Part 51

«Maroon Dye for Woolens.»—To prepare the dye bath, dissolve about 1 pound of maroon dye in boiling water, with or without the addition of methylated spirit of wine. For dark shades dissolve in boiling water, only slightly acidulated with hydrochloric acid, and filter before use. No mordant is required with this dye when dyeing wool, but for the bright shade a little curd soap may be dissolved in the dye bath before proceeding to dye the wool, while for the dark shade it is best to put in a little acetate of soda. To use the dye, first dye in a weak bath and gradually strengthen it until the desired shade is obtained, at the same time gradually increasing the temperature until just below the boiling point.

«To Dye Woolens with Blue de Lyons.»—Dissolve 8 ounces of blue dye in 1 gallon of methylated spirit, which has been slightly soured with sulphuric acid, and boil the solution over a water bath until it is perfectly clear. To prepare the dye bath, add more or less of the spirituous tincture to a 10- or 15-gallon dye bath of water, which has been slightly soured with sulphuric acid.

«Rich Orange on Woolen.»—Dissolve 1 pound of phosphine in 15 gallons of boiling water, and stir the fluid until the acid has dissolved. No mordant is required to dye wool. First work the goods about in a weak solution, and finally in one of full strength, to which a little acetate of soda has been added. Keep up the temperature to just below the boiling point while working the goods in the dye bath.

«DYEING SILK OR COTTON FABRICS WITH ANILINE DYES:»

«Aniline Blue on Cotton.»—Prepare a dye bath by dissolving 1 pound of aniline blue (soluble in spirit) in 10 gallons of water, and set it aside to settle. Meanwhile prepare a mordant while boiling 35 ounces of sumac (or 5 1⁠/⁠2 ounces tannic acid in 30 gallons of water) and then dissolve therein 17 ounces of curd soap. Boil up and filter. Put the cotton goods in the hot liquid and let them remain therein for 12 hours. Then wring them out and make up a dye bath of 2 1⁠/⁠2° Tw. with red liquor. Add dye color according to the shade desired. Put in the goods and work them until the color is correct, keeping the temperature at the boiling point.

«To Dye Silk a Delicate Greenish Yellow.»—Dissolve 2 ounces of citronine in 1 gallon of methylated spirit and keep the solution hot over a water bath until perfectly clear.

To prepare silk fabrics, wash them in a weak soap liquor that has been just sweetened (i. e., its alkalinity turned to a slight sourness) with a little sulphuric acid. Work the goods until dyed to shade, and then rinse them in cold water that has been slightly acidulated with acetic, tartaric, or citric acid.

«To Dye Cotton Dark Brown.»—Prepare a mordant bath of 10 pounds of catechu, 2 pounds of logwood extract, and 1⁠/⁠4 pound magenta (roseine), and bring to a boil; work the goods therein for 3 hours at that temperature; then put {281} into a fresh dye bath made up of 3 pounds of bichromate of potash and 2 pounds of sal soda, and dye to shade. These proportions are for a dye bath to dye 100 pounds of cotton goods at a time.

«To Dye Silk Peacock Blue.»—Make up a dye bath by putting 1 pint of sulphuric acid at 170° Tw., and 10 ounces of methylin blue crystal dye liquor of 120° to 160° Tw., with a dye bath that will hold 80 pounds of goods. Put in the silk at 130° F., and raise to 140° F., and work up to shade required.

«To Dye Felt Goods.»—Owing to this material being composed of animal and vegetable fiber it is not an easy matter always to produce evenness of shade. The best process to insure success is to steep well the felt in an acid bath of from 6° to 12° Bé., and then wash away all traces of acid. Some dyers make the fulling stock the medium of conveying the dye, while others partially dye before fulling, or else dye after that process.

