Ar IMPROVED METHOD OF STAINING, PRINTING, OR DYING ON SILK, WOOLLEN, COTTON YARN OR GOODS MANUFACTURED OF COTTON
Year: 1815

page_text: SMITH'S SPECIFICATION.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, SAMUEL
JOHN SMITH, of Gaythorne, Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, Dyer,
send greeting.:
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing.date.at, Westminster, the Twenty-ninth day of
June, in the fifty-fifth year of His reign, give and grant unto me; the said
Samuel John Smith, my exors, admors, and assigns, His especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Samuel John Smith, my
exors, admors, and assigns, should and lawfully might, during the term of
years therein mentioned, make, use, exercise, and vend, within England,
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my. Invention of "Ar
IMPROVED METHOD OF STAINING, PRINTING, OR DYING ON SILK, WOOLLEN,
COTTON YARN OR GOODS MANUFACTURED OF COTTON;" in which said Letters
Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the said Samuel John Smith,
shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery, within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said
Letters Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted,
shall utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the same,
relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NÓW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Samuel John Smith, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly
described and ascertained in manner following (that is to say) :-
=
My discovery consists in the preparation of a mordant, which I obtain from
certain vegetables of British growth, which never before have been employed
for the purpose of producing a mordant, and which mordant may be used with
advantage for dying, raising, fixing, and printing certain colours employed in
the arts of callico printing, and in the dying of silken, woollen, and cotton
stuffs. The vegetable from which I extract this mordant are the following,
namely:-The 'bark, leaves, and wood of the trees called the Spanish chesnut,
the horse chesnut, the birch, the willow, and the hazel; but with regard to the
comparative value or useful application of this species of trees, with a view
to obtain this mordant, I prefer the bark and wood of the horse chesnut, and
the bark and wood of the Spanish chesnut, to either of the other barks, woods,
'or leaves of the other species of trees, because I have discovered that the bark
or wood, or the bark and wood together, of the horse and Spanish chesnuts
trees, contain a greater quantity of tannin, gallic acid, and extract, than any of
the other vegetables before named, and these are the materials which are
essential to the action of the mordant under consideration; and the same may
be said of the leaves of the respective trees before named, all of which, when
compared with the wood of the same species of trees, contain a greater quantity
of the active principles than can be obtained from a like quantity of the wood of
the trees of the same species; nevertheless either of the before-mentioned
vegetables materials may be used singly or conjointly, because they all are fit to
afford the same mordant, and the difference consists only in strength, but
the principle of its action is the same, from whatever the before-mentioned
substances the mordant may have been produced. Further, to extract the
mordant from the above-mentioned indigenous vegetable materials, I proceed
in the following manner :-I boil a quantity of the vegetable substance, either
with whiting, chalk, or quick lime, or potash, soda, or any substance which
contains these alcaline or earthy bodies in a free or uncombined state, such as
soap maker's alceline lay, barilla, kelp, &c. with a sufficient quantity of water;
according to the strength of the mordant required. I then strain the liquor
from the insoluble residue, and apply it in the usual manner. In all those cases
and processes to be named presently, where sumack or gall nuts are employed
for the dying, fixing, raising, and printing colouring substances into the fibres
and textures of silk, woollen, and cotton stuffs, and which colouring materials
may thus be fixed without the use and application of gall nuts and sumacks,

page_text: the colours to which this new mordant may be applied with peculiar
advantage are the following:-
Black. I first work or impregnate the goods with this new discovered
mordant, next in a solution of green vitrol, and then in lime liquor, after
which I work them again in logwood liquor, mixed with my new discovered
mordant, according to colour wanted, and lastly I wash off in the usual manner.
Washing black. The goods are first to be worked in a lee made of
American pearl ashes or any other alkali; they are then worked in a solution
of nitrate of iron called aquafortis killed with steel or iron, or in common iron
liquor, or acetate of iron, and again in the above lee, then in the new mordant
prepared with regard to strength according as the colour is wanted, and lastly
cleared off with green vitrol, and well washed off in a soap lee.
Washing fawn. The goods are first worked in the new mordant, as before
stated, and then in a solution of Roman or blue vitriol, or a mixture of it 'with
alum, according to the colour wanted, and lastly washed off in a soap lee.
Another fawn. The goods to be worked first in the mordant as before,
and then in a solution of green vitriol, and next in lime water, and washed off.
Washing brown.-The goods are first worked in a solution of aquafortis
killed with steel or iron, called nitrate of iron, then in the mordant, and in ash
or soap lee, and cleared off.
Another brown.-First in the mordant, and then in a solution of green
vitriol, and again in the mordaunt, and lastly washed off in ashes lee.
Buff or nankeen.-First in the mordant, proportioned according to the
color wanted, and then in a solution of tin in aquafortis, or spirits, salts, or oil
vitriol, and washed off in soap lee.
Slate, mud, and dove.-First in the mordant mixed in logwood, according
to the colour wanted, then in a solution of green vitriol, and washed off.
Olive. First in the liquor composed of mordaunt and fustic, then in
vitriol and Roman vitriol, washed off and repeated according to the colour
wanted.
green
Washing drabs. First in the mordant, and then in green vitriol, after
which an ash lee and well washed off in water, then in a slender liquor of oil
vitriol, and wash next in a soap lee and then in urine, and washed off.
Another drab. First in the mordant mixed with fustic, according to the
colour wanted, and next in a solution of green vitriol, and washed off.
Bottle green. First in the fustic and mordant as above, then in the
green and Roman vitriol, washed off, and then in an extract or solution of
logwood and fustic, then thro' a solution of Roman vitriol, and repeated
according to the colour wanted.

page_text: All these colours may be varied or changed to an almost endless variety of
shades or lines, according to slight variations in the quantity or quality of the
dye stuffs employed in the different processes, the time or order of their appli-
cation, the strength of the new mordant, the modes of mixing the different
kinds of dyes, and other practical. operations, well known to the skilful manu-
facturer, and on which it is not necessary to speak; and the intelligent
workman will readily see that it is the discovery or preparation of a powerful
mordant obtained from certain indigenous vegetables materials never made
use of for. that purpose, and the useful application of this mordant, that
constitutes my claim; and he will also see, that by the application of the
new mordant, the consumption of foreign articles hitherto employed for like
purposes, such as sumach and gall nuts, may not,only. be diminished, but, as in
the cases of colours mentioned in this Specification, may be wholly superseded
by-the application of this mordant. These woods, &c. are prepared or ground
in the usual way.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-
eighth day of December, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight