BLACK JACK. This term is applied to burnt sugar, which is used to colour beverages, and more particularly for the adulteration of coffee. It is also known under the name of “coffee refined,” and as such is vended in tin canisters. It is moreover employed to give colour to vinegar, brandy, and rum. Butter, with which water has been largely incorporated, is also known as “Black Jack.” See Caramel.
BLACK LEAD (lĕd). See Plumbago.
BLACK PIG′MENTS. Syn. Pigmen′ta ni′gra, L. The principal black pigments of commerce are obtained by carbonising organic substances (particularly bones), by exposure to a dull red heat, in covered vessels out of contact with the air; or by collecting the soot formed during the combustion of unctuous, resinous, and bituminous matters. Artists and amateurs also prepare, on the small scale, a variety of blacks, many of which are not procurable at the colour-shops. This they effect either by the carbonisation of substances not usually employed for the purpose, or by simply reducing to powder certain mineral productions selected on account of the peculiar shades of colour which they respectively possess. Some of the last might, however, be more appropriately classed with browns. The following list embraces most of these articles:—
Black, An′imal. Bone-black.
Black, Aniline. See Tar Colours.
Black, Beech′. Carbonised beech-wood.
Black, Blue′. Vine-twigs dried and then carefully carbonised, in covered vessels, until of the proper shade. That of the ancients was made of wine-lees. Pit-coal, carefully burnt at a white heat, then quenched in water, dried and well-ground, forms a cheap, good, and durable blue-black, fit for most ordinary purposes. See Frankfort-black.
Black, Bone′. Syn. I′vory-black (of commerce); Car′bo os′sis, Os us′tum ni′grum, E′bur u. n. (vena′le), &c., L.; Noir d’os, &c., Fr.; Knochenschwartz, &c., Ger. Carbonised bones reduced to powder. That of commerce is usually the residuum of the distillation of bone-spirit. Inferior to true ivory-black; having a slight, but peculiar reddish tinge, from which the latter is quite free. Besides its use as a pigment, it is extensively employed in making blacking, as a material for the moulds of founders, as a clarifier and bleacher of liquids, &c. See Ivory-black and Charcoal, Animal.
Black, Cas′sel, Cologne′-Black. Ivory-black.
Black, Coal′. See Blue-black and Newcastle-black.