Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Practical Handbook of Dyeing and Calico-Printing
The earliest important event in the history of dyeing was the discovery of the effects of bases or mordants, and particularly that of alum in fixing adjeétive colouring matters. When or where this discovery was first made cannot be ascertained; there is, however, good reason to believe that alum and probably iron salts (which are the principal bases of modern calico printing) were employed by the Egyptians in producing those effeéts which are described by Pliny, lib. 42 because they resemble Others which calico printers now obtain by these means, and which at this time they cannot obtain by any other, even with all the knowledge since acquired; and it has been proved that the Egyptians borrowed this art from Hindostan, where it appears to have subsisted for more than 2000 years, probably with very little if any variation or improvement during that long space of time; and if we may judge of the means formerly employed in Hindostan for dyeing or staining calicos by those which were found to be in use for that purpose when the nations of Europe first went thither by the Cape of Good Hope, we may safely conclude that solutions of alum and Of iron must have been the mordants employed in fixing the adjeétive colours.-bancroft, On Permanent Colours.
Very little is now known as to the proficiency of the ancient inhabitants of India in the arts of dyeing and weaving, but there is evidence to prove that the ancient nations who dwelt in that portion of Asia just alluded to, and also the ancient inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, enjoyed an advanced degree of civilisation, and were by no means wanting in skill in applying colours to woven tissues. Notwithstanding the aesthetical progress in Civilisation made by the Greeks, they appear to have advanced but little in the art of colouring woven fabrics, and were in this respeét greatly behind the ancient Romans.
No records remain regarding the operations carried out and processes invented by the latter, but it is certain that they were acquainted with the use of such substances as madder, woad, nutgalls, and alkanet root, and with the application of blue and green vitriol, alum, and even some salts of lead. According to Dioscorides and Pliny, who lived in the Ist century, indigo was known in Europe, and although scarce, was regularly imported ftom India, whence its name is derived. The natives precipitated and colleéted in a dry solid form the colouring matter of indigo, and, what must have been a much greater difficulty, they afterwards discovered the means of dissolving it and rendering it capable of being permanently fixed upon the substances intended to be stained or dyed with it an effect which the Greeks and Romans do not appear to have ever produced, though they knew how to powder and apply indigo as a paint.
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