38G VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



equal weights, quercitron yields four times as much 

 colouring matter as fustic, and their relative prices 

 render the bark a cheaper dyeing material. This wood 

 is, however, found more efficient in some mixtures of 

 colours. It is much employed in combination with 

 indigo, to dye what is called Saxon green. With an 

 iron basis it dyes drab, and with an aluminous basis 

 olive colours. This colouring matter is never applied 

 to calico-printing, since the English dyers have 

 hitherto been unsuccessful in producing from it any 

 thing like an equal degree of clearness or brightness 

 with that of weld or quercitron. Chaptal gives a 

 simple method of obtaining a more lively colour from 

 fustic. It consists in merely boiling in a decoction 

 of this wood shavings of skin, glue, or other animal 

 matter. The stuffs dyed in this preparation will, 

 according to that eminent chemist, take a beautiful 

 and most intense colour*. 



Fustic is imported into England in large quanti- 

 ties, chiefly from Cuba and Jamaica. That from 

 Cuba is very superior, and usually obtains fifty per 

 cent, higher price than that from Jamaica. It is ad- 

 mitted into England at the nominal duty of three 

 shillings per ton from British possessions, and of four 

 shillings and sixpence from other countries. The 

 average annual import for the last five years was 

 6,104 tons. The average price of the best is from 

 7 to U per ton. 



Venetian sumach, orRhuscotinus,is a shrub grow- 

 ing principally in Italy and the south of France. 

 Both the root and the stem, when deprived of the 

 bark and chipped, are employed for dyeing a full high 

 yellow, approaching to orange, upon wool or cloth 

 prepared with nitro-muriate of tin. But the colour 

 obtained in this mariner is extremely fugitive, neither 

 * Mem, de 1'Institut, torn, i, 



