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SOME  REMARKS  UPON  SHELLAC,  ETC. 
The  different  kinds  of  shellac  may  be  named  as  follows  : — 
Stick  Lac.  Seed  Lac. 
Shell  Lac.  Lump  Lac. 
Button  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  lac  dye  left  in  the  seed  lac  before  it  is  prepared,  as  will 
be  immediately  noticed.  The  five  kinds  first  enumerated  are  im- 
ported ;  the  last  is  prepared  in  this  country. 
Stick  and  seed  lac  require  little  notice.  The  former  is  the 
natural  production  of  the  insect  already  described,  and  the  latter 
is  the  remains  after  the  extraction  of  the  coloring  matter  to 
form  the  lac  dye.  The  small  granular  pieces  of  gum  resin  left 
are  collected  as  free  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  immedi- 
ately 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 
colored  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  coloring  matter 
employed. 
Button,  block,  garnet,  and  liver  lac,  are  all  produced  more  or 
less  carefully  from  diff"erent  qualities  of  seed  lac,  the  color  and 
appearance  depending  entirely  upon  the  districts  from  whence 
the  seed  lac  has  been  obtained,  and  the  completeness  of  the  re- 
moval 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  car- 
bonate of  potash,  through  which  a  stream  of  chlorine  is  then  to 
