right in their supposition, and that simple dipping of the sails in this 

 sense, or, rather, boiling them in tan liquor, is a very general practice. 

 Most of the references which I have found in books relate to it. -Thus, 

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