COMPOUND COLOURS

If the effects of the colouring particles did not vary according to the combinations which they form, and the actions exercised upon them by the different substances present in a dyeing bath, we might determine with precision the shade which ought to result from the mixture of any two colours, or of the ingredients affording these colours separately. Though the chemical action of the mordants, and of the liquor in the dye-bath often changes the results, yet theory may always predict them within a certain degree. It is not the colour appropriate to the dye-stuffs which is to be considered as the constituent part of compound colours, but that which they must a ume with a certain mordant and dye-bath. Our attention ought therefore to be directed principally to the operation of the chemical agents employed. 1. The mixture of blue and yellow dyes produces green. D’Ambourney, indeed, says that he has extracted a fast green from the fermented juice of the berries of the buckthorn ( rhamnus frangula ), but no dyer would trust to such a colour. 2. The mixture of red and blue produces violet, purple, columbine (dove-colour), pansy, amaranth, lilac, mallow, and a great many other shades, determined by the nature and tone of the red and blue dye-stuffs, as well as their relative proportions in the bath. 3. The mixture of red and yellow produces orange, mordoré , cinnamon, coquelicot , brick, capuchin; with the addition of blue, olives of various shades; and with duns instead of yellows, chestnut, snuff, musk, and other tints. 4. Blacks of the lighter kinds constitute grays; and, mixed with other colours, produce marrone (marroons), coffees, damascenes. For further details upon this subject, see Calico Printing , Dyeing , as also the individual colours in their alphabetical places.