6 Oriental Procefsfor dyeing Red. 



fpindle, which at the top is inferted in a crofs beam, and at 

 the bottom refts in a focket. The fpindle is turned by 

 means of an oblique beam palling through it, to the fhorter 

 end of which is fattened a mill-ftone moveable like a wheel 

 round its axis, and a horfe is yoked to the other end, which 

 reaches beyond the brick-work. The madder, which has 

 been well dried in the fun, muft be lirft coarfely broken in 

 the groove under the mill-ftone, and afterwards ground until 

 it become a very line powder. 



In the fame mills are ground the round leaves of the 

 fumach (rbus cotinus), which gives a yellow dye, and which 

 is brought to Aftracan from the neighbourhood of Terek, 

 where it grows wild under the Tartarian name balga, or, as 

 the Armenians exprefs it, beige, and is employed fometimes 

 in dyeing with madder, fometimes in dyeing dark yellow, and 

 fometimes in the preparation of Turkey leather. Thefe 

 leaves, when whole, have a pleafant green colour; but when 

 bruifed they exhibit that yellow dye with which they are im- 

 pregnated, and which is produced alfo by the woody part 

 and branches : but as thefe are not fo eafily cleaned, they are 

 carefully fcparated from the ground dull of the leaves by 

 means of a neve. A pud or forty pounds of thefe leaves, in 

 the ftate in which they are brought to Aftracan, cofts live, 

 fix, and often feven and a half rubles. 



The dye-ftufls neceflary for dyeing red, befides the two 

 already mentioned, are gall-nuts, alum, an indigenous bad 

 kind of foda, called kalakar, which is burnt in the wilds of 

 Killar and Aftracan, from the falfuginous or foda plants, that 

 grow there in abundance, and laftly fith-oil. The latter is 

 boiled in the filheries on the lower part of the Volga, and en 

 the Cafpian fea, from the entrails of the fturgeon and other 

 large fifli, but chiefly from thofe of the perca lucioperca, the 

 Iliad, and other kinds little efteemed in thofe parts. The 

 proof of its being proper for dyeing; is, that when mixed with 

 a lixivium of foda it muft immediately aflume a milky ap- 

 pearance. Shou'.d that not be the cafe, it cannot be ufed by 



the 



