GOLD-BEATER'S SKIN 



GOLDEN BEETLE 



281 



neighbouring villages of BuHiiigen, Kothen, and 

 l.ouei/ wen- ovei -whelmed, uiul apart of the Lake 

 ni l,o \\eiv. was tilled up, by the fall of the upper 

 lope of Mount UoHsberg. The valley is now a 

 \\ild rocky waste, overgrown with grass ami mo.-.-. 

 Tin- village of Neu-Goldau, on the line of the Kigi 

 railway, consists of but a few hou-e-. 



<.olil-ln-.-M<-r\ Skill, a very thin but tough 

 membrane prepared from the external coat of tne 

 .'ruin -a part of the great intestine of the ox. 

 It is drawn off in length* of 25 inches or more from 

 the other coats, immersed in a weak solution of 

 i"iia-li, and scraped with a blunt knife upon a 

 board. After a soaking in water, two of these 

 pieces are stretched upon a frame, dried, and then 

 separated by a knife. Each strip is again fixed 

 with glue to a frame, and washed over with a solu- 

 tion of alum. When dry it is next coated with 

 lish-glue, and afterwards with white of egg. The 

 piece of membrane is then cut into squares of 5 or 

 V. inches. A gold-lieater's mould contains from 

 900 to 950 of these square*, and to furnish this 

 nearly 400 oxen are required. Hesides its applica- 

 tion in gold-beating, this Mm; membrane is used in 

 the dressing of slight wounds. 



Gold-beating is a very ancient art, having 

 been practised from a remote period among oriental 

 nations. Gilding with leaf-gold is found on the 

 coffins of Egyptian mummies, on some Greek 

 pottery vases or as early a date as the 4th or 5th 

 century B.C., and on portions of the palaces of 

 ancient Rome. JJeckmann states that the German 

 monk Theophilus, who appears to have lived at 

 least as early as the 12tn century, describes the 

 process nearly as it is at present, the gold having 

 been beaten between parchment, which is practi- 

 cally the same as the modern method. Formerly 

 the gold-beater's art was largely practised in Flor- 

 ence, but in that city the production of fine gold-leaf 

 has greatly diminished during the latter half of the 

 19th century through French and German competi- 

 tion, the latter country especially now making large 

 quantities of an inferior gold-leaf. Gold-beating is 

 practised in most of the large towns of the United 

 Kingdom, but London is its chief centre. 



According to the shade of colour required gold is 

 alloyed for beating either with silver or copper or 

 with both. The proportion of copper rarely exceeds 

 one-twentieth part that of the gold, but tne quan- 

 tity of silver in the alloy is sometimes much 

 larger. The ingot being prepared, it is rolled out 

 Into a ribbon 1 inches wide, a 10-feet length of 

 which weighs an ounce. This length of ribbon is 

 then annealed and cut into about 75 pieces of 

 equal weight. Formerly these were placed be- 

 tween leaves of vellum, but a tough kind of paper 

 is now used with a leaf of vellum at intervals 

 through the packet, which is from 3J to 4 inches 

 square. The pile of bits of gold ribbon thus inter- 

 leaved is called a ' cutch,' and this, having been 

 placed upon a thick block of marble about 9 inches 

 square, resting on a strong bench, is beaten with a 

 hammer weighing from 15 to 17 lb., till the pieces of 

 gold extend to the size of the squares of the paper. 

 The hammer rebounds by the elasticity of the 

 vellum, which saves or at least lessens the labour of 

 lifting it. Each square of gold in the cutch is now 

 taken out, cut into four pieces, and placed l>etween 

 leaves of Gold-beater's Skin (q_.v.). This packet, 

 termed a'shoder,' is l>eaten with a 9-lb. hammer 

 for about two hours, or six times as long as in the 

 first or cutch beating. For the final l>eating the 

 gold leaves from the shoder are again divideu into 

 Four, and each piece placed let\veen leaves of line 

 gold-beater's skin, aixnit 950 of which form a 

 packet termed a 'mould.' After four hours' Iteat- 

 ing with a 7-lb. hammer the gold-leaf in the mould 



b of the thickness usually Hold, which average* the 

 _N'j,iM)tli part of an inch. Kadi skin of the mould 

 is rubbed over with calcined gypsum to prevent the 

 gold adhering to it. One grain of gold in the form 

 of gold-leaf of the ordinary thickneMH used in gild- 

 ing measures alnmt 56 square inches, but it can be 

 beaten out to the extent of 75 square inches. A 

 .: i .tin of silver can lx> l>eaten out to a still greater 

 extent, but the leaf would really be thicker, since 

 this metal has not nearly the density of gold. 