The fulling stock for 72 ounces of beaver consists of a mixture of

Black lead or plumbago 16 ounces Venetian red 48 ounces Indigo extract (fluid) 5 ounces

Ordinary Drab.—

Common plumbago 12 ounces Best plumbago 12 ounces Archil extract (fluid) 15 ounces Indigo extract 10 ounces

Mix into fluid paste with water and add sulphuric acid at 30° Tw. For the dye liquor make a boiling-hot solution of the aniline dye and allow it to cool; then put into an earthenware vessel holding water and heat to 83° F., and add sufficient dye liquor to give the quantity of felt the desired shade. First moisten well the felted matter (or the hair, if dyed before felting) with water, and then work it about in the above dye bath at 140° F. To deepen the shade, add more dye liquor, lifting out the material to be dyed before adding the fresh dye liquor, so that it can be well stirred up and thoroughly mixed with the exhausted bath.

«Brown Shades.»—Bismarck brown will give good results, particularly if the dyed goods are afterwards steeped or passed through a weak solution (pale straw color) of bichromate of potash. This will give a substantial look to the color. Any of the aniline colors suitable for cotton or wool, or those suited for mixed cotton and wool goods may be used.

«Blue.»—Use either China blue, dense ferry blue, or serge blue, first making the material acid before dyeing.

«Green.»—Use brilliant green and have the material neutral, i. e., neither acid nor alkali; or else steep in a bath of sumac before dyeing.

«Plum Color.»—Use maroon (neutral or acid) and work in an acid bath or else sumac.

«Black.»—Use negrosin in an acid bath, or else mordant in two salts and dye slightly acid.

«Soluble Blue, Ball Blue, etc.»—A soluble blue has for many years been readily obtainable in commerce which is similar in appearance to Prussian blue, but, unlike the latter, is freely soluble in water. This blue is said to be potassium ferri-ferrocyanide.

To prepare instead of buying it ready made, gradually add to a boiling solution of potassium ferricyanide (red prussiate of potash) an equivalent quantity of hot solution of ferrous sulphate, boiling for 2 hours and washing the precipitate on a filter until the washings assume a dark-blue color. The moist precipitate can at once be dissolved by the further addition of a sufficient quantity of water. About 64 parts of the iron salt is necessary to convert 100 parts of the potassium salt into the blue compound.

If the blue is to be sent out in the liquid form, it is desirable that the solution should be a perfect one. To attain that end the water employed should be free from mineral substances, and it is best to filter the solution through several thicknesses of fine cotton cloth before bottling; or if made in large quantities this method may be modified by allowing it to stand some days to settle, when the top portion can be siphoned off for use, the bottom only requiring filtration.

The ball blue sold for laundry use consists of ultramarine. Balls or tablets of this substance are formed by mixing it with glucose or glucose and dextrin, and pressing into shape. When glucose alone is used, the product has a tendency to become soft on keeping, which tendency may be counteracted by a proper proportion of dextrin. Bicarbonate of sodium is added as a filler to cheapen the product, the quantity used and the quality of the ultramarine employed being both regulated by the price at which the product is to sell.

«New Production of Indigo.»—Forty parts of a freshly prepared ammonium sulphide solution containing 10 per cent {282} of hydrogen sulphide are made to flow quickly and with constant stirring into a heated solution of 20 parts of isatine anilide in 60 parts of alcohol. With spontaneous heating and temporary green and blue coloration, an immediate separation of indigo in small crystalline needles of a faint copper luster takes place. Boil for a short time, whereupon the indigo is filtered off, rewashed with alcohol, and dried.

«To Dye Feathers.»—A prerequisite to the dyeing of feathers appears to be softening them, which is sometimes accomplished by soaking them in warm water, and sometimes an alkali, such as ammonium or sodium carbonate, is added. This latter method would apparently be preferable on account of the removal of any greasy matter that may be present.

When so prepared the feathers may be dyed by immersion in any dye liquor. An old-time recipe for black is immersion in a bath of ferric nitrate suitably diluted with water, and then in an infusion of equal parts of logwood and quercitron. Doubtless an aniline dye would prove equally efficient and would be less troublesome to use.

After dyeing, feathers are dipped in an emulsion formed by agitating any bland fixed oil with water containing a little potassium carbonate, and are then dried by gently swinging them in warm air. This operation gives the gloss.

Curling where required is effected by slightly warming the feathers before a fire, and then stroking with a blunt metallic edge, as the back of a knife. A certain amount of manual dexterity is necessary to carry the whole process to a successful ending.

