AN NOT TO

( Rocou , or roucou , Fr.; orleans , Germ.) A somewhat dry and hard paste, brown without, and red within. It is usually imported in cakes of two or three pounds weight, wrapped up in leaves of large reeds, packed in casks, from America, where it is prepared from the seeds of a certain tree, the bixa orellana , of Linnæus. The pods of the tree being gathered, their seeds are taken out and bruised; they are then transferred to a vat, which is called the steeper, where they are mixed with as much water as covers them. Here the substance is left for several weeks, or even months; it is now squeezed through sieves placed above the steeper, that the water containing the colouring matter in suspension may return, into the vat. The residuum is preserved under the leaves of the anana (pine-apple) tree, till it becomes hot by fermentation. It is again subjected to the same operation, and this treatment is continued till no more colour remains. The substance thus extracted is pa ed through sieves, in order to separate the remainder of the seeds, and the colour is allowed to subside. The precipitate is boiled in coppers till it be reduced to a consistent paste; it is then suffered to cool, and dried in the shade. Instead of this long and painful labour, which occasions diseases by the putrefaction induced, and which affords a spoiled product, Leblond proposes simply to wash the seeds of an not to till they be entirely deprived of their colour, which lies wholly on their surface; to precipitate the colour by means of vinegar or lemon juice, and to boil it up in the ordinary manner, or to drain it in bags, as is practised with indigo. The experiments which Vauquelin made on the seeds of an not to imported by Leblond, confirmed the efficacy of the proce which he proposed; and the dyers ascertained that the an not to obtained in this manner was worth at least four times more than that of commerce; that, moreover, it was more easily employed; that it required le solvent; that it gave le trouble in the copper, and furnished a purer colour. An not to di olves better and more readily in alcohol than in water, when it is introduced into the yellow varnishes for communicating an orange tint. The decoction of an not to in water has a strong peculiar odour, and a disagreeable taste. Its colour is yellowish-red, and it remains a little turbid. An alkaline solution renders its orange-yellow clearer and more agreeable, while a small quantity of a whitish substance is separated from it, which remains suspended in the liquid. If an not to be boiled in water along with an alkali, it di olves much better than when alone, and the liquid has an orange hue. The acids form with this liquor an orange-coloured precipitate, soluble in alkalies, which communicate to it a deep orange colour. The supernatant liquor retains only a pale yellow hue. When an not to is used as a dye, it is always mixed with alkali, which facilitates its solution, and gives it a colour inclining le to red. The an not to is cut in pieces, and boiled for some instants in a copper with its own weight of crude pearl ashes, provided the shade wanted do not require le alkali. The cloths may be thereafter dyed in this bath, either by these ingredients alone, or by adding others to modify the colour; but an not to is seldom used for woollen, because the colours which it gives are too fugitive, and may be obtained by more permanent dyes. Hellot employed it to dye a stuff, prepared with alum and tartar; but the colour acquired had little permanence. It is almost solely used for silks. For silks intended to become aurora and orange, it is sufficient to scour them at the rate of 20 per cent. of soap. When they have been well cleansed, they are immersed in a bath prepared with water, to which is added a quantity of alkaline solution of an not to, more or le considerable according to the shade that may be wanted. This bath should have a mean temperature, between that of tepid and boiling water. When the silk has become uniform, one of the hanks is taken out, washed, and wrung, to see if the colour be sufficiently full; if it be not so, more solution of an not to is added, and the silk is turned again round the sticks: the solution keeps without alteration. When the desired shade is obtained, nothing remains but to wash the silk, and give it two beetlings at the river, in order to free it from the redundant an not to, which would injure the lustre of the colour. When raw silks are to be dyed, those naturally white are chosen, and dyed in the an not to bath, which should not be more than tepid, or even cold, in order that the alkali may not attack the gum of the silk, and deprive it of the elasticity which it is desirable for it to preserve. What has been now said regards the silks to which the aurora shades are to be given; but to make an orange hue, which contains more red than the aurora, it is requisite, after dyeing with an not to, to redden the silks with vinegar, alum, or lemon juice. The acid, by saturating the alkali employed for di olving the an not to, destroys the shade of yellow that the alkali had given, and restores it to its natural colour, which inclines a good deal to red. For the deep shades, the practice at Paris, as Macquer informs us, is to pa the silks through alum; and if the colour be not red enough, they are pa ed through a faint bath of brazil wood. At Lyons, the dyers who use cart ham us, sometimes employ old baths of this ingredient for dipping the deep oranges. When the orange hues have been reddened by alum, they must be washed at the river; but it is not nece ary to beetle them, unle the colour turns out too red. Shades may be obtained also by a single operation, which retain a reddish tint, employing for the an not to bath a le proportion of alkali than has been pointed out. Guhliche recommends to avoid heat in the preparation of an not to. He directs it to be placed in a gla ve el, or in a glazed earthen one; to cover it with a solution of pure alkali; to leave the mixture at rest for 24 hours; to decant the liquor, filter it, and add water repeatedly to the residuum, leaving the mixture each time at rest for two or three days, till the water is no longer coloured; to mix all these liquors, and preserve the whole for use in a well-stopped ve el. He macerates the silk for 12 hours in a solution of alum, at the rate of an eighth of this salt for one part of silk, or in a water rendered acidulous by the ace to-citric acid above described; and he wrings it well on its coming out of this bath. Silk thus prepared is put into the an not to bath quite cold. It is kept in agitation there till it has taken the shade sought for; or the liquor may be maintained at a heat far below ebullition. On being taken out of the bath, the silk is to be washed and dried in the shade. For lighter hues, a liquor le charged with colour is taken; and a little of the acid liquid which has served for the mordant may be added, or the dyed silk may be pa ed through the acidulous water. We have seen the following preparation employed for cotton velvet:—one part of quicklime, one of potash, two of soda. Of these a ley is formed, in which one part of an not to is di olved; and the mixture is boiled for an hour and a half. This bath affords the liveliest and most brilliant auroras. The buff (chamois) fugitive dye is also obtained with this solution. For this purpose only a little is wanted; but we must never forget, that the colours arising from an not to are all fugitive. Dr. John found in the pulp surrounding the unfermented fresh seeds, which are about the size of little peas, 28 parts of colouring resinous matter, 26·5 of vegetable gluten, 20 of ligneous fibre, 20 of colouring extractive matter, 4 formed of matters analogous to vegetable gluten and extractive, and a trace of spicy and acid matters. The Gloucestershire cheese is coloured with an not to, in the proportion of one cwt. to an ounce of the dye. When used in calico-printing, it is usually mixed with potash or ammonia and starch. It is an appropriate substance for tingeing varnishes, oils, spirits, . The import duty upon an not to is 1 s. per cwt. for flag, and 4 s. for other sorts. In 1834, 252,981 lbs. were imported; and in 1835, 163,421 lbs. The revenue from this drug in these two years, was 180 l. and 98 l. respectively.