THE GOLDBEATER.

The Gold-Boater is a workman who by continually beating gold or silver upon marble with a hammer, in thin skins, reduces these metals into very thin leaves proper for gilding or silvering copper, iron, steel, wood, and a variety of other materials.

This art is very ancient. Although the Romans did not cany it so far as we now do, it is very certain that immediately after the
destruction of Carthage, and during the censorship of Lucius Mummius they began to gild the interior of their houses in Rome. The
wainscots of the capitol were the first done, and luxury afterwards became so great, that private persons had both their walls and
ceilings of their apartments ornamented with this precious metal.

Pliny assures us that they made from one ounce of gold, five or six leaves four fingers square; but that a much greater number
could be made, having regard to their thickness. That the thickest were called praenestines, from a statue of Fortune at Prameste,
which was gilt with thick leaves, and that those which were thinner were called questoriales.

Gold in itself, and when very pure, is soft, easily cut or graved, and so tough, that when the gold is at length made to break by repeated bending backwards and forwards, the fracture on each of the pieces appears drawn out like a wedge.

The fineness to which a body of gold may be reduced is almost incredible. Mr. Boyle found that upwards of tifty square inches of
gold weighed but a single grain and as a cubic inch of gold contains four thousand nine hundred and two grains, the thickness of the
gold-leaf was less than the two hundred and forty thousandth part of an inch.

Gold to be made into leaf, is first melted in a crucible with some borax ; it is then poured into an iron mould, from which it is taken and made red hot, and forged into a long plate, which is farther extended by being passed repeatedly between polished rollers, till it becomes as thin as paper. It is now cut into pieces of equal size and weight, which are forged and well annealed to correct the stiffness which the metal has contracted in hammering.

In farther extending these pieces into fine leaves, it is necessary to interpose some smooth body between them and the hammer,
for softening the blow, and defending them from the rudeness of its immediate action ; as also to place between every two of the
pieces, some proper intermedium, which, while it prevents them from uniting together, or injuring one another, may suffer them
freely to extend. For this, Gold-Beaters use three kinds of membranes : for the outside cover, common parchment made of sheep skin ; for interlacing with the gold, the closest vellum made of calf-skin ; and afterwards finer skins made of a thin substance stript off from the gut, slit open and curiously prepared for the purpose; hence the name of Gold-Beaters' skin. The preparation of these membranes is a distinct business, practised only by a few persons in the kingdom.

The beating of the gold is performed on a smooth block of marble, weighing from two to six hundred weight; fitted into the midd$e
of a wooden frame, so that the surface of the marble may form one plane. Three of the sides are furnished with a high ledge ; andi
the front, which is open, has a leathern flap fastened to it, which the Gold-Beater takes before him as an apron, for preserving the
fragments of gold which fall off

Three hammers are employed ; all of them with two round and somewhat convex faces, though the workmen seldom use more than one of the faces. The first hammer weighs fifteen or sixteen pounds, and is called the catch hammer; the second, is called the
shodering hammer, and weighs twelve ppunds; the third, is the finishing hamiper and weighs about ten pounds.

One hundred and fifty pieces of gold are interlaid with leaves of vellum three or four inches square, one vellum leaf being placed
between every two of the pieces, and about twenty more of the vellum leaves on the outsides; over these is drawn a parchment case open at both ends ; and over this, another in a contrary direction. So that the assemblage of gold and vellum leaves is kept tight and closeon all sides. The whole is beaten with the heaviest hammer, and every now and then turned upside down till the gold is stretched to the extent of lhe vellum. The pieces taken out from between the vellum leaves are cut inrto four with a steel knife : the six hundred divisions are next interlaid in the same manner with pieces of ox-gut skins, five inches square. The beating is to be again repeated, till the golden plates have acquired the extent of the skins, when they are a second time to be divided into four. The instrument used for this division, is a piece of cane cut to an edge, the leaves being now so slight that the moisture of the air or the breath condensing on a metallic knife, would occasion them to stick to it.

After a third beating in a similar way, the leaves are taken up by the end of a cane instrument, and, being blown flat on a leathern
cushion, are cut to a size, one by one, with a square frame of cane, made of a proper sharpness; they are then fitted into books of
twenty-five leaves each, the paper of which the well smoothed, and rubbed with red bole to prevent their sticking to it.

The process of Gold-Beating is very much influenced by the weather ; both damp and frost are injurious to the operation.

Gold-leaf ought to be prepared from the finest gold, as an admixture of other metals, though in too small a proportion sensibly to
affect the colour of the leaf, would dispose it to, lose a part of its beauty in the air besides, the greater hardness of alloyed gold, occasions as much or even more to be lost in time and labour, than can be gained by adulterating the metal.

Gold-leaf is applied, in the art of gilding, to the surface of bodies, and it is done in two ways. Wood, leather, paper, and other like
substances, are gilt by fastening on leaves of gold by some cement ; but metals are gilt by a chemical application of gold to the surface. This last, is called water gilding. Silver-leaf is, however, often applied to the plating of metals, without the intervention of chemical agents, if we except pumice-stone and heat.