The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-01-10
GOLD LEAF,
Combined Skill and Judgment Requisite
In Its Manufacture.

CDmbined skill and Judgment Requisite
In Its Manufacture.
If sheet of gold leaf is held up
against the light it appears to be of a
vivid dark green color; this means that
the light is transmitted through the
leaf. When ii. is considered that this
leaf is piece of solid metal, better
dea of the extreme tenuity of thick
hess of the Leaf can be csmprehended
than by any comparison of figures;
nothing made by the hand of man
equals it in thinness. This extreme
thinness is produced by patient ham,
mering. the hammers weighing from
seven to twenty pounds, the lighter
hammers being first used. When the
true method of this beating is under
stood, the wonder expressed sometimes
that gold leaf beating should not be
relogated to machinery ceases; the art
belongs to the highest department of
human skill and Judgment. Appren-
tees have served term, and have been
compelled to abandon the business, be-
cause they never could acquire the
requisite skill and judgment combined
necessary to become successful work
men.
The only pure gold leaf is that used
by dentists for filling carious teeth. and
It is called foil. 1t is left much thicker
than the gold leaf for gliding
it could not be beaten so thin; for thin
or leaf gold an alloy of silver and cop
per is required to inpart the requisite
tenacity. Dentists foil weighs six
grains, five, four and three grains per
sheet, or leaf, according to its thick
aess. The last operation on the leaf is
annealing This is done over char
coal fire, the leaf being laid singly in a
sort of corn popper-a square recepta-
Gle with wire bottom at the end OF
handle--over which is held a similar
cover to prevent the flame from carry
ing the leaf away. An instants ex-
posture to the flame induces a red heat,
when the leaf is laid on sheet of
book.
The material for gold leaf and den
lists foil is coin gold. The gold is pre-
cipitated by murlatic and nitric acids
over fire to separate the gold and sill
yer, the copper of the alloy passing off
n the heat. The silver from gold coin
amounts to about seven pennyweights
to eight hundred dollars worth of coin
the mount usually treated at time.
This reduction and separation of the
metals is the usual method, and does
not require special description.
The pure gold is then melted in sand
crucibles with the proper pro portions of
silver and copper to produce the color
Of leaf desired, very fine ornamental
effects being produced in gliding with
leaf of different shades. The fluid met
al is poured into iron moulds, making
bars seven inches lolg, one and an
eighth inches wide and one-fourth of
an iEch thick. These bars are forged,
like iron, between anvil and hammer,
to even the edges, and then rolled in
powerfully-geared rolls to ribbon not
thicker than writing paper and one inch
wide. OF coarse, in the rolling as in all
the processes, there must be occasional
annealings.
Now comes the first of the beating
processes. These squares Of gold Zone
inch square, are placed in pile alter
mating with larger squares -four inches
or more) of "kutch'' paper, a material
made from a pulp Of animal membrane
--raw-hide, intessines, etc.-and the
outside of the pile receives a square of
parchment. The hammering then be-
gins with a sevea-pounl hammer on
a block of marble that rests ON a
solid foundation After one hours
beating the pile is warmed at a fire to
anneal the gold, a process requiring
care, so that tn kutch paper be not
burned. -Four hours of beating suffices
for this preliminary proce 49, squares
of gold being treated in one pile. The
final process requires great skill. The
partially beaten squares are packed as
before, but with alternates of gold beat
er's skin, until the pile contains 900
sheets. The beating is continued with
increasingly heavier hammers until the
final finish with the twenty-pound
hammer The gold-beater's skin comes
from England, and the best of it-and
the most of it's made by one family
Frederick Perkins. The skin is so
thin as to be almost transparent, and
yet it is double, two thicknesses. 1t is
prepared from the larger intestine of
the OK. Each sheet of the skin is
rubbed on each side, before the pack is
made, and whenever the pack is rear
ranged (placing the outer gold in the
center and vice versa), with a powder
made from calcined gypsum of very
pure sort, imported from Germany. This
is to prevent the gold from sticking to
the skin.
In beating, the work of spreading the
gold is from the center of each square
of gold out toward the edges, and the
finished squares are thicker at the edges
than in the center. A contrary spread
ing would split the edges and ruin the
squares. In rearranging the squares in
the process of beating they are some
times torn, but another piece laid on as
a patch. tapping over the torn place,
will be firmly welded in the after beat
ing.
The finished squares are cut to size
IF three and three-eighths inches, and
packed in a 'book" holding twenty
i've sheets, the paper leaves being
rubh ed with red ocher to prevent stick
ing. These books of twenty-five sheets
are sold at from thirty to forty cents
each. The cutting of the leaf is done
by knives, which are simply slips of the
outer shiny shell or skin of the Malacca
cane such as is used for walking sticks.
The outer rind contains slick or flint in
minute, invisible particles, forming a
peculiar edge. Steel will not answer
the purpose Scientific american.
THE MAGIC LANTERN.