728 GOLD-BEATING 



cut in pieces 5 inches square, which are then smoothed out under a press, and made 

 up into leaves. 



A body is given to the pieces of gut ; that is, they are moistened with an infusion 

 of cinnamon, nutmeg, and other warm and aromatic ingredients, in order to preserve 

 them : an operation repeated after they have been dried in the air. When the leaves 

 of skin are dry, they are put in a press, and are ready for use. After the parchment, 

 vellum, and gut-membrane have been a good deal hammered, they become unfit for work, 

 till they are restored to proper flexibility, by being placed, leaf by leaf, between leaves 

 of white paper, moistened sometimes with vinegar, at others with white wine. They are 

 left in this condition for three or four hours, under compression of a plank loaded with 

 weights. When they have imbibed the proper humidity, they are put between leaves 

 of parchment 12 inches square, and beat in that situation for a whole day. They are 

 then rubbed over with fine calcined gypsum, as the vellum was originally. The gut- 

 skin is apt to contract damp in standing, and is therefore dried before being used. 



GOLD-BEATING. This is the art of reducing gold to extremely thin leaves, by 

 beating with a hammer. The processes employed for this purpose may be applied to 

 other metals, as silver, platinum, and copper. The Romans used to gild the ceilings 

 and walls of their apartments ; and Pliny tells us, that from an ounce of gold forming 

 a plate of 4 fingers square, about 600 leaves of the same area were hammered. At the 

 present day, a piece of gold is extended so as to cover a space of 651,590 times greater 

 than its primary surface when cast. 



The gold employed in this art ought to be of the finest standard. Alloy hardens 

 gold and renders it less malleable ; so that the fraudulent tradesman who should 

 attempt to debase the gold would expose himself to much greater loss in the operations 

 than he could derive of profit from the alloy. 



The average thickness of common gold-leaf is o^nrboo of> an i ncn - 



Four principal operations constitute the art of gold-beating : 1. The casting of the 

 gold ingots. 3. The lamination. 2. The hammering. 4. The beating. 



1. The casting. The gold is melted in a crucible along with a little borax. When 

 it has become liquid enough, it is poured out into an ingot-mould previously heated, 

 and greased on the inside. The ingot is taken out and annealed in hot ashes, which both 

 soften it and free it from grease, The moulds are made of cast iron, with a somewhat 

 concave internal surface, to compensate for the greater contraction of the central parts 

 of the metal in cooling than the edges. The ingots weigh about 2 ounces each, and 

 are f of an inch broad. 



2. The forging. When the ingot is cold, the French gold-beaters hammer it out on 

 a mass of steel 4 inches long, and 3 broad. The hammer for this purpose is called the 

 forging hammer. It weighs about 3 pounds, with a head at one end and a wedge at 

 the other, the head presenting a square face of 1 inch. Its handle is 6 inches long. 

 The workman reduces the ingot to the thickness of \i\\ of an inch at most; and during 

 this operation he anneals it whenever its substance becomes hard and apt to crack. 

 The English gold-beaters omit this process of hammering. 



3. The lamination. The rollers employed for this purpose should be of a most per- 

 fectly cylindrical figure, a polished surface, and so powerful as not to bend or yield in 

 the operation. The ultimate excellence of the gold-leaf depends very much on the pre- 

 cision with which the riband is extended in the rolling press. The gold-beater desires 

 to have a riband of such thinness that a square inch of it will weigh 6 grains. Fre- 

 quent annealings are requisite during the lamination. 



4. Beating. The riband of gold being thus prepared uniform, the gold-beater cuts 

 it with shears into small squares of an inch each, having previously divided it with 

 compasses, so that the pieces may be of as equal weight as possible. The squares are 

 piled over each other in parcels of 150, with a piece of fine calf-skin vellum inter- 

 spersed between each, and about twenty extra vellums at the top and bottom. These 

 vellum leaves are about 4 inches square, on whose centre lie the gold laminae, each of 

 an inch square. This packet is kept together by being thrust into a case of strong parch- 

 ment open at the ends, so as to form a belt or band, whoso open sides are covered 

 in by a second case drawn over the packet at right angles to the first. Thus the 

 packet becomes sufficiently compact to bear beating with a hammer of 15 or 16 pounds 

 weight, having a circular face nearly four inches in diameter, and somewhat convex, 

 whereby it, strikes the centre of the packet most forcibly, and- thus squeezes out the 

 plates laterally. 



The beating is performed on a very strong bench or stool, framed to receive a heavy 

 block of marble, about 9 inches square on the surface, enclosed upon every side by 

 wood-work, except the front, where a leather apron is attached which the workman lays 

 before him to preserve any fragments of gold that may fall out of the packet. The 

 hammer is short-handled, and is managed by the workman with one hand ; who etrikrs 

 fairly on the middle of the packet, frequently turning it over to boat both sides alike ; 



