i236 MANUFACTURES OF RUSSIA. 



this class, such as turmeric, orsellic, luteolin, kermes seed et cetera, to the amount of 

 100.000 to 200,000 ponds, and valued at eight to ten million roubles. 



In the forties and sixties the cultivation and export of madder roots from the 

 Caucasus, and especially from Derbent. formed one of the Russian industries, but 

 since the introduction of the artificial alizarine it has quite declined. Endeavours have 

 been made to cultivate indigo wood, and other dye-producing plants in the v^^arm 

 Asiatic districts of Russia, but they were few and carried on with insufficient per- 

 severance. This import ti-ade gives occupation to many works for the preparation of 

 the extracts of the wood dyes used in the arts. 



As regards the artificial hydrocarbon dyes, and notably alizarine and those- 

 derived from coal tar. although they are used in considerable quantities in Russi;i 

 as elsewhere, still their preparation has only been taken up as an experiment, 

 because the insufficient development of the coal tar distillation and of the manufac- 

 ture of many of the chemicals required, does not yet permit the young Russian in- 

 dustr}^ to enter into competition with the German and French producers of these 

 artificial pigments. Almost nil that has been done in this direction consists in the 

 working up of the nearly finished article, such as anthracene or alizarine brought 

 from abroad, into the form in which it is used by the dyer, for example of alizarine 

 into a paste containing 10 to 20 per cent. A more serious progress in this industry 

 can only be looked for when the treatment of coal tar and naphtha refuse itself 

 is better established in Russia. When the naphtha refuse is subjected to dry distilla- 

 tion for the preparation of lighting gas, a tar is obtained containing as large an 

 amount of benzole and anthracene as coal tar, as is seen from the researches of 

 Letnyi, Schmidt and others. But the treatment of this tar is not yet on a large 

 .scale, although the manufacture of lighting gas from the refuse is widely spread 

 over Russia. The import of artificial coal tar pigments proceeds chiefly from Ger- 

 many, and amounts yearly, as in 1890 and 1891, to 50,000 ponds, value 3,000,000 

 roubles. The greater part of this amount goes to the so-called finishing works, and 

 therefore their turnover is estimated at about 2,500,000 million roubles, including 

 sulpho-salts of the naphthalin series imported for the preparation of the azodyes, 

 which are now much used in dyeing. Some of these factories in Moscow are branch 

 establishments of German tvorks. In Poland there is an independent works for the 

 preparation of these pigments. Thus the manufacture of neither the hydrocarbon 

 organic dyes, nor the natural or artificial dyes, is yet firmly established in Russia. 



The manufacture of the mineral pigments is more developed, and in Russia 

 they are now prepared both from natural coloured clays, and from other minerals 

 such as chalk, baryta, hematite, lapis lazuli, et cetera, and especially from iron; for 

 instance, cokothar from pyrites and vitriol; copper, for example, the green roofing 

 paint from carbonate of copper, and from verdigris; lead, for instance, white lead 

 and chrome yellow and zinc compounds, as zinc white. Ochres and other similar 

 pigments and ferruginous clays are met with in abundance in many parts of Russia 

 and they are now used at many works for the preparation of paints for walls, 

 floors, and the like. The manufacture of white lead has made particular progress in 

 the interior of Russia, where according to official data as much as 250,000 pouds to 

 the value of 850,000 roubles are prepared annually. About 120,000 pouds of white 

 lead are brought from abroad. Both the Russian and the imported white lead con- 



