[7] PRESEEVATION OF NETS AND SAILS. 301 



Other j^laces where the people are familiar with a true process of dye- 

 ing, dependent upon the use of alkalies in conjunction with decoctions 

 of astringent barks. As will be seen directly, I have discovered one 

 locality where the last-named system is said to be applied to the color- 

 ing of sails and nets. 



After having been for forty years accustomed to the sight of tanned 

 sails, and familiar with the sailor's belief that they are simply tanned 

 as leather is, but without ever having been thrown into intimate con- 

 tact with people who use tanned sails, I had the curiosity in the summer 

 of 1882 to ask a very intelligent fisherman on the New Brunswick coast 

 how his comrades colored theii' sails, and was not a little surprised on 

 being told of processes which, when chemically considered, mark a dis- 

 tinct advance on the traditional system of simple soaking in tan liquor. 

 The New Brunswicker told me that his people boil the bark of spruce 

 or fir trees in water for many hours, and finally decant the cooled liquor 

 into a tub, where it is mixed with soft soap or with saleratus, and the 

 sail (either hemp or cotton) is i^ut to soak in the mixture for a couple 

 of days. He maintained that sails thus tanned last two years longer 

 than those not tanned, while for nets the process is deemed to be well- 

 nigh indispensable. On my asking whether they didn't use oil with 

 the saleratus, he answered that they did ; and it was this reference 

 to the use of oil and alkali which excited my interest in the sub- 

 ject, »and led me to search for testimony which should corroborate his 

 statement. It is evident from what has gone before, that in so far 

 as relates to the use of alkalies with the tan liquor, the statements 

 of the New Brunswick fisherman are fully supported. I have found 

 evidence that both "lye" and soft soap are familiarly used as ad- 

 juncts to dyeing with barks, and it is well known that the conjoined 

 use of tannin and alkali is an approved mode of operating which has 

 long been habitual, in one form or another, in dye-houses. I have been 

 assured, moreover, that soft soap is used in some Nova Scotian house- 

 holds in dyeing wool with cudbear, " to set the color and change its 

 shade," which goes to show a i)ractical familiarity with the use of this 

 agent in coloring processes. 



It should be explicitly said, perhaps, that I have not the least doubt 

 that my informant was a thoroughly trustworthj^ person. I fully accept 

 his statements as to the use of saleratus and soap ; though of course he 

 may have failed, and probably did fail, to correctly state certain details 

 of the process as to ageing, dipping, and drying ; but it will be noticed 

 that in our conversation the word " oil " was first suggested by myself, 

 and there is unquestionably a certain risk that we may have misunder- 

 stood one another in respect to this particular item. If oil is really used, 

 as he said it was, in the process of coloring sails, the fact is one of no 

 little interest in its archaeological bearings; it would be an important 

 contribution to the history of chemical technology, for, considered 

 merely as a method of dyeing, the process would then be essentially 