DYES FOR FOOD: See Foods.

DYES FOR LEATHER: See Leather.

DYE STAINS, THEIR REMOVAL FROM THE SKIN: See Cleaning Preparations and Methods.

DYNAMITE: See Explosives.

EARTHENWARE: See Ceramics.

EAU DE QUININE: See Hair Preparations.

EBONY: See Wood.

EBONY LACQUER: See Lacquers.

«ECZEMA DUSTING POWDER FOR CHILDREN.»

Starch, French chalk, lycopodium, of each, 40 parts; bismuth subnitrate, 2 parts; salicylic acid, 2 parts; menthol, 1 part. Apply freely to the affected parts.

«Eggs»

The age of eggs may be approximately judged by taking advantage of the fact that as they grow old their density decreases through evaporation of moisture. According to Siebel, a new-laid egg placed in a vessel of brine made in the proportion of 2 ounces of salt to 1 pint of water, will at once sink to the bottom. An egg 1 day old will sink below the surface, but not to the bottom, while one 3 days old will swim just immersed in the liquid. If more than 3 days old the egg will float on the surface, the amount of shell exposed increasing with age; and if 2 weeks old, only a little of the shell will dip in the liquid.

The New York State Experiment Station studied the changes in the specific gravity of the eggs on keeping and found that on an average fresh eggs had a specific gravity of 1.090; after they were 10 days old, of 1.072; after 20 days, of 1.053; and after 30 days, of 1.035. The test was not continued further. The changes in specific gravity correspond to the changes in water content. When eggs are kept they continually lose water by evaporation through the pores in the shell. After 10 days the average loss was found to be 1.60 per cent of the total water present in the egg when perfectly fresh; after 20 days, 3.16 per cent; and after 30 days, 5 per cent. The average temperature of the room where the eggs were kept was 63.8° F. The evaporation was found to increase somewhat with increased temperature. None of the eggs used in the 30-day test spoiled.

Fresh eggs are preserved in a number of ways which may, for convenience, be grouped under two general classes: (1) Use of low temperature, i. e., cold storage; and (2) excluding the air by coating, covering, or immersing the eggs, some material or solution being used which may or may not be a germicide. The two methods are often combined. The {283} first method owes its value to the fact that microörganisms, like larger forms of plant life, will not grow below a certain temperature, the necessary degree of cold varying with the species. So far as experiment shows, it is impossible to kill these minute plants, popularly called “bacteria” or “germs,” by any degree of cold; and so, very low temperature is unnecessary for preserving eggs, even if it were not undesirable for other reasons, such as injury by freezing and increased cost. According to a report of the Canadian commission of agriculture and dairying:

Eggs are sometimes removed from the shells and stored in bulk, usually on a commercial scale, in cans containing about 50 pounds each. The temperature recommended is about 30° F., or a little below freezing, and it is said they will keep any desired length of time. They must be used soon after they have been removed from storage and have been thawed.

Water glass or soluble glass is the popular name for potassium silicate, or sodium silicate, the commercial article often being a mixture of the two. The commercial water glass is used for preserving eggs, as it is much cheaper than the chemically pure article which is required for many scientific purposes. Water glass is commonly sold in two forms, a syrup-thick liquid of about the consistency of molasses, and a powder. The thick syrup, the form perhaps most usually seen, is sometimes sold wholesale as low as 1 3⁠/⁠4 cents per pound in carboy lots. The retail price varies, though 10 cents per pound, according to the North Dakota Experiment Station, seems to be the price commonly asked. According to the results obtained at this station a solution of the desired strength for preserving eggs may be made by dissolving 1 part of the syrup-thick water glass in 10 parts, by measure, of water. If the water-glass powder is used, less is required for a given quantity of water. Much of the water glass offered for sale is very alkaline. Such material should not be used, as the eggs preserved in it will not keep well. Only pure water should be used in making the solution, and it is best to boil it and cool it before mixing with the water glass.

