206 SOME REMARKS UPON SHELLAC. 



that the dye is used very largely and very extensively in dyeing woollen 

 goods. Struck with a perchloride of tin, it becomes a fine and very beauti- 

 ful scarlet. This preparation is well known, being made by boiling tin in 

 hydrochloric and nitric acids, and from its general use for the above purpose 

 has commercially received the name of lac spirits. 



The great commercial importance of this article may be better understood 

 when I mention that from Calcutta alone the annual export is supposed to 

 be very nearly four millions of pounds' weight. 



The different kinds of shellac may be named as follows : — Stick lac, shell 

 lac, button lac, seed lac, lump lac, white lac. Various shades of some of 

 the above receive the names of garnet, liver, and orange. These are 

 dependent upon the quantity of natural dye left in the seed lac before 

 it is prepared, as will be immediately noticed. The five kinds first 

 enumerated are imported ; the last is prepared in this country. 



Stick and seed lac require little notice. The former is the natural produc- 

 tion of the insect already described, and the latter is the remains after the 

 extraction of the colouring matter to form the lac dye. The small granular 

 pieces of gum resin left are collected as free from extraneous matter as 

 possible, and dried in the sun, Button and shell lac are the two descriptions 

 most employed in this country, and are both prepared from the seed lac as 

 follows : — The grains are placed in long sausage-shaped bags and heated 

 before fires, until the liquid resin exuding slowly through the interstices of 

 the cloth is scraped off, and immediately transferred to the highly polished 

 surface of earthenware cylinders, heated by being filled with hot water. 

 The melted lac is spread over these cylinders by men, women, or boys, who 

 use for this purpose a palm leaf, and thus produce cakes about twenty 

 inches square. It is then, when cool, thrown into chests, and by the 

 transit becomes much broken ere it arrives in this country. The finest 

 bright orange shellac is believed to be coloured artificially, and I think 

 correctly, having had occasion more than once to reject samples from their 

 peculiar light yellow shade. Orpiment is thought to be the colouring 

 matter employed. 



Button, block, garnet, and liver lac, are all produced more or less care- 

 fully from different qualities of seed lac, the colour and appearance depend- 

 ing entirely upon the districts from whence the seed lac has been obtained, 

 and the completeness of the removal of the lac dye. Nothing more need 

 be added as to the preparation of these lacs — and, indeed, I believe no 

 further particulars are known. White lac is prepared in this country from 

 ordinary shellac, by being first boiled in a solution of carbonate of potash, 

 through which a stream of chlorine is then to be passed. Hydrochloric 

 acid is added, and last of all red lead. The white pulpy mass is then 

 collected, washed, and pulled into sticks of different lengths. This descrip- 

 tion of lac is not much employed, being chiefly consumed in manufacturing 

 the different light shades of fancy sealing-wax. Before proceeding to the 

 closing part of these remarks — viz., the present commercial relations of this 

 article— it may be stated that good shellac should contain from 84 to 90 per 



