It is met with in British Guiana, and the Indian tribes of that district prepare the pigment with which they stain their skin from it; it is called by them “Caraveru.”  The coloring matter is used as a dye in the United States, and for artistical purposes would rival madder.  Sir Robert Schomburgk thinks it might form an article of export if it were sufficiently known, as its preparation is extremely simple.  The leaves are dried in the sun, and at the first exposure, after having been plucked from the vine which produces them, they show the abundant feculent substance which they contain.

LANA DYE.—­A beautiful bluish-black color, known as “Caruto,” is procured in Demerara and Berbice from the juice of the fruit of the Genipa Americana, Linn.—­a tree very common in the colony.  The Indians use it for staining their faces and persons.  The Lana dye was honorably mentioned by the jurors at the Great Exhibition in 1851.  The bluish-black color obtained from it is remarkably permanent, a fact which has very long been known, though hardly any attempt appears to have been made to introduce it to the notice of European dyers.  Another pigment is prepared by them from arnotto, mixed with turtle oil, or carap oil, obtained from the seeds of the Carapa guianensis (Aubl.).  The wild plantain (Urania guianensis) and the cultivated plantain (Musa paridisiaca), the Mahoe (Thespesia populnea), and the pear seed of the Avocado (Persea gratissima), furnish dyes in various parts of the West Indies; specimens of many of these have been imported from British Guiana and Trinidad.

Russia produces good specimens of the wood of Statice coriaria, the leaves and bark of sumach, the bark of the wild pomegranate, yellow berries, Madia sativa, saffron, safflower and madder roots for dyeing purposes.

Avicenna tomentosa, a species of mangrove, is very common about the creeks of Antigua, Jamaica, and other West India islands, where it is used for dyeing and tanning.

In New Zealand, the natives produce a most brilliant blue-black dye from the bark of the Eno, which is in great abundance.  Some of the borders of the native mats, of a most magnificent black, are dyed with this substance.  It has been tried in New South Wales; but, as with other local dyes, although found well suited for flax, hemp, linen, or other vegetable productions, it could not be fixed on wools or animal matter.  Dr. Holroyd, of Sydney, some time since, imported a ton of it for a friend near Bathurst.  It is of great importance that chemical science should be applied to devise some means of fixing this valuable dye on wool.  As the tree is so common, the bark could be had in any quantity at about L3 10s. a ton; and our tweed manufacturers are in great want of a black dye for their check and other cloths.

The principal heavy woods used for dyeing are fustic, logwood, Nicaragua wood, barwood, camwood, red Sanders wood, Brazil wood, and sappan wood.  All the dyewoods are nearly L2 per ton higher than last year.