168 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
carefully lifted up, the sand cleaned 
away, the edge of the mould keyed and 
clay-watered, and the second half of the 
mould cast. By this means casts in the 
round will be obtained, and the plan is 
admirable for reproducing fishes or 
snakes, though not so easily applied to 
reptiles with feet, such as lizards. 
Casts from animal life are often of sci- 
entific value for preserving the forms of 
remarkable specimens. They are fre- 
quently most useful, for reference, to the 
designer and carver in wood, stone, etc., 
or they may be made of service to those 
who work in metal or electrotype. A 
prettier, if not a more interesting depart- 
ment in the art of casting, is that which 
deals with vegetable forms, and chiefly 
with foliage. Leaves are admirable sub- 
jects, and easily dealt with. 
If we take a single leaf and lay it on a 
table or flat board with a view to mould- 
ing, we shall at once see that it does not 
lie flat. It will touch only in two or three 
places. It is not the custom of nature to 
model her leaves in a single plane ; she 
has so designed them that from whatever 
point of view we may regard them, they 
Fig. 6.— QUARRY OF A DIAPER. 
Fig. 7.— SECTION OF QUARRY FROM A TO B. 
will present variety and beauty of curve. 
If therefore we desire to reproduce the 
leaf as nature has formed it, we must not 
flatten it, or allow it to be flattened by 
the weight of the plaster. We must find 
meaDS of supporting it in its natural atti- 
tude. There are different methods of so 
fixing leaves, but none is simpler than to 
take sand, as advised in casting small an- 
imals. Spread a level surface of this on 
your table or board, and lay the leaf upon 
it. With the spatula it is easy so to pack 
sand beneath the leaf as to support it in 
every part. Leaves do not require pre- 
paring for moulding by either dampiDg 
or oiling. 
When the mould has set, it may be 
lifted from the sand, and the leaf will 
then be seen sticking to its under sur- 
face. Probably the plaster will in places 
have run in a little, and overlapped it. If 
so, such superfluous plaster may be care- 
fully cut away with a pen-knife, after 
which the leaf can be peeled from the 
mould without difficulty ; and the sand 
which adheres to the outer surface of the 
mould can also be brushed away. 
As the mould is chipped off, the oper- 
ator will indeed be hard to please if he is 
not both delighted and astonished with 
the effect of his work. He will see every 
serration, every vein and marking traced 
out with the most perfect delicacy in the 
pure white plaster, and will be struck 
with beauties of form and arrangement, 
which, when accompanied by their nat- 
ural color, had wholly escaped his notice. 
By exercising a little judicious packing, 
fruits and berries can also be cast. 
For the wood and stone carver, and in- 
deed for all who practice the arts of deco- 
rative design, the importance of possess- 
ing casts from foliage cannot be over- 
rated : in no other way can the designer 
so well have nature at hand for perma- 
nent reference. Such casts may also be 
applied direct to the purposes of decora- 
tion. For indoor uses, where plaster can 
be safely employed, casts from leaves and 
fruits, tastefully arranged, may be used 
for capitals, cornices, diapers, etc. In 
Fig. 8 a rough attempt has been made to 
show how such familiar leaves as those of 
the strawberry and gooseberry might in 
this manner be utilized in diaper as a wall 
decoration. 
In this diagram only a simple arrange- 
ment of detached leaves has been shown, 
each enclosed in a sunk panel which may 
