One 1 8th-century recipe for dyeing 20 yards of fulled cloth an ash color 

 called for 3 or 4 tabiespoonfuls of the "flour of Nut-galls" to a piece of 

 alum about the size of "a quail's egg" and a teaspoonful of copperas. 

 Such recipes, typical of those employing galls around 1800, suggest how 

 unscientifically some American dyers approached their craft, even when 

 they urged their colleagues to consider dyeing as a scientific application of 

 chemical principles. 



Bronson, recognizing the plight of the small-scale dyer in having to 

 purchase galls at high prices, suggested that, if used in sufficient quantity, 

 sumach could be used as a substitute. Other dyers suggested substituting 

 catechu, myrobalans (the fruit of trees of the East Indian Terminalia 

 species), valonia nuts, and certain tree barks such as alder, chestnut, and 

 oak. All of these substances contained varying percentages of tannin, and 

 if used alone or in combination with galls could save the dyer considerable 

 amounts of money. 



Galls were used until the early part of the 20th century. Tannic acid 

 today still has applications in certain dye processes, as well as in medicine. 



SOOT 



Also known as Suie (Fr.); das Sott (Ger.) 



Soot certainly could not be considered among the most important 

 coloring agents used by early dyers. Its use does, however, illustrate the 

 ingenuity of our ancestors in finding dye materials among the most un- 

 likely substances. 



This material, consisting chiefly of carbon, was used by Indians to tattoo 

 designs on their bodies; it was also employed in textile dyes to sadden 

 yellows, and in fawn and black tones. Thomas Cooper, the chemist who 

 recommended the use of soot, gave this rather extensive explanation of 

 its use: 



Soot is so far from being a despicable ingredient in dyeing, that when it balls well in 

 handling it, you may be sure it will give out an useful colour. The colours of tapestry 

 borders cannot receive their golden tint without soot. The colour of ozier (willow) and 

 wicker baskets require soot, so do all the landscape colours in tapestry. 



Although the colour produced from soot is very solid, it must never be used in con- 

 junction with the mineral acids, which degrade it. 



In a boiler of thirty buckets of water, put from ten to twenty buckets of soot. Boil it 

 for two hours, till the soot no longer rises up on boiling: fill the boiler with water, and 

 let it remain for an hour, that the soot may subside. In this liquor pass the yellow cloth 

 which has been already dyed with three or four pounds of weld to one pound of cloth. 

 The colour is browned in proportion as the cloth is permitted to remain in the liquor ; 

 which may be from half an hour to two hours, at a pretty high degree of heat, not boiling . . . 



(The use of soot is too little known in England and this country ; but it is of more use 

 as it seems to me in drabs, olives, and browns, than in yellows) (1815, pp. 170-171). 



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