THE WISCONSIN FARMER.                                
             51

and beautiful dyes!  The world has been fa- mired by the multitude of thronging
visitors,
miliar with stone coal for many generations, when dissolved-fate of all crowns,
is it not?
and thinking men have wondered at the ine- -will become the Magenta dye,
and sometime
haustible store of it in those parts of the earth in the future may serve
to heighten the other-
where it seems to be most needed for the pro- wise insufficient attractions
of aspiring ladies
duccion of heat and the generation of steam; in the kingly courts of the
tOld World, or, ap-
but who could have dreamed, even twenty propriately displayed upon the fairer
forms of
years ago, that out of that black, shapeless hundreds of worthier maidens
in the New, take
mass, which men quarry from the depths of as by storm the eye and heart of
many a noble
the earth and sell for a few shillings per ton, Badger boy!
should come, obedient to the magic wand of  And then this
of Science, all manner of snow-white oils, a  MAGNIFICENT COLLECTION OF PAINTS
host of substances that, as yet, defy all rules Of origin various and remarkable-who
can
of classification, and-stranger than all the look at them without wondering
at the profound
rest-a multitude of such delicate, brilliant, science of the chemist, and
craving the genius
and altogether incomparable colors as the of the artist to put them upon
wood, plaster,
world-admired MauVe and Magema of to-day ? porcelain, or canv:,s, and so
make them immor-
  Years ago, Baron Liebig said prophetically: tal as representatives of the
Beautiful and
"It would certainly be esteemed one of the Good in God's Nature and
in muan? Derived
great discoveries of the age it any one should from the most inconceivable
sources, and by
succeed in condensing coal-gas into a white, processes incomprehensible to
even the chem-
dry, colorless substance, portable and capable ist, how wonderfully, either
alone or in com-
of being placed on a candlestick or burned in bisation, do they imitate every
tint and hue
a lamp."  This was in 1840; and in 1857, with which the Great Author
has adorned and



James Young, of lDathgate, Scotland, had ful-
filled the prophecy, and placed upon golden
candlesticks, at the Great Exhibition of that
year, beautiful white paraffine candles, ,finer
than the purest wax."  Mr Young's chemical
works have now become the largest in the
known world, and his paraffine and liquid Wpr-
affine oil for use in lamps, are to-day shedding
a cheerful, pleasant light in a multitude of
homes in all foreign lands' Paracfint is not
explosive in the least; let it not suffer, there-
fore, for this sin of the many rascally imita-
tions by which its fair reputation has been
cursed.
  The beautiful dyes referred to-including
the popular Mauve and Magenta-are, many of
them, products of the chemical reaction of
certain salts and acids upon another of the
coal series, known as ablixe. They have no
rivals in the world of artilolaal dyes, and the
beautiftul crystals of whioh we are talking are
just about worth their weight in gold. The
two or three crowns in thee glass case, look-
ing so like cr-stal amethysts and so much ad-



blessed this beautiful world!
  Ultramarine, one of the loveliest of them aU,
and of which two varieties occur in commerce,
to-wit: blue and green, was, for a long time,
prepared exclusively by burning the lapis laz-
uli, a precious stone, found in China, Persia,
Siberia, and, we believe, California. When
reduced to powder; it is mixed with resin, wax
and oil, and then kneaded in water which
vlowly dissolves out the coloring matter. This
is afterwards repeatedly washed and finally
digested in alcohol, to separate all particles of
the pitchy compound.    The collection by
Messrs. Winsor & Newton, of the North Lon-
don Color Works, are the finest ever exhibited
and must be worth many thousands of dollars.
But the world doesn't like to pay too dearly
for its luxuries, and accordingly certain Ger-
man chemists have succeeded in manufacturing
A artificial ultramarine, almost as good, by
burning together definite proportions of China-
clay, sulphate of soda, carbonate of soda, sul.
phur and charcoal; carrying the tint fom a
pure cold blue, through all possible gradations,



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