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Even the pauper labor
of India could not compete with the German chemists at that price. At
the beginning of the present century Germany was paying more than
$3,000,000 a year for indigo. Fourteen years later Germany was _selling_
indigo to the amount of $12,600,000. Besides its cheapness, artificial
indigo is preferable because it is of uniform quality and greater
purity. Vegetable indigo contains from forty to eighty per cent. of
impurities, among them various other tinctorial substances. Artificial
indigo is made pure and of any desired strength, so the dyers can depend
on it.
The value of the aniline colors lies in their infinite variety. Some are
fast, some will fade, some will stand wear and weather as long as the
fabric, some will wash out on the spot. Dyes can be made that will
attach themselves to wool, to silk or to cotton, and give it any shade
of any color. The period of discovery by accident has long gone by. The
chemist nowadays decides first just what kind of a dye he wants, and
then goes to work systematically to make it.


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