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296 Notices respecting New Books. 
specific gravities, and is accompanied with drawings of the dif- 
ferent instruments which are usually employed for that purpose. 
Essay IV. is on Catico-Printiné. This essay commences with 
an historical account of the various modes of staining and orna- 
menting linen garments from the earliest ages; describes some 
of the processes of calico-printing in India; and then the different 
methods which are pursued by the calico-printers of Great Britain 
and Ireland in the present day. The managements are however 
so various, and the processes so diversified, that an attempt to 
detail them here would be incompatible with our circumscribed 
limits. A few extracts must therefore suffice from this essay. 
What Mr. Parkes observes respecting the use of the dung of the 
cow may be interesting to our readers, as it is new and curious. 
*¢ When the pieces of calico have been properly stoved, they are 
passed,” he says, “ through water at various temperatures, with 
a little cow-dung mixed in it. The intention of the dung is to 
absorb and remove that portion of the mordant which is not ae- 
tually combined with the cloth, and which otherwise might stain 
the white or unprinted parts. 
“* | suspect,’’ continues he, “ the dung of the cow is servicea- 
ble in another way besides that of cleansing *, though the printer 
may not be aware of the nature of its operation, It is ac- 
knowledged that madder, cochineal, and some other dyes, pro- 
duce much better colours on woollen than on cotton cloths, 
owing to the former being of animal, and the latter of vegetable 
origin. I presume, therefore, that the dung imparts an animal 
matter f¢ to the fibres of the cotton, and that this animal matter 
acts as an additional mordant, and thus more powerfully attracts 
the colouring particles of the dye, than the mordants alone would 
be capable of doing. If a piece of calico, prepared with acetate 
of alumine, be divided into two parts, and the superfluous mor- 
dant removed from one of them by cow-dung and water, and 
from the other by water only, though both fluids were at the same 
temperature, it will be found, on passing the two portions through 
a decoction of weld or quercitron bark, that the yellow will be 
mitt more intense and bright in that which had been submitted 
to the action of the cow- dung.” 
The account of the advantages of cylinder printing is thus given 
by Mr. Parkes :—** These machines,” says he, ‘* have not only 
the excellence of printing more correctly than can possibly be 
done by means of the block, but the saving of time and labour 
which they afford is great indeed. A piece of calico which would 
* © To clean calicoes by immersion ina dung-vessel, may appear to be a 
strange phrase; but as this is the technical language or the trade, no uther 
could” be employed with propriety. 
+ Berthollet, who analysed the dung of the cow, found in it a substance 
partaking of the nature of bile. 
take 
