174. Practual Hints. 
the surface so heated. Alcohol or methylated spirits, or both 
combined, will effect the solution of the solid extract of the log- 
wood, and such solution, when used in conjunction with the 
tincture of muriate of iron, produces a very efficient ebony dye, free 
from the above objections. The preferred formula is as follows :— 
Tincture of muriate of iron, eight parts ; extract of logwood (solid), 
seven parts; alcohol or methylated spirit, or both combined, 
thirty-seven parts. The logwood and alcohol are first applied ; 
then the tincture of the muriate of iron, which develops the jet 
black hue.— Zhe Decorator and Furnisher. 
Gold Leaf.—Gold leaf was used in the most ancient times of 
which we have any record. The Egyptians, as we know, 
ornamented with it their furniture and sarcophagi, on which the 
gold is still to be seen. Their gold was beaten out between the 
coecum or membrane of the intestines of an ox, whilst the Greeks 
and Romans employed parchment. The Roman poets make 
occasional allusion to gilding, one comparing it to the brilliant 
gloss of a spider’s web illuminated by the sun, another adopting 
the word as a synonym of the luminous vapours seen about the 
setting sun. 
In all succeeding times the practice of beating out the leaf 
between parchment has never been departed from, and no device 
has been invented to supersede hand manipulation in bringing the 
leaf to a high degree. From 150,000 to 200,000 leaves make an 
inch in thickness. Even the rays of the sun will pass through 
such leaves. The tints of gold vary from a deep orange red 
down to a pale silvery hue. Pale gold leaf is an alloy of silver 
and gold ; deep hues are usually intermixed with a slight amount of 
copper. Dutch gold is copper leaf coloured yellow by the fumes 
of molten zinc. Various solutions are used to alter the tint of 
gold leaf when laid. The best gold leaf is prepared from gold 
containing one and a quarter per cent. alloy of copper. 
Gold with its alloys is first cast in ingots, then rolled into 
sheets, which are cut into squares and subjected to the hammer- 
ing process on the anvil. First, the plates are extended to the 
size of the packs, four inches square, and again cut into four 
pieces, and again hammered. A third hammering is given to the 
pieces when they have reached the size of the pack and been 
subdivided. The 150 pieces with which the hammering com- 
menced are now increased to 2,400 pieces. The process of 
hammering is long and tedious, and requires the nicest determin- 
ation of the force, and direction of the blows. The anvil itself is 
convex on the top; so also is the hammer. When the sheets of 
metal have attained a certain thinness they are placed between 
prepared skin. The beater never strikes consecutively in the 
same place. A sense of feeling as well as of observation is 
