GOLD BEATING.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 569, 9 September 1869, Page 4

GOLD BEATING.

(From the Builder..) ■ The art of gold-beating is a very ancient ono. There seems great probability that, like some arts, it has been known and practised and forgotten. Homer refers to it ; Pliny, more practical, states that gold can be beaten, loz. making 550 leaves, each four fingers square, —about four times the thickness of the gold now used. This is most probably such gold as was used in the decoration of the Temple— " It was covered with plates of burnished gold." The Peruvians had thin plates nailed together. It is possible that if decorations of this character were ustd in these parts, their insecurity would so trouble soine folk that they would have no rest till they were effectually "nailed." The Thebans have in their wall histories some gold characters done with leaf said to bo as thin as the gold of the present day. Coming down with a jump from tlie long past to the present age, we find our country celebrated for its gold-leaf. Italy used to excel us, but Italy has been in a long sleep, and is only just awakened. It is one of 'the last things our overgrown offspring undertook to make for herself. Until very recently she imported all the gold-leaf she required from this country. The gold-beater's skin made here is still the admiration of the world (of goldbeaters). This skin is gut skin, stretched and dried on frames, after which each surface is very carefully levelled, a labor intrnsted to the delicate hands of young girls. A mould: (as the. number of square pieces of skin beaten at brie time in the gold-beating process is called) is an expensive article, costing from L 9 to LlO, and when useless for gold beating is still of some value. Fifty or sixty years back a workman made 2000 leaves of gold from 18 or 19 dwts of gold ; now, by better skin and skill, he is enabled to produce the same number from 14 or 15 dwts,. showing a considerable reduction in the cost of 2>roduce, and, as may be ex2)ected, a deterioration in the quality of the article. One grain of gold beaten between this skin can be extended to some seventy square inches of surface, the thickness of which will be 1.367650 th of an inch., These figures represent what may be done. What is done for the purposes of trade is somewhat less — viz., 56$ square inches per grain 1.280000 th of an inch in thickness. To give an idea of its thinness, it would takoJ2o to make the thickness of common printing paper, 367,650 sheets of which would make a column half as high as the monument.