Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The Fastness of the Indigenous Dyes of Bengal

McCann continues : " But alum is sometimes employed as a mordant to fix the colour being added to the water in which the pounded bakam-wood is boiled." This method gave a deeper shade but owing to the fact that alum added to the decoction of the wood throws down a precipitate and necessitates keeping the bath vigorously on the stir the whole time the cloth is immersed it was preferred to ado [...] p. 19) : The kamala-guri powder is used for dyeing silks and occasionally cottons a brilliant yellow. In Bengal the red powder is dissolved by the addition of a solution of ' various alkaline ashes obtained by burning plants and the development of the yellow colouring principle is in no case brought about by the addition of acids but merely by allowing the cloth steeping in the red l [...] 0-67 The results of the observations on the fading of the dyed samples are recorded in Table I. In the last column of this table the dyeings are placed in Groups I—IV according to their fastness to light. [...] A summary of the results of the work recorded in this paper is given in Table V. The general result of the present work has been to show that the indigenous dyes of Bengal are considerably more useful for dyeing on silk than for cotton dyeings and that the dyeings obtained are frequently considerably faster on silk than on cotton This taken in conjunction with the fact that many of the commonly [...] Amulets as Agents in the Prevention of Disease in Bengal.—Compiled in the Office of the Superintendent of Ethnography Bengal.