One of the great Indian industries is seriously threatened by
science. Professor Roscoe states, in a lecture to the Royal Institution, that artificial indigo has at last been made from an„ acid which is one of the coal-tar products. A Baden company now makes it, and can sell a paste yielding twenty-five per cent. of true indigo blue at fis. a pound. The dye can be more readily. used than indigo, and with less waste and less loss of time, but it costs at present nearly double the price of the vegetable indigo.. Should Herr Baeyer, however, the discoverer of the process, be. able gradually to cheapen the manufacture till the cost of the new dye approaches that of the old. indigo, the cultivation must cease. That will not be a loss to the natives, who will seldom grow the plant, except when demanded as part of rent ; but it. will be a loss to the Europeans in India, and diminish the number of cultures possible on the wet lands of Bengal. Per-. haps the planters, in despair, may yet find out the secret of the green indigo, for which Mr. Fortune searched so long, and which may yet be found in Cashmere.
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