TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 641 



at its extent, and well-nigh confounded by the prospect before him. Nor were there 

 any signs that we had got to the high-water mark, for month after month chemists 

 and colour manufacturers were patenting new colours or new processes, in such 

 numbers that only a specialist of specialists could pretend to follow or appreciate 

 the work that was being done. After reviewing the progress which had been made 

 in the invention of printing colours of late years, the author said that in 1856 the 

 two most important colouring matters were indigo and madder. Neither of those 

 colours could be directly printed on calico. Indigo in the form of China blue was 

 printed on it, to be subsequently fixed by a process analogous to dyeing, but it was 

 not an important branch of the indigo styles. All attempts to obtain an extract 

 of madder fit for printing had failed, and it was not until about ten years after- 

 wards that an extract of madder came into the market, and for the first time the 

 printer was enabled to produce by direct application upon the cloth various colours 

 yielded by madder. The madder styles of 1856 were of great excellence, and, as 

 produced by the best houses, quite as good, or better, than pure alizarine styles 

 were now, not that alizarine could not be made to yield as good work as madder 

 did ; the present conditions of the trade with regard to price, however, were 

 unfavourable to the highest excellence in that class of prints. He pointed out that 

 if artificial alizarine had not come up there could not have been the e.xtensive 

 productions of many-coloured fast cretonne styles which had been the characteristic 

 of the trade for several years past. The introduction of this most important and 

 valuable of the modern colours had had the effect of cheapening the price of the 

 best kinds of calico prints. By best he meant those of the most durable colours 

 used for personal wear, and f o far it was a boon to the purchaser ; but how far it 

 had benefited the calico-printers was another question. It would appear that the 

 greater facility of producing passable colours had greatly increased the production. 

 The same works and machinery could with these and other modern colours turn 

 out from 60 to 70 per cent, more printed calico than could have been done in the 

 old madder-dyeing days. Increased production without a corresponding increase 

 in demand had, of course, led to a gradual lowering of prices, until profits were 

 cut down to a very low margin. He thought it might be held that the colour 

 mixing made easy by the introduction of modern colours had much to do with the 

 unremunerative condition of calico-printing. Comparing work done thirty-four 

 years ago with that which was produced now, he thought there had been no great 

 change in results as far as regarded the quality of the work. There had been 

 a lessening of the cost of colour and a lessening of the labour of the colour mixer, 

 and undoubtedly some colours now were brighter than then, but there was not 

 much in that. As to fastness of colour, except as regarded reds, there had been no 

 gain, perhaps even a loss. None of the modern colours, except alizarine and its 

 allied blue and orange derivatives, could be said to be fast colours upon cotton in 

 the sense that madder or indigo were fast, but, at the same time, many of them 

 were fast enough for the purpose to which tbey were applied. The idea that all 

 new dyes were bad dyes and that in the old times there were no loose colours was 

 not warrantable. The truth was that with the ancient dj'es as with the modern 

 dyes there was plenty of loose bad dyeing. If the wholesale condemnation of 

 modern colours were correct, these dyes must have fallen into disuse long ago. 

 AVhichever might be the true state of the case with regard to cotton, he considered 

 that the introduction of modern colom-s in the dyeing of fancy silk and woollen 

 styles had been a great advantage. 



7. Exhihition of a neiv class of Colouring Matters. Bij Dr. C. A. Martius. 



8. Tlie Chemistry of the Cotton Fibre. 

 By F. H. Bowman, D.Sc, F.B.S.E., F.C.S., F.L.S. 



After referring to the importance of the subject and the necessity for further 

 information in regard to the principles which imderlie our industrial processes it 

 1887. T T 



