312 DYEING AND CALICO PRINTING. 



It is to be regretted that the best printers of Belgium and Switzer- 

 land, like those of Great Britain and the Zollverein, have abstained 

 from exhibiting, and it is therefore impossible to form a correct , idea of 

 the progress of calico printing in those countries. 



It may be as well to state here, though there are no prints of native 

 production in the Indian Department worth notice, the Cotton Supply 

 Association has exhibited, through Mr. Cheetham, some fine specimens 

 of goods printed in England on Surat cotton ; and although the details 

 of the processes used are not sufficiently known for a close comparison 

 of these goods with similar ones printed on American cotton, still the 

 results are so good as to be highly satisfactory, and warrant the belief 

 that Surat cotton may be very extensively substituted for American. 



What has been already said will doubtless have led to the 

 anticipation that the printed goods exhibited in the French department 

 are, generally speaking, of a very high class, and justify the reputation 

 which the best printers of France have long since acquired, especially 

 in those fashionable styles known popularly by the name of haute 

 nouveaute. In this class of prints elegance of design, beauty of colour, 

 and delicacy of execution stand unrivalled by those of any other nation, 

 and they have applied the new tar colours with a perfection of skill 

 which leaves nothing to be desired. It will also be seen in the course 

 of this report that they have exhibited several original improvements. 



III. Pigment Printing. — This style of printing has been developed to 

 such an extent within a few years as to demand a slight historical 

 sketch of successive phases through which it has passed. Pigment 

 printing made but little progress for many years, owing to the insuffi- 

 cient variety of pigments, and the difficulty of finding a proper fixing 

 agent which would give the pigment the required consistency, and at 

 the same time cause it to adhere to the cloth. Artificial ultramarine 

 was the first pigment attempted to be printed, and in 1843 india-rubber 

 dissolved in naphtha was proposed as the fixing agent; but from the dan- 

 ger of fire, and other reasons, this was abandoned. In 1847, egg 

 albumen was introduced into this country for the same purpose, but 

 owing to the coarseness of the ultramarine, and its high price (about 8/. 

 per pound, which is now Is. 3d.), the progress of this mode of print- 

 ing was much retarded. In 1849, Mr. R T. Paterson, of Glasgow, 

 patented the use of caseine from milk, which he called lactarine, and 

 thereby promoted the use of ultramarine, buff, and stone pigments in 

 shawl printing. About the same period another fixing agent was intro- 

 duced, viz., albumen obtained from blood. The style of pigment print- 

 ing, however, received an extraordinary impetus in the spring of 1859, 

 wIkii the purple aniline of Mr. Perkin, and the French purple of Messrs. 

 Guinon, Manias, and Bonnet were introduced to the trade, and led to 

 the production of those splendid roauves and purples which astonished 

 the world by their beauty and brilliancy. These were obtained by 



