4 [March C, 



to colossal proportions. The interest attached to the suhject is suffi- 

 ciently evident by a glance at the periodical literature of the day. 

 The journals of applied chemistry teem with the descriptions of pro- 

 cesses for the production of the aniline- crimson, for which the names 

 fuchsine, magenta, and others more fanciful have been proposed. 

 Even the action of tetrachloride of carbon on aniline, little promising 

 as it appeared at first, has been used upon the large scale; and in- 

 teresting papers upon the industrial production of the colour by this 

 process have been published by M. Charles Dolfus Galline*, by 

 Messrs. Monnet et Duryf, and lastly by M. LauthJ, who have 

 proved that aniline-crimson, prepared upon the large scale by means 

 of tetrachloride of carbon, may be applied in dyeing with exactly the 

 same result as the colouring matter produced by other processes. It 

 is not the object of this Note to enter into a detailed account of the 

 development of this new industry, which has been admirably traced 

 by M. E. Kopp in a series of interesting articles published in the 

 ' Repertoire de Chimie Appliquee ; ' but I thought it right to quote 

 the above authorities in order to show that the basic colouring 

 matter obtained by me in 1858, while studying the action of tetra- 

 chloride of carbon upon aniline, is identical with the aniline-crimson 

 which is now by various processes manufactured upon an enormous 

 scale. 



A substance possessing such remarkable properties as aniline- 

 crimson, and accessible, moreover, as a commercial product, could 

 not fail to attract the attention of scientific inquirers. The subject 

 has been examined in succession by M. Guignet, M. Bechamp ||, M. 

 Wilm^f, Messrs. Persoz, De Luynes et Salvetat**, M. Schneider ff, 

 and more recently by M. Emile KoppJJ and M. Bolley. The 

 conclusions, however, at which these experimentalists have arrived 

 are far from concordant. I attribute this discrepancy in the results 

 obtained by such able observers to the extreme difficulty of procuring 

 the colouring matter in a state of purity, and to the circumstance 



* Repertoire de Chimie Appliquee, 1861, p. 11. f Ibid. p. 12. 



J Ibid. p. 416. Bull. Soc. Chim. Seance du 23 Dec. 1859. 



|| Annales de Chim. et de Phys. [3] tome lix. p. 396. 



fl Bull. Soc. Chim. Seance du 27 Juillet 1861. 

 ** Comptes Renclus, li. 538. ft Ibid - K- 108 ^ 



Jt Annales de Chim. et de Phys. tome xii. p. 222. 

 Dingler's Journal, clx. 57. 