An alloy consisting of 37 grains of gold, 2 of 

 silver, and 1 of copper makes a leaf with a d< --p 

 yellow colour. A compound containing 4 gr.tins 

 of gold to 1 of silver gives a pale-yellow leaf, but 

 as the proportion of silver is lessened it becomes 

 deeper in the yellow. Seen by transmitted light 

 gold-leaf when only slightly alloyed appears green, 

 Inn if it contains a large proportion of silver iU 

 colour is violet. For external gilding, leaf made 

 from pure gold is the best, as it does not tarnish by 

 atmospheric influences ; but it is not so convenient 

 for ordinary purposes. 



Goldberg, a town of Prussian Silesia, on the 

 Katzbach, 13 miles by rail WSW. of Liegnitx. It 

 owes both origin and name to ite former rich gold- 

 mines ; suffered much from Mongols and Hussites, 

 the Thirty Years' War, the campaign of 1813, and 

 finally from great fires (1863-74); and now has 

 manufactures of cloth, flannel, &c. Pop. 6436. 



Gold Coast, a British crown colony on the 

 Gulf of Guinea, with an area of 15,000 square 

 miles, or including protectorates, 46,600 square 

 miles, and a population of 1,475,000 (of whom only 

 150 are Europeans). It extends from 5 W. to 2 t. 

 long. , between the Slave Coast and the Ivory Coast, 

 has a coast-line of some 350 miles, and reaches 

 inland to Ashanti (beyond the Prah), in which (at 

 Kumasi) there is, since 1895, a British resident. Its 

 shores are low and swampy, and very difficult of 

 approach owing to the heavy surf. From the lagoons 

 or the coast the country rises gradually towards the 

 interior, and is furrowed by numerous small streams. 

 The principal exports are palm kernels and oil , india- 

 rubber, gold-dust, ivory, and monkey skins ; but 

 cocoa-nuts, copra, coffee, Calabar beans, corn, 

 ground-nuts, Guinea grains, ginger, cam-wood, 

 gum copal, tobacco, and porcupine quills are also 



E reduced. The climate on the coast is very un- 

 ealthy, but is better inland. The negro inhabit- 

 ants are largely under the management of their 

 own chiefs. The exports and imports have each 

 an annual value of 600,000 or 700,000. The chief 

 towns are Accra, Elmina, and Cape Coast Castle. 

 The whole of the district geographically known as 

 Gold Coast is British, except the French settlements 

 of Grand Bassam, Assiuie, Grand Lahou, and 

 Jackeville. German Togoland is on the Slave 

 Coast. See Ellis, History of the Gold Coast ( 1893), 

 and Lucas, Historical Geography of the British 

 Colonies, Vol. III. (1895). 



Golden Age, See AGE. 



Golden Beetle, the name popularly given to 

 many members of a genus of coleopterous insects, 

 Chrysomela, and of a sub-family, Chrysomelinas 

 belonging to the tetramerous section of the order. 

 The body is generally short and convex, the an- 

 tennw are simple and wide apart at the base ; some 

 of the species are destitute of wings. None are of 

 large si/e, but many are distinguished by their 

 metallic splendour of colour. The finest species 

 are tropical, but some are found in Britain e.g. 

 the golden C. cereal in with purple stripes found on 

 Snowdon, and the brassy- green C. jwlita and ('. 

 fita/>Jii/lra commonly found on nettles in spring. In 

 north temperate countries some of the adults of the 

 autumnal Mood sleep through the winter, awaken- 

 ing in spring to reproductive functions. Some < f 



