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To carry the colour into the body of the cloth
Make the moistened cloth pass through between two rollers placed within and at the bottom of the dye-vat; so that the web, passing from one windlass through the dye-vat, and being strongly compressed by the rollers in its passage to another windlass, all the remaining water is driven out, and is re-placed by the colouring liquid, so as to receive colour into its very centre. The winding should be continued backwards and forwards from one windlass to the other, and through the rollinging-press, till the dye is of sufficient intensity.
To dye silks red, crimson, &c.
Silk is usually dyed red with cochineal, or carthamus, and sometimes with Brazil-wood. Kermes does not answer for silk; madder is scarcely ever used for that purpose, because it does not yield a colour bright enough. Archil is employed to give silk a bloom; but it is scarcely ever used by itself, unless when the colour wanted is lilac.
Silk may be dyed crimson by steeping it in a solution of alum, and then dyeing in the usual way in a cochineal bath.
The colours known by the names of poppy, cherry, rose, and flesh colour, are given to silk by means of carthamus. The process consists merely in keeping the silk as long as it extracts any colour, in an alkaline solution of carthamus, into which as much lemon-juice, as gives it a fine cherry-red colour, has been poured.
Silk cannot be dyed a full searlet; but a colour approaching to scarlet may be given to it, by first impregnating the stuff with murio-sulphate of tin, and afterwards dyeing it in a bath, composed of four parts of cochineal, and four parts of quercitron bark. To give the colour more body, both the mordant and the dye may be repeated.
A colour, approaching to scarlet may be given to silk, by first dyeing it in crimson, then dyeing it with carthamus; and lastly, yellow, without heat. To dye linens and cottons red, scarlet, &c.
Cotton and linen are dyed red with madder. The process was borrowed from the east; hence the colour is often called Adrianople, or Turkey-red. The cloth is first impregnated with oil, then with galls, and lastly with alum. It is then boiled for an hour in the decoction of madder, which is commonly mixed with a quantity of blood. After the cloth is dyed, it is plunged into a soda ley in order to brighten the colour. The red given by this process, is very permanent; and when properly conducted, it is exceedingly beautiful. The whole difficulty consists in the application of the mordant, which is by far the most complicated employed in the whole art of dyeing. Cotton may be dyed scarlet, by means of murio-sulphiate of tin, cochineal, and quercitron bark, used as for silk, but the colour is too fading to be of any value.