The solution should be carefully poured over the eggs packed in a suitable vessel, which must be clean and sweet, and if wooden kegs or barrels are used they should be thoroughly scalded before packing the eggs in them. The packed eggs should be stored in a cool place. If they are placed where it is too warm, silicate deposits on the shell and the eggs do not keep well. The North Dakota Experiment Station found it best not to wash the eggs before packing, as this removes the natural mucilaginous coating on the outside of the shell. The station states that 1 gallon of the solution is sufficient for 50 dozen eggs if they are properly packed.

It is, perhaps, too much to expect that eggs packed in any way will be just as satisfactory for table use as the fresh article. The opinion seems to be, however, that those preserved with water glass are superior to most of those preserved otherwise. The shells of eggs preserved in water glass are apt to crack in boiling. It is stated that this may be prevented by puncturing the blunt end of the egg with a pin before putting it into the water.

«To Discover the Age of Eggs.»—The most reliable method of arriving at the age of hens’ eggs is that by specific gravity. Make a solution of cooking salt (sodium chloride) in rain or distilled water, of about one part of salt to two parts of water, and in this place the eggs to be tested. A perfectly fresh egg (of from 1 to 36 hours old) will sink completely, lying horizontally on the bottom of the vessel; when from two to three days old, the egg also sinks, but not to the bottom, remaining just below the surface of the water, with a slight tendency of the large end to rise. In eggs of four or five days old this tendency of the large end to rise becomes more marked, and it increases from day to day, until at the end of the fifth day the long axis of the egg (an imaginary line drawn through the center lengthwise) will stand at an angle of 20° from the perpendicular. This angle is increased daily, until at the end of the eighth day it is at about 45°; on the fourteenth day it is 60°; on the twenty-first day it is 75°, while at the end of 4 weeks the egg stands perfectly upright in the liquid, the point or small end downward.

This action is based on the fact that the air cavity in the big end of the egg increases in size and capacity, from day to day, as the egg grows older. An apparatus (originally devised by a German poultry fancier) based on this principle, and by means of which the age of an egg maintained at ordinary temperature may be told approximately to within a day, is made by placing a scale of degrees, drawn from O° to 90° (the latter representing the perpendicular) behind the vessel {284} containing the solution, and observing the angle made by the axis of the egg with the perpendicular line. This gives the age of the egg with great accuracy.

«Weights of Eggs.»—The following table shows the variation in weight between eggs of the same family of chickens and of the comparative value of the product of different kinds of fowls:

Weight of Whole Eggs, Shell, Grains. Grains. Net. Common hen, small 635.60 84.86 550.54 Common hen, mean 738.35 92.58 645.77 Common hen, large 802.36 93.25 709.11 Italian hen 840.00 92.50 747.50 Houdan 956.60 93.50 853.10 La Flesche 926.50 94.25 835.25 Brahma 1,025.50 114.86 910.64

From this it will be seen that the Houdans and Brahmas are the most profitable producers, as far as food value of the product is concerned—provided, of course, they are equally prolific with the ordinary fowl.

Another calculation is the number of eggs to the pound, of the various weights. This is as follows:

Small ordinary eggs (635 grains) 12.20 to pound Large ordinary eggs (802 grains) 9.25 to pound Houdan eggs 8.0 to pound Brahma, mean 7.4 to pound Brahma, large 7.1 to pound

«Dried Yolk of Egg.»—To prepare this, the yolks of eggs, separated from the whites, are thoroughly mixed with 1⁠/⁠3 their weight of water. The resulting emulsion is strained and evaporated under reduced pressure at a temperature of 87° to 122° F., to a paste. The latter is further dried over quicklime or a similar absorbent of moisture, at a temperature of 77° to 86° F., and ground to a fine powder.

«Egg Oil.»—

Yolks of eggs (about 250) 5.0 parts Distilled water 0.3 parts

Beat this together and heat the mass with constant stirring in a dish on the water bath until it thickens and a sample exhibits oil upon pressing between the fingers. Squeeze out between hot plates, mix the turbid oil obtained with 0.05 parts of dehydrated Glauber’s salt, shake repeatedly, and finally allow to settle. The oil, which must be decanted clear from the sediment, gives a yield of at least 0.5 parts of egg oil.

