supercilious and over-serious readers, to contract their long faces, and not to cry out what is all this childishnefs?' whilst they very majestically deign to curve their astonished eyebrows in admiration of the cruel childishness of detestible tyrannical despots, overbearing aristocrates, or raging mad democrates, whose wrong notions of happiness being directed only by their individual self love, disguised under the mask of public welfare, are the destruction of peace, the scourge of the innocent and good, the ufher of ignorance and barbarity. I am Sir, your humble ser

vant.

SIR,

FILILLO LIPAREO P. A.

ACCOUNT OF RUSSIAN DYES.
To the Editor of the Bee.

As a subject of curiosity, I send you some account of the primitive modes by which our Rufsian peasants communicate different colours to the woollen, linen, and sometimes silk stuffs, which constitute their simple garb, all the work of their own hands, and the production of their flocks and fields, even to the colouring materials, the subject of this letter.

It may possibly interest some of your readers, in this age of research and inquiry, to compare the rude state of dying, as obtaining amongst remote self-taught villagers, with the improved state of that art in large cities, where constant practice, emulation, and the thirst of gain, joined to the aid of chemistry, have thrown upon it so much light. But I am afraid that these improved operations, although practised in the neighbourhood of philosophers, are little known to them; such has been the veil of mystery and empiricism thrown over the more lucrative arts, by VOL. ix.

NN

their mechanical profefsors, in former times. It is, therefore, with much expectation and pleasure, that I look forward to the period, when the plan you have so well suggested, fhall engage the united efforts of men of science in this, and some other of the arts depending on chemistry, as it is only then we can hope for a considerable addition to our very confined knowledge of these subjects. In the mean time, however, the rationale of bleaching has been so luminously treated, and with so much advantage to that valuable branch, that we may hope to see the same public spirit, and the same philosophical research, turned upon dying, which certainly offers a much richer field, and at least equal emolument to the nation at large.

To return to the simpler and humbler art of colouring stuffs in the villages of Rufsia, I observe, that most of the plants employed in the business, are equally natives of Scotland, a circumstance that must recommend it, particularly to the Bee, which led me to add their English names.

Preparation of the yarn for receiving the dye.

They prepare all their yarn or stuffs, by steeping them from four to eight days in quafs (a sour vegetable liquor like that obtained in the making starch) the common drink of the Rufsians, and one of the three following sorts of mofs, viz.

Lycopodium compianatum, which, I believe, you have not.-Lycopodium selago, fir club mofs.-Lycopodium anotinum, jointed club mofs, both natives of Scotland., Manner of extracting the dye, and colouring yarn or cloth YELLOW.

For dying common yellow colours, probably only differing in fhade, they employ one or other of the following plants: Adonis verna, anthemis tinctoria.

Genista tinctoria, dyer's weed.-Serratula tinctoria, saw wort.-Carduus betrophylus, soft or gentle thistle.-Bidens tripartita, bur marigold; the last four, natives of Scotland.

Dyer's weed.

This plant they reduce to powder, and add to the sour infusion of mofs, above mentioned, where their yarn had previously lain eight days, and let it soake some days more in the new compound, when it is washed in clean water and dried, which finishes the procefs. Some, to make the colour more lively; wash their stuffs once or twice, after the dying busi sinefs is finished, in a lixivium of wood afhies.

Saw wort, and gentle thistle.

To dye with either one or other of these plants,. they only make a strong decoction of them in common water and a little allum, and then steep their stuffs or yarn (which is more customary) in it, at a boiling heat.

Bur marigold.

To give a golden yellow colour, they treat this plant exactly like the two last, and soak their yarn in the decoction, in the same manner.

It is reckoned, amongst the peasants, a pretty colour for either wool or silk, and the oftener they are dipped the richer it is.

DARK RED.

The principal difference in dying this colour, seems to be substituting the root for the plant itself.

Galium mollugo.

Great bastard madder, native of Scotland. They make a strong decoction of the root with water, in which they soak their yarn twice, the first time only warm, the second at a boiling heat,

June 27.. Galium verum, Dative of Scotland, and asperula tinctoria, which is not I believe a native of Scotland. In this operation there is some little variation from their ordinary mode of simple decoction, as they first make a thick infusion of the pounded root in warm water, which, after standing to draw all night, is diluted and boiled next morning, to make a stronger dye for the worsted.

SCARLET.

Their mode of giving this colour is the most curious and complicated of any of their dyes as it seems to be extracted by fermentation. I should like to hear some of your ingenious correspondents on this, and the first Russian dye, as well as upon the use of acids and allum in preparing cloth to receive and retain colours ; although I must own I suspect the sour quafs in the preparation to have no other operation than taking up a colouring matter from the mofs, which, when communicated to the yarn or cloth, facilitates their taking on the dye.

Origanum vulgare.

Wild majoram, native of Scotland. They dry and pound the fresh gathered flowers of this plant, to one part of which they add one of the young leaves of an apple tree, and throw the mixture into an aqueous decoction of one-fourth part of malt, coolled down to the temperature of new milk; then, to induce fermentation, they add a little yeast, and keep it in a moderate heat till quite sour; when that is effected they pour off the watery part, and dry the thick in. the course of the night by fire, stirring the compound frequently during the process.

This dried matter when powdered and boiled in water, produces a scarlet dye for woollen and linen, the most beautiful of all their home dyed colours.

GREEN.

This colour they obtain from the tops of the arundo calamagrostis, branched reed-grafs, native of Scotland.

BLUE.

From a species of isatis; but our academicians did not obtain the manner of using either one or other of these plants.

If these patriarchal family operations can be of any service to one clafs, or afford amusement to ano-ther, of your readers, the purpose will be answered of. your most obedient servant.

Imperial cadet corps,

in St. Petersburgh Dec. 2. 1792.

Observations on the above.

ARCTICUS..

THE foregoing remarks cannot fail to prove interesting to many of our readers; and were the attention of men of science more frequently turned to an investigation of the native dyes, that men in different parts of the world have discovered, many would be the advantages that would result from it. In the East Indies the natives, by processes very simple, produce dyes, that European manufacturers have in vain endeavoured to imitate. The paints of China cannot be paralleled in Europe, for the sweetness and brilliancy of their colours, all of which there is good reason to believe are extracted from the vegetable kingdom only. The Indians of America, it is also well known, have many beautiful dyes, with which we are unacquainted; and in Africa the negroes, and the natives of the Brasils, have many plants that furnish inestimable dyes, which are total