DYEING 165 



Eastern empire, where, however, it existed in certain imperial manufactories till the 

 eleventh century. 



Gage, Cole, Plumier, Keaumur, and Duhamel have severally made researches con- 

 cerning the colouring juices of shell-fish caught on various shores of the ocean, and 

 have succeeded in forming a purple dye, but they found it much inferior to that 

 furnished by other means. The juice of the buccinum is at first white ; it becomes 

 by exposure to air of a yellowish green bordering on blue ; it afterwards reddens, 

 and finally changes to a deep purple of considerable vivacity. These circumstances 

 coincide with the minute description of the manner of catching the purple-dye shell- 

 fish which we possess in the work of an eye-witness, Eudocia Macrembolitissa, daughter 

 of the Emperor Constantino VIII., who lived in the eleventh century. 



The beautiful purple dye, which is now extracted from guano, is probably closely 

 allied, both in property and appearance, to the Tyrian purple. 



Dyeing seems to have been little cultivated in ancient Greece. The people of 

 Athens generally wore woollen dresses of the natural colour : a circumstance forming 

 a peculiarity in that nation, composed of a people who were such lovers of art. 



The Eomans appear to have bestowed some care upon the art of dyeing. In the 

 games of the circus parties were distinguished by colours. Four of these are described 

 by Pliny : the green, the orange, the grey, and the white. The following ingredients 

 were used by their dyers : A crude native alum mixed with copperas, copperas itself, 

 blue vitriol, alkanet, lichen rocellus or archil, broom, madder, woad, nut-galls, the 

 seeds of pomegranate and of an Egyptian acacia. 



In Europe the progress of dyeing, as of all other arts, was completely stopped for 

 a considerable time by war and invasion, and did not revive till about the beginning, 

 of the thirteenth century, and then so rapidly did its progress extend in some 

 localities, that, towards the beginning of the fourteenth century, there were no less 

 than two hundred dyeing establishments in Florence. At the same time the Italians 

 and Venetians also prosecuted the art of dyeing to a large extent. 



The art of printing proved for dyeing, as well as for other arts, its great pioneer 

 and propagator. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Plictho's ' Art of Dyeing ' was 

 printed, which gave general instructions for dyeing all kinds of fabrics, and laid the 

 foundation for that improvement of this art, which soon after followed throughout 

 Germany, France, and England. 



In the East, the art of dyeing did not experience that decline which passed over all 

 the arts of Europe ; hence the beautiful dyes of India maintained their high charac- 

 ter : and, to this day these dyes are produced by processes differing little from those 

 practised in the days of Pliny. 1 



The discovery and opening of America to commercial enterprise formed an era in 

 the history of the art of dyeing, as from that country were introduced a variety of 

 new dye-drugs, such as logwood, brazilwood, quercitron, cochineal, annotta, &c., 

 which, with the discovery of the use of tin as a mordant about the same time, gave 

 the dyer a facility and power of producing such a variety of tints, and of such a depth, 

 durability, and lustre, that it is now difficult to conceive possible to have been pro- 

 duced in former times. 



About the same time was discovered the art of using indigo as a dye, which it is 

 believed the ancients only knew as a pigment. The introduction of this dye-drug 

 into this country met with strong opposition ; concerning which a writer in the 

 ' Penny Cyclopaedia ' says : 



4 Indigo, the innoxious and beautiful product of an interesting tribe of tropical 

 plants, which is adapted to form the most useful and substantial of all dyes, was 

 actually denounced as a dangerous drug, and forbidden to be used, by our Parliament 

 in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. An act was passed authorising searchers to burn 

 both it and logwood in every dye-house where they could be found. This act remained 

 in full force till the time of Charles II., that is, for a great part of a century. A 

 foreigner might have supposed that the legislators of England entertained such an 

 affection for their native woad, with which their naked sires used to dye their skins 

 in the old times, that they would allow no outlandish drug to come in competition 

 with it. A most instructive book might be written illustrative of the evils inflicted 

 upon arts, manufactures, and commerce, in consequence of the ignorance of the 

 1 gislature.' 



More recently another class of dye-drugs have been introduced, and have super- 

 seded some of those of the former century ; these are bichromate of potash, red and 

 yellow prussiate of potash, manganese, catechu, arsenic, &c. 



1 In India was discovered the mode of dyeing Turkey red, -which is the most durable dye known, 

 as well as the richest tint that can be produced on cotton. It was introduced into France and 

 England about the middle of last century, and is still earned on and practised with much perfection. 



