KDouiledge & SeleDtifie fleuis 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF SCIRNCR. 



Conducted by MAJOR B. BADEN-POWELL and E. S. GREW, M.A. 



Vol. I, No. lo. [new series] NOVEMBER, 1904. 



r Entered at -i 

 LStalioners' Hall.J 



sixpp:nce. 



CONTENTS. See Page IX. 



Indigo. 



Hv I)K F. MOLI.WO I'l'UKl.V. 



On"e of the oldest and most valuable of colouring 

 matters is indigo. Its properties and use were known 

 in India and Kgypt many years before the christian 

 era. It is described by Pliny, who says it was used 

 as a paint, and from what he savs it would appear 

 that the merchants of his time were not very much 

 better than some in our own da\s, l)ec;iuse the iiidiijo 



Fig. I.— Indijjofera tinctoria. 



was often adulterated with chalk or the excrements of 

 pigeons, and Pliny gives tests by which tiie pure pro- 

 duct might be known. It was not until the i6th 

 century that indigo \\;is introduced into luu'ope. Wiicn 

 it was first introduced, however, the sellers of indigo 

 encountered great opposition, and it was not until con- 

 siderably later that its use became :if all general. 



It w;is the cultivators of wo;id who opposed its iiitio- 

 duction so violently ; they contended that the dye w.as 

 fugitive, an<l was also a pernicious ;md corrosive 

 |)oison. .So !^re:it \\;is their iiilliiciK-c .ind opposilicin 



that Henry IV. of France issued an edict in which it 

 was made a capital offence to use or sell this [M'rnicious 

 drug, or dexil's food, as it w;is called. There was also 

 a statute in I'^ngland which prohibited the use of 

 indigo, and to this day that statute has, I believe, ne\'er 

 been repealed. The interesting point about the opposi- 

 tion of the woad cultivators is that uoad itself is a 

 variety of indigo, .and the blue dye with which the 

 ancient Britons anointed their skin, in pla<'e of w.irmer 

 clothing, was, in fact, indigo blue. 



The indigo plant, /i/di go/era tinctona, is shown in 

 I'"ig. I, the woad plant, Uaii% linctona, in Fig. 2. As 

 ;i matter of fact, woad is, to ;i certain extent, still 

 grown in Lincolnshire and in the south of France and 



