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To under colours holdings

Browns and blues or shades from them, require no preparation; but reds and yellows, either of silk, cotton, or woollen, require a preparation to make them receive the dye, and hold it fast when it has received it. Alum and tartar, boiled together, when cold, form a mastic, within the pores of the substance, that sorves to retain the dye, and reflect the colour in a manner transparently.

Almost all browns are deemed fast and holding colours, without any preparation; the dyeing materials containing in themselves a sufficient degree of estringent quality to retain their own colours. Many reds are also equally holding, but none more so than those made with madder on woollens prepared with alum and tartar. A very fast red is also made with Brazil wood, by boiling the woollen in alum and tartar, and suffering the cloth to remain several days in a bag kept moist by the preparation liquor. The cause of the solidity of the colour from Brazil wood dyed after this method, arises from the alum and tartar masticating itself within the pores of the wool in quite a solid state.

There is not a drug used in the whole art of dyeing, but may be made a permanent dye, by finding out a salt, or solution of some metal, that, when once dissolved by acids, or by boiling water, will neither be affected by the air, nor be dissolved by moisture. Such are alum and tartar, the solution of tin, &c. But these salts and solutions do not answer with all ingredients that are used in dyeing.