JAPAN VARNISH. 235 



or pasteboard upon which two or three coats of a composition of lime, 

 paper, and gum are first laid, and thoroughly dried and rubbed. The 

 surface of the wood is also hardened by rubbing coarse clay upon it, and 

 afterwards scraping it off when dry. Two coatings of lamp-black and wood 

 oil, or in the finer articles of lamp-black and varnish, are laid upon the pre- 

 pared wood, and, after drying, the clear varnish is brushed on, one coating 

 after another, with the utmost care in close and darkened rooms, allowing 

 it to dry well between the several coats. The articles are then laid by to 

 be painted and gilded according to the fancy of the customers, after which 

 a last coating is given them. The varnish is brought to market in brown- 

 ish cakes, and reduced to its proper fluidity by boiling ; it is applied to 

 many purposes of both a varnish and paint, when it is commonly mixed 

 with a red or brown colour. 



A beautiful fabric of lacquered ware is made by inlaying the nacre of 

 fresh and salt water shells in a rough mosaic of flowers, minerals, &c, into 

 the composition, and then varnishing it. Another kind highly prized by 

 the Chinese is made by covering the wood with a coating of red varnish 

 three or four lines in thickness, and then carving figures upon it in relief. 

 The great labour necessary to produce this ware renders it expensive. A 

 common substitute for the true varnish is the oil of the Dryandria, Jatropha, 

 Croton, and other members of the Euphorbiaceous family, expressed from 

 their seeds by a variety of simple machines, consisting for the most part of 

 different applications of power to cylinders and pestles by which the seeds 

 are pressed or pounded. The oil, after pressing, according to De Guignes, 

 is boiled with Spanish white, in the proportion of one ounce to half a pound 

 of oil ; as it begins to thicken, it is taken off and poured into close vessels. 

 It dissolves in turpentine, and is used as a varnish, either clear, or mixed 

 with different colours ; it defends woodwork from injury for a long time, 

 and forms a good painter's oil. Boiled with iron rust, it forms a reddish 

 brown varnish.* 



The lacquered or japanned ware of China is formed of a succession of as 

 many as fifty coats of varnish, formed of an extremely poisonous vegetable 

 gum, which exude from the plant, and differs as well in its mode of being 

 produced, as in the character of its subsequent ornamentation. 



The Indian lacquered work is formed of a thin coating of shell lac, laid 

 upon the surface of the article to be ornamented, and upon this the native 

 artist proceeds to fashion and colour those exquisite designs which are to be 

 seen in the works from Lahore and Cashmere. 



Mr. W. Lockhart, in his recent work " The Medical Missionary in 

 China," thus speaks of the varnish and the japanning process : — " The juice, 

 at first, is of a yellowish-gray colour, which turns black on exposure to the 

 air. It is very irritating to the skin, producing troublesome sores on the 

 hands of those who gather it, if they allow it to come in contact with them. 

 It retains this quality even after the paint is dry, and has been for a long 



* Williams's " Middle Kingdom." 



