VENETIAN SUMACH. 



517 



annual import for the last five years was 6,104 

 tons. The average price of the best is from £7 

 to £14 per ton. 



Vknetian Sumach (rhus cotinus), is a shrub 

 growing principally in Italy and the soutli of 

 France. Both the root and the stem, when 

 deprived of the bark and chipped, are employed 

 for dying a full higli yellow, approacliing to 

 orange, upon wool or cloth prepared with nitro- 

 muriate of tin. But the colour obtained in this 

 manner is extremely fugitive, neither is it so 

 bright as the yellow, which can be more cheaply 

 obtained from quercitron baric. Four pounds 

 of this cliipped wood affords no more colouring 

 matter tlian one pound of quercitron. Tliis 

 dyewood is seldom used alone; it is employed 

 merely as an accessary colour to heigliten 

 cochineal and other dyes, and to give them an 

 approach to a yellow tinge. 



Venetian sumach was long distinguished in 

 France by the name of fustet, and, with the 

 wood, the name somewhat altered into fustic, 

 was introduced into England. The wood of the 

 morns tinctoria was subsequently brought from 

 America, and likewise employed for dyeing 

 yellow; destitute of a name, the American wood 

 also acquired that of fustic, as being like it a 

 yellow dye-wood. A confusion liaving conse- 

 quently arisen to distinguish them, the wood of 

 the shnib was called young fustic, and that of 

 llie large American tree, which is always imported 

 in tlie form of large blocks or logs, old fustic. 

 Slany persons have in consequence been misled, 

 so far as to conclude that two very distinct dye- 

 ing drugs were tlie same, differing with each 

 other only in point of age. 



Tlie wood known in England by the name of 

 green ebony possesses a species of colouring 

 matter very similar to that of morus tinctoria, 

 and is sometimes employed in its stead in 

 dyeing. 



Arnatto. Bixa orellana ; Polyandria, mono- 

 ffynia, of Linnieus. This small tree is a native 



193. 



Arnatto. 



of South America. The Europeans who first 

 visited America found that the berries which it 



yields were used by some of the Indian tribes to 

 paint their bodies. Tlie brilliant and showy 

 colour soon attracted the attention of tlie settlers, 

 who not only applied it to their own uses, but 

 likewise converted it very speedily into an arti- 

 cle of commerce. The arnatto tree is also 

 extremely common in Jamaica and otlier parts 

 of the West Indies. It abounds in Java and 

 Sumatra, and is much valued by tlie natives of 

 those islands on account of its colouring matter, 

 which they skilfully extract. It seldom attains 

 to more than twelve feet in heiglit. The leaves 

 are of a deeper green on one side tlian on tlie 

 other, and are divided by fibres of a reddisli 

 brown colour ; tliey are four inches long, broad 

 at the base, and tend to a sliarp point. The 

 stem has likewise fibres, which in Jamaica are 

 converted into serviceable ropes. The tree pro- 

 duces oblong bristled pods, somewhat resembling 

 those of a chestnut. These are at first of a beau- 

 tiful rose-colour, but as they ripen change to a 

 dark brown, and bursting open display a splen- 

 did crimson farina or pulp, in which are con- 

 tained thirty or forty seeds, in shape similar to 

 raisin stones. As soon as they have arrived at 

 maturity, these pods are gathered, divested of 

 their husks, and bruised. Their pulpy sub- 

 stance, which seems to be the only part that 

 constitutes the dye, is then put into a cistern 

 with just enough water to cover it, and in this 

 situation it remains for seven or eight days, or 

 until the liquor begins to ferment ; sometimes, 

 indeed, weeks or even months elapse before this 

 effect is produced. It is then strongly agitated 

 with wooden paddles and beaters to promote the 

 separation of the pulp from the seeds ; this 

 operation is continued until these have no longer 

 any colouring matter adhering to them. The 

 turbid liquor is then passed through close cane 

 sieves, leaving the refuse seeds behind. The 

 mixture is now very thick, of a deep red colour, 

 and of an extremely unpleasant odour. On 

 being boiled the colouring matter is thrown up 

 to the surface in the form of scum, or otlierwise 

 the colour is allowed to subside ; in either case 

 the scum or the precipitate must be boiled in 

 coppers until reduced to a consistent paste. It 

 is then suffered to cool, and made up into cakes, 

 which are dried in the shade. The liquor from 

 which the colouring matter has been removed, is 

 preserved under banana leaves until it becomes 

 heated by fermentation ; it is then re-boiled, and 

 the scum which rises is taken off. It then 

 again undergoes similar treatment, until no more 

 colour remains to be extracted. Instead of this 

 tedious process, which occasions diseases by the 

 putrefaction induced, .and which at best affords 

 only a spoiled product, M. Leblond proposes 

 simply to wash the seeds of arnatto until entirely 

 deprived of their colour, which lies wholly in 

 the pulpy part, and to precipitate the colour by 



