Shell-lac. 



Uses in 

 Europe and 

 America. 



Trade. 



Else and Fall 

 of Lac-dye. 



Progress of the 

 Resin. 



Exports. 



THE LAC INSECT 



The reader who desires particulars regarding these various art utilisations 

 should consult the special Agricultural Ledger mentioned above, as also Indian 

 Art at Delhi, 1 903. I have gone into the above details of Indian methods and 

 experience from the belief that they throw some sidelight on the nature of lac. 

 The systems of work mentioned are mostly very ancient. Barbosa, Garcia de 

 Orta, Terry and other European travellers give such details regarding lac 

 turnery, for example, that there can be little doubt the art was as fully known 

 three or four hundred years ago as it is to-day. But it is singular that no mention 

 is made by any traveller of having seen lac factories in India, or even of the 

 manufacture of shell-lac, till the early decades of the nineteenth century. It is 

 not clear "when and how that name came, in fact, into use. Pomet (Hist. Drugs 

 (Engl. transl.), 1712, 202-4) describes the molton lac being (in Burma) spread out 

 on marble surfaces, but does not call the article thus produced shell-lac. That 

 name was, however, used by James Kerr in 1881 and by Vincent in his Appendix 

 to the translation of the Periplus (ed. 1800, 25), so that it had by then come into 

 general use. The production of lac in former times thus appears to have been a 

 village craft practised all over India, which was most likely not concentrated into 

 factories till the European demand arose. 



European and American Uses. The uses of lac in Europe and America are 

 similarly very varied. Perhaps its most important applications are in the manu- 

 facture of spirit varnishes (French polish) and in the supply of the chief material 

 of sealing-wax. Large quantities are employed as a stiffening material in hat- 

 making, as a cement, as an ingredient in lithographic ink ; and as modern demands 

 it may be mentioned that lac is largely employed in the manufacture of gramo- 

 phone records, as an insulating material in electric appliances, etc. Through 

 the last-mentioned utilisation a fresh impetus has been given to the traffic, which 

 perhaps largely accounts for the recent expansion of the exports from India. 



TRADE IN LAC. 



The first recorded exports of lac to Europe, as already stated, took 

 place about 1607, but for nearly two centuries the traffic was entirely a 

 Native commodity, as it had been still earlier (while in the hands of the 

 Arab traders). Milburn (I.e. 217) tells us that the exports from India 

 in shell-lac were in 1805, 2,377 cwt., valued at 12,978, and that in 

 1808 they stood at 239 cwt., valued at 1,243. The trade was thus not 

 well established, and the expansion had been slow, for even in 1839 the 

 total exports in " lac-resin " were only 7,226 cwt., and in 1840, 6,043 cwt., 

 and, correspondingly, in 1839 the " lac-dye " stood at 4,756 cwt., and in. 

 1840, 5,440 cwt. But in 1868-9 the shell-lac sent to Europe had reached 

 a valuation of just under 12 lakhs (80,000), and that of the lac-dye of 

 8 lakhs of rupees (53,300). Since then the trade in lac-dye has gradually 

 disappeared, while the exports of shell-lac have expanded to over two crores 

 of rupees (1,400,000 at present rate of exchange). This state of affairs- 

 is, perhaps, best exemplified by the following table : 



Exports of Lac-dye and of Shell-lac from India. 



Modern Demand 

 for Shell-lac. 



1064 



