mind the term "aniline color" has become, as a matter of habit,
synonymous with "fugitive color." But science is progressive, fields
of investigation other than aniline have been opened up, so that now,
although a large number of fugitive dyes are still manufactured from
coal tar, there are others, as we have seen, which are as fast and
permanent as we have ever had from natural sources.

Finally, and perhaps this is the most important cause of all, many of
the fugitive coal tar colors are gifted, I will not say with fatal
beauty, but with a facility of application, and such comparative
cheapness in consequence of their intense coloring power, that the
dyer, tempted by competition, applies them not unfrequently to
materials for which, because of their ultimate uses, they are
altogether unsuited; and so it comes about that we find the most
fugitive colors applied indiscriminately and without due discretion.

As we look upon these multitudinous colors, one other thought cannot
fail to cross our minds. Is there not surely an overproduction of
these fugitive coal tar colors? Is not the dyer bewildered with an
_embarras de richesses_, so that he knows not where to choose?

There is indeed much truth in this. With rare skill and ingenuity an
army of chemists is busy elaborating these wonderful dyes; but in such
quick succession are they introduced into the dye house that the busy
dyer has no time sufficiently to prove them, and it is not surprising
therefore that he is liable to commit errors in their application.

But if there is an over-production of fugitive colors, there is also
at work, as in the organic world around us, the counteracting
influence of the law of the survival of the fittest. Sooner or later,
the fugitive colors must give way to those which are more permanent,
and already the number of coal tar colors which have been discarded,
for one reason or another, is considerable.

Not unfrequently one is asked the question, Is there no method whereby
these fugitive colors can be made fast? Knowing the efficacy of
mordants with certain coloring matters, is there no mordant which we
can generally apply with this desirable object in view? The discovery
of such a universal mordant I believe to be somewhat chimerical, and
yet, curiously enough, a number of experiments have been recorded in
recent years, which almost seem to point in the direction of selecting
for such a purpose ordinary sulphate of copper.

Some