CONSUMPTION OF THE C HAP. V. 



other colour but black was adopted, and that it 

 was used only for ornamenting drinking vessels, 

 statues, vases, urns, and other large articles of 

 furniture. At the present day, one of the greatest 

 causes of the consumption of gold is the use of 

 it in the smaller personal ornaments, and in a 

 variety of trinkets, whose basis is gold, but whose 

 chief value is the enamelling, which is wrought 

 by skilful artists upon it. These, when the 

 fashion changes, or the work of the artist be- 

 comes obliterated, the gold being in very minute 

 portions, are lost or destroyed, or at least the 

 same care is not taken to preserve such frag- 

 ments as is applied to the larger pieces of orna- 

 mental furniture. In the present day it is sup- 

 posed both in England and in France, that the 

 quantity of the precious metals applied to these 

 minor purposes by far exceeds that which is 

 converted into larger objects, and that the loss 

 in them is increased in some degree in propor- 

 tion to the small size of the articles. 



The consumption of silver in our age and 

 country has been vastly increased by the appli- 

 cation of the mechanical powers to the construc- 

 tion of flatting mills. By these machines a 

 wedge of copper or tin and another of silver 

 may be converted into a substance, homogeneous 

 to every sense but the sight, exhibiting on one 

 side the most brilliant silver, and on the other 

 an appearance of a different metal. This plated 



