Small Insect--coccus Ficus--made For The Sake Of Depositing Its Ova On

: ON THE PRIMARY, RED.

the branches of several plants, found in Siam, Assam, and Bengal. The

twigs soon become encrusted with a mammelated substance of a red colour

more or less deep, nearly transparent, hard, and having a brilliant

conchoidal fracture. The roughly-prepared coating is imported in two

forms, called lac-lake and lac-dye, which contain about 50 per cent of

colouring matter, combined with more or less resin, and with earthy

matt
rs, consisting chiefly of carbonate and sulphate of lime and

silica.



Indian lake is rich, transparent, and deep,--less brilliant and more

durable than the colours of cochineal, but inferior in both respects to

those of madder. Used thickly or in strong glazing, as a shadow colour,

it is of great body and much permanence; but in thin glazing it changes

and flies, as it also does in tint with white lead. In the properties of

drying, &c., it resembles other lakes. The pigment may be dispensed with

in favour of madder lake and madder brown, whose combinations serve for

every purpose to which it can be applied, and are stable.



Lac appears to be the lake which has stood best in old pictures, and was

probably employed by the Venetians, who had the trade of India when

painting flourished at Venice.





TTITLE MADDER LAKES.



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