SAND-PAPER. 265 



the Equisetum from that which is given by the finest emery- 

 paper ever made. Wood-carvers, however, if they be of the 

 conscientious kind, and love their work for its own sake, adhere 

 to the Dutch Rush, and are all the happier for it. 



Pass we now to the coarser kinds of polishers, the chief of 

 which is popularly known as Sand-paper, and is made by 

 coating some tissue with glue, and scattering upon it sand of 

 different qualities, according to the work to be done. Some- 

 times, when the work is rough, the sand is large, rough, and 

 coarse, and sometimes, when the work is fine, the sand is so 

 carefully sifted before it is scattered on the glued paper, that 

 there is little distinction between the sand-paper and emery - 



DOG-FISH SKIN. SAND-PAPER. 



paper. Linen, by the way, is generally used instead of paper, 

 as being more enduring, less liable to crack, and capable of 

 being folded so as to obtain access to crevices which paper could 

 not touch. 



Again in Nature we find a parallel, and the coarse Sand- 

 paper of modern Art has long been anticipated in the scale- 

 clad skins of many fishes. 



The accompanying illustration is taken from the skin of a 

 Picked Dog-fish found by myself lying dead on the rocks in 

 Bideford Bay. I cut off a piece for transmission to the 

 draftsman, and found that not only did it feel exactly like 

 cutting through a piece of very common sand-paper, but that it 

 blunted the edge of a new knife in exactly the same manner as 

 would have been done by the roughest of sand-paper. 



This kind of skin is common to all the shark tribe (including 

 the Dog-fishes, which are but sharks in miniature), and to the 



