August, 1009.] 



ill 



Dyes and Tans. 



the highlands of British East Africa 

 than on the Nilgiris ; though a tendency 

 to branch from the roots has already- 

 been remarked by Mr. Battiscombe, 

 and young wattles in plantations near 

 Nairobi sometimes die off without any 

 ji8.fi'! enable reason. At Messrs. Pavre 

 and Felix's plantations the Black Wattle 

 looks well. It is still, however, quite 

 young. I saw there none of the ordinary 

 mollis variety. It is all var normalis, 

 with a little leichardtii and dealbata. 

 In the Railway plantation at Nairobi the 

 Black Wattle {mollis var) does not look 

 well, but the situation is, unfavourable. 

 At the French Mission near Nairobi 

 there is a fiue avenue of quite healthy 

 Wattles : this is a var mollis. At Nakuru 

 I saw some healthy-looking Black 

 Wattle {mollis) which is stated to be 

 now over four years old. 



Black Wattle has been planted for 

 five years in British Bast Africa, and the 

 growth, up to the present, is generally 

 good. The different varieties are grow- 

 ing so far with equal vigour. It is 

 stated that a sample of bark from the 

 oldest trees at Nakuru has lately been 

 sent to Natal and given a good analysis 

 of bark. 



DYE STUFFS. 



(From the Report on the Work oj the 

 Imperial Institute, 1906-1907, No. 584.) 



Samples 

 reported on 

 during J906. 



No. 



Samples 

 reported on 

 during 1907. 



No. 



Samples 

 awaiting 

 investigation 

 at the end of 

 1907. 



No. 



Lagos 



1 



Sierra Leone 



1 



Nil 





Khodesia . . 



2 



Rhodesia 



1 











Sudan 



2 











Seychelles 



4 











India 



i 











Miscellaneous 



3 







Total . 



3 



Total 



15 





Nil 



Natural dye stuffs are now of little or 

 no economic importance, and with the 

 exception of indigo and a few of the 

 yellow dyewoods and logwood, they 



have been almost entirely supplanted in 

 European dyehouses by synthetic dyes 

 of chemical origin. 



1906. — The samples received in 1906 con- 

 sisted of annatto seeds from Lagos and 

 native-made indigos from Khodesia. 

 Annatto is still used to a considerable 

 extent in colouring butter and marga- 

 rine. The Lagos sample was of good 

 quality. The Rhodesian indigos con- 

 tained only 3*7 to 18*5 per cent, of real 

 indigo, and were of no value for export 

 purposes. 



1907. — The "Gara" plant is used as a 

 blue dye stuff in West Africa. It con- 

 tains indigotin identical with that 

 present in the various species of Indigo- 

 fera used as sources of indigo in India, 

 Java and elsewhere. 



The Sudan samples were of the red 

 dye "Sikhtiyan," derived from a species 

 of "dura," the stems of which secrete 

 the red colouring matter. The latter 

 was shown to be a substantive red dye 

 of the type presenc in red sandalwood. 



The Seychelles samples were " orchella 

 weeds," for which there is still some 

 slight demand as a dye. Three of these 

 samples were of good quality and equal 

 to the weed now exported from Ceylon 

 and Portuguese East Africa. 



Of the three Indian dye stuffs Onos- 

 mea echioides contained a red dye like 

 that present in alkanet root ; Hibiscus 

 Sabdariffa, two yellow colouring mat- 

 ters, one of which is of the quercetin 

 type of yellow dye ; and Thespesia 

 Lampas, the yellow colouring matter 

 quercetin. In Baccaurea sapida no evi- 

 dence of the possession of tinctorial pro- 

 perties could be obtained. 



During 1907 a memorandum describing 

 the cultivation of annatto and the pre- 

 paration of the seed and dye for the 

 market was prepared for the Govern- 

 ment of Ceylon. 



The miscellaneous dye stuffs received 

 were mainly from commercial firms in 

 this country, and included camwood 

 and several lichens of the orchella and 

 other type. 



FIBRES. 



NEW FIBRES FOR PAPER.-IV. 



By William Raitt. 

 Factors other than Cellulose. 



The modern division of paper-making 

 into(l) pulp manufacture, and (2) paper 

 manufacture proper, has greatly extend- 



ed the area from which it is possible to 

 draw supplies of raw material, by 

 eliminating freight cost on the waste : 

 whereas formerly the paper-maker bad 

 to import from 2 to 3 tons of material to 

 produce a ton of paper, he now imports 

 the pure cellulose from the pulp maker, 

 from which he can produce 90 to 95 % 

 of paper. As a matter of trade con- 



