SECTION IV. 



DYES A^"D COLOEIXa STTTPPS, AND TA^'NIXG 

 SUBSTANCES. 



Of the several classes of materials collected at the Industrial 

 Exhibition in Hyde Park, in 1851,few possessed so much importance 

 in the eyes of the textile and leather manufacturer and chemist as 

 the different products used in the arts and manufactures for color= 

 ing and tanning purposes. These were in a great measure lost 

 sight of by the public at large, being scattered about in small 

 quantities in a great number of directions; and, from the minute 

 samples shoTm, were in many instances oyerlocked altogether. 

 Besides furnishing some norel and general statistical facts, which 

 may prove interesting, I propose also in this section to draw at- 

 tention more prominently to some of these products, which are 

 at present little knovm or appreciated. 



Coloring substances for staining and dyeing are obtained indif- 

 ferently from the animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms, but 

 it is of the last alone that I shall have to speak. The importance 

 of a more careful consideration of this subject will be admitted, 

 if we consider how much the prosperity and extent of our cotton, 

 silk, woollen, and leather manufactures depends on a liberal and 

 cheap supply of dyes and tannin, to give beauty and color to the 

 fabrics, and substance and utilitj' to the skins. Even oil colors, for 

 painters' purposes, which do not come within the scope of my re- 

 marks, form an item in our yearly exports of the value of £250,000, 

 and when we calculate the large amount of cotton, silk and wool 

 worked up, most of which requires various coloring agents, gums, 

 starches, and mordants ; — that nearly 30,000 tons of hides are 

 annually imported, exclusive of those obtained from our now 

 slaughter-houses, besides goat, seal, and other skins — and that the 

 exports of our various manufactures of cotton, linen, silk, wool and 

 leather in 1852, setting aside our home consumption, amounted to 

 nearly fifty millions sterling, we shall be able to form a better 

 estimate of the importance of the various subjects we are about 

 to notice. 



G-reat Britain does not pay less than £600^000 annually for 



