Manufacture of Lanthorns* 423 
much delicacy, that they make lanthorns of two feet dia« 
meter of astonishing transparency, and to all appearance 
of one single piece. It is also known that the Chinese 
use the horns of goats and sheep only, which they soften 
and split into larainas by processes supposed to be un» 
known in Europe ; or, perhaps, by employing a propor- 
lion of human labour and patience for that purpose which 
the European demand might be inadequate to repay. 
Citizen Rochon, who does not appear to be perfectly 
aware of the degree of accuracy with which the same art 
of splitting horn is practised in Europe, proposed, that 
the horns of beeves should be sawed into laminae, and then 
rscraped and polished ; or, to which he gives the prefer-- 
ence, that they should be laminated in boiling water. 
While this active philosopher was employed at Brest 
in establishing a manufactory for laminating the horns of 
beeves, which he purposed to reduce into the state of a 
paste by means of pure alkali in the digester of Papin, it 
occurred to him, that he might supply the pressing wants 
of the navy by another expedient, which consisted in the 
application of a coating of glue upon wire cloth. 
In this process, he at first tinned the iron wires of the 
sieve cloth he made use of, but afterwards found it more 
convenient, in every respect, to give it a slight coating of 
oil paint to preserve it from rust. The glue he madi? 
use of was afforded by boiling the clippings of parchment 
with the air-bladders and membranes of sea--fish ; mate- 
rials which he used, not from any notion that they were 
preferable to isinglass, but because they were the cheap- 
est he could procure. He added the juice of garlick and 
cyder to his composition, in proportions which, I sup- 
pose, he did not measure, but which he found to com- 
municate great tenacity and somewhat more of trans- 
parence than it would have possessed without them. 
Into this transparent and very piire glue or size, he plunge 
