The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-24


remove even the suspicion OF dampness
For this purpose the pieces are screwed
down into presses heated with gas or
steam, and then after being dried each
sheet is rubbed with .sbrime"-powdered
tale, translucent rock found in Scot
land. A rabbits paw Is used to brush
the brine over the skins, and then they
are ready to be filled in with the gold
leaf.
When he has some one to fill the Clutch.
the shoder and the mold, goldbeater
can average about $50 leaves of gold or
silver day. Each five hundred leaves
contain exactly four pennyweights or
pure gold.
The last beating in the mold calls for
the greatest skill and judgment on the
part Of the goldbeater At first for near
ly an hour he allows his hammer to fall
on the center of the mold, turning it
every few strokes. This drives tile gold
out from the center and makes wide
cracks in the edges of the leaf. but as
the hammer begins to work out toward
the edges Of the mold the gold Yields
together again, for gold has the Pc
culiarity that it will weld cold. The
even after some of the most forward
leaves have crept to the edge and crum-
bic off in the shape of dust, for he wants
to bring all the leaves to the edge, and
when this is done the leaf is ready to
be put into books and sold. Gold leaf.
by means of various alloys with silver
and copper, is given different colors-
red, pale red, citron, lemon and almost
white Absolutely pure gold is seldom
beaten, but the silver is 1893 fine.
Aluminium leaf became an important
product of the goldbeater when the Nc
Kinley law went into effect, and at the
same time copper leaf, white schlag
metal and composition. used as a SUBJ
this country. But the reduc-
ton OF the tariff on the finished
product, while the tariff was maintained
on the raw material. gave German and
English goldbeaters chance to COM
pete, and they have practically driven
the American product out of the mar
ket.
The aluminium comes to the goldbeat-
err in sheets. He cuts it into strips and
runs 1t through a set of rollers, which
reduce the metal to thin ribbon about
two and a half inches wide. The copper
comes from Germany in the shape Of
long double sheets of thin metal, and it,,
too, Is cut into strips and rolled. Alu-
minimum, copper and composition and
white-metal leaf are, beaten under trip
hammers. Each is beaten twice. and
the trip-hammers beat the metal into
foil In about an hour, so that each work.
man can make about 10000 leaves Of
these baser metals day. He could not
turn out 10000 leaves of white metal.
5000 of copper or 5000 of aluminium by
hand, and this advantage which the trip
hammer beating has over hand work,
said Mr.. Hess. is all that enables the
American gOldbeater to keep himself in
the market so far as aluminium, copper,
composition and white-metal leaf are
concerned.
The lively hammers pound fakes of
foil out of the books in which the leaf
liz forming, and the workmen are COW
cred with the white foil of aluminium
and the yellow foil of copper and COM
position.
In the mummy room of the Field CO.
lumbar Museum are mummies wrapped
in cloths and wearing masks heay.4y
laid with gold leaf. and Mr.. Skiff says
that those same mummies are over two
thousand years old. This gives some
idea of the antiquity of the art; but it
goes back even further than that. for
archaeolOgists have found gold leaf on
jars and other household utensils which
were made two thousand years before
Christ.
The art was well known in the time
of Homer and Pliny, as any student of
the dead languages well knows, for both
refer to 1t. African travellers have found
natives who, though they had never
heard Of white people, were quite ex-
pert in hammering out gold into thin
sheets. Brass workers claim that their
art is the Oldest, but the records and
history show that the goldbeater ham,
mered out bracelets. armlets and thin
leaf as far back as knowledge goes.
Dentists use gold leaf for filling teeth
because gold will weld into a solid mass
when cold. The dentists gold leaf is
not put through the shoder and mold,
but it is taken from the clutch, for they
use heavier leaf than gilders, bookbind-
erS and sign painters.