«Artificial Egg Oil.»—

Yellow beeswax 0.2 parts Cacao oil 0.5 parts

Melt on the water bath and gradually add 9 parts of olive oil.

«Egg Powder.»—

Sodium bicarbonate 8 ounces Tartaric acid 3 ounces Cream tartar 5 ounces Turmeric, powdered 3 drachms Ground rice 16 ounces

Mix and pass through a fine sieve. One teaspoonful to a dessertspoonful (according to article to be made), to be mixed with each half pound of flour.

«The Preservation of Eggs.»—The spoiling of eggs is due to the entrance of air carrying germs through the shells. Normally the shell has a surface coating of mucilaginous matter, which prevents for a time the entrance of these harmful organisms into the egg. But if this coating is removed or softened by washing or otherwise the keeping quality of the egg is much reduced. These facts explain why many methods of preservation have not been entirely successful, and suggest that the methods employed should be based upon the idea of protecting and rendering more effective the natural coating of the shell, so that air bearing the germs that cause decomposition may be completely excluded.

Eggs are often packed in lime, salt, or other products, or are put in cold storage for winter use, but such eggs are very far from being perfect when they come upon the market. German authorities declare that water glass more closely conforms to the requirements of a good preservative than any of the substances commonly employed. A 10 per cent solution of water glass is said to preserve eggs so effectually that at the end of three and one-half months eggs still appeared to be perfectly fresh. In most packed eggs the yolk settles to one side, and the egg is then inferior in quality. In eggs preserved in water glass the yolk retained its normal position in the egg, and in taste they were not to be distinguished from fresh, unpacked store eggs.

Of twenty methods tested in Germany, the three which proved most effective were coating the eggs with vaseline, preserving them in limewater, and preserving them in water glass. The conclusion was reached that the last is preferable, because varnishing the eggs with vaseline takes considerable time, and treating them with limewater is likely to give the eggs a limy flavor. {285}

Other methods follow:

I.—Eggs can be preserved for winter use by coating them, when perfectly fresh, with paraffine. As the spores of fungi get into eggs almost as soon as they are laid, it is necessary to rub every egg with chloroform or wrap it a few minutes in a chloroform soaked rag before dipping it into the melted paraffine. If only a trace of the chloroform enters the shell the development of such germs as may have gained access to freshly laid eggs is prevented. The paraffine coating excludes all future contamination from germ-laden air, and with no fungi growing within, they retain their freshness and natural taste.

II.—Preserving with Lime.—Dissolve in each gallon of water 12 ounces of quicklime, 6 ounces of common salt, 1 drachm of soda, 1⁠/⁠2 drachm saltpeter, 1⁠/⁠2 drachm tartar, and 1 1⁠/⁠2 drachms of borax. The fluid is brought into a barrel and sufficient quicklime to cover the bottom is then poured in. Upon this is placed a layer of eggs, quicklime is again thrown in and so on until the barrel is filled so that the liquor stands about 10 inches deep over the last layer of eggs. The barrel is then covered with a cloth, upon which is scattered some lime.

III.—Melt 4 ounces of clear beeswax in a porcelain dish over a gentle fire, and stir in 8 ounces of olive oil. Let the solution of wax in oil cool somewhat, then dip the fresh eggs one by one into it so as to coat every part of the shell. A momentary dip is sufficient, all excess of the mixture being wiped off with a cotton cloth. The oil is absorbed in the shell, the wax hermetically closing all the pores.

IV.—The Reinhard method is said to cause such chemical changes in the surface of the eggshell that it is closed up perfectly air-tight and an admittance of air is entirely excluded, even in case of long-continued storing. The eggs are for a short time exposed to the direct action of sulphuric acid, whereby the surface of the eggshell, which consists chiefly of lime carbonate, is transformed into lime sulphate. The dense texture of the surface thus produced forms a complete protection against the access of the outside air, which admits of storing the egg for a very long time, without the contents of the egg suffering any disadvantageous changes regarding taste and odor. The egg does not require any special treatment to prevent cracking on boiling, etc.

Some object to this on the ground that sulphuric acid is a dangerous poison, that might, on occasion, penetrate the shell.