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Take four ounces of red wood, two of logwood, half an ounce of pounded nut-galls, and quarter of a pound of green copperas; boil them in ten gallons of water, and strain it; wash the wool or cloth in soap-suds, put it in, and let it remain till it is as dark as you wish it; dry it in the sun, and wash it in soap-suds. Sugar paper, boiled in vinegar, makes a good lead color for stockings.
All these oak-apples and nut-galls are of importance, but the latter more especially, and they form an important article of commerce. A substance called "gallic acid" resides in the oak; and when the puncture is made by the cynips, it flows in great abundance to the wound.
Stern undertook to tan the hide with strips of hemlock bark laid in a water pit dug near the spring. He added also some oak-bark, nut-galls and a good quantity of young sumac shoots. "I guess that ought to hit the mark if anything will," remarked he, as he immersed the skin and weighed it down with rocks.
In this manner apparently white paper on which at first no traces of characters could be found showed a yellow tinge, denoting the presence of previous writing, and on the application of gallic acid and an infusion of nut-galls became sufficiently distinct to permit the erasure and forgery to be detected.
Gallic acid is one of the ingredients used in dyeing stuffs and cloths, and therefore the supply yielded by the nut-gall is highly welcome. The nut-galls are carefully collected from the small oak on which they are found, the Pyreneean oak. It is easily known by the dense covering of down on the young leaves, that appear some weeks later than the leaves of the common oak.
These are much altered by vegetable acids in general, and especially by oxymuriatic acid; but they still retain much of their poisonous quality, which appears to be rendered more active by alkalies. The tanning decoctions of nut-galls, acacia, and other strong astringents, Venice treacle, wine, spiritous liquors, and spices, are useful. CHELIDONIUM majus.
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