Chap. VII. Secrets relative to the art of dying woods, bones &c.

Valuable Secrets concerning Arts and Trades:
or Approved Directions, from the best Artists, for the Various Methods...
Printed by Thomas Hubbard,
Norwich, 1795Chap. VII. Secrets relative to the art of dying woods, bones &c.

I. The composition for red.

1. Chop Brasil wood very fine, and boil it in common water, till it has acquired an agreeable colour; then strain it through a cloth.

2. Give your wood first a coat of yellow, made of saffron, diluted in water. Then, the wood being thus previously tinged with a pale yellow, and dried, give afterwards several coats of the Brasil wood-water, till the hue pleases you.

3. When the last coat is dry, burnish it with the burnisher, and lay another coat of drying varnish with the palm of your hand; and you will have a red oranged very agreeable.

4. If you want a deeper red, or rather a darker, boil the Brasil wood in a water impregnated with a dissolution of alum, or quick lime.


II. Another red.

Soak the chopped Brasil wood in oil of tartar; and, with it rub your wood, proceeding for the rest as above directed.


III. Another way.

Pound orchanetta into powder; mix it with oil of nut; make it lukewarm, and rub your wood with it. The rest as above.


IV. To die wood in a purplish colour.

Soak Dutch turnsol in water; add a tincture of Brasil wood made in lime water, and you will obtain a purple, with which you may dye your wood, and then burnish and varnish as usual.


V. A blue purple.

Take that sort of German turnsol which painters use to paint with size. Dissolve it in water, and jtrain it through a linen cloth. Give a coat of this dye to the wood; and, if the hue seems to you to be too strong, give it a other coat of a paler dye, which is done by adding clear water to a part of the other. When dry, burnish it as usual.


VI. Another.

Four ounces of Brasil, and half a pound of India, woods, boiled together in two quarts of water, with. one ounce of common alum.


VII. A blue for wood.

Slack lime in water, and decant it out of the ground. In three pints of this water dissolve four ounces of turnsol, and boil it one hour. Then give several coats of it to your wood.


VIII. A green.

Grind Spanish verdigrise into a subtile powder with strong vinegar. Add, and mix well with this, two ounces of green vitriol. Boil all of it a quarter of an hour in two quarts of water, and put your wood a soaking in it so long as you find the colour to your liking. For the rest, proceed as above.


IX. A yellow.

Dissolve turnsol in two quarts of water. Then grind some indigo on marble with that water, and set it in a vessel on the fire with weak size to dilute it. When done, give a coat of this dye to your wood with a brush, and when dry, polish it with the burnisher.


X. Another yellow.

Boil in water some grinded terra merita, and soak your wood in it afterwards.


XI. Another finer yellow.

Four ounces of French berries, boiled for about a quarter of an hour in a quart of water, with about the bulk of a filbert of rochalum. Then soak the wood in it.


XII. To dye wood in a fine polished white.

Take the finest English white chalk, and grind it in subtile powder on marble, then let it dry. Now take what quantity yon please of it, and set it in a pipkin on the fire with a weak sized water, having great care not to let it turn brown. When it is tolerably hot, give first a coat of size to your wood, and let it dry: then give one or two coats of the aforesaid white over it. These being dry also, polish with the rushes, and burnish with the burnisher.


XIII. To dye in polished black.

Grind lamp-black on marble with gum water. Put it next in a pipkin, and give a coat of this, with a brush, to your wood; then polish it when dry.


XIV. Another way.

Sosk bits of old rusty iron, such as nails, for example, in the best black ink. A few days after rub your wood with it, and when you shall see it well penetrated with this black, and dry, polish it with the burnisher.


XV. To imitate ebony.

Infuse gall-nuts in viregar, wherein you shall have shaked rusty nails; then rub your wood with this; let it dry, polish and burnish.


XVI. Another way.

Chuse a good hard wood, and not veiny, such as pear, apple, or hawthron trees, and blacken them. When black, rub them with a bit of cloth; then, with a reed brush, made on purpose, dipped in melted wax, mixed in a pot with common black, rub your wood till it shires like ebony.

N. B. Before you perform this on your wood, it is proper to rub it smooth with the rushes, for then you succeed better in the imitation of the ebony.


XVII. Another way.

The holy is again a very fit sort of wood to take the dye of ebony. The method of dying it is this. Form it first into the shape you intend to give it, then put it in a hatter's copper to boil, where you leave it till it has acquired a perfect degree of blackness, and is penetrated sufficiently deep with it, which you know by leaving a little bit in a corner of the copper to cut and make the trial. If the black has got in as deep as a copper halfpenny is thick, take it out and dry it in the shade. Then take off the filth of the dye, and polish it as you would ebony, with rushes, charcoal dull, and oil of olive.


XVIII. Another ebony black.

1. Take India wood cut in small bits, and a little alum; put them in water, and boil till the water looks purple. Give several coats of this colour on the wood, till it looks purple likewise.

2. Next to this, boil verdigrise in vinegar to the diminution of a third, and give new coats of this over the others on the wood till it looks black.


XIX. Another way.

Take mulberry-tree wood, work and shape it as it is to stay. Then soak it for three days in alum water, exposed to the sun, or before the fire. Boil it after this in olive water, in which you may put the bulk of a nut of Roman vitriol, and the same quantity of brimstone. When the wood looks of a fine black, take it out, and lay it again in alum-water. When it shall have remained there a descretionary time, take it out, let it dry, and polish as usual.


XX. A fine blacky easily made.

Take of good ink whatever quantity you like; put it in a store pan, new, and well nealed, then set it in the sun to exsiccate it into a cake. When dry, take and scrape it out from the pan with a knife, and grind it into an impalpable powder on marble. This powder, diluted with varnish will produce a fine black.


XXI. To dye wood silver fashion.

Pound tinglass, in a mortar, and reduce it into powder. Add water to it by degrees, with which you continue to pound it, till it comes into a liquid, like colour for painting. Put it in a clean pipkin, with as big as a nutmeg of size, and let it on the fire to warm. Brush your wood with this liquor; and, when it is dry, burnish it.


XXII. To dye in gold, silver, or copper.

Pound very fine, in a mortar, some roch crystal with clear water. Set it to warm in a new pipkin with a little size, and give a coat of it on your wood with a brush. When dry, rub a piece of gold, silver, or copper, on the wood thus prepared, and it will assume the colour of such of these metals as you will have rubbed it with. After this is done, burnish it ss usual.


XXIII. To give a piece of nut, or pear tree, what undulations one likes.

Slack some quick lime in chamber-lye. Then with a brush dipped in it form your undulations on the wood according to your fancy. And, when dry, rub it well with a rind of pork.


XXIV. To immitate the root of nut-tree.

Give seven or eight coats of size to your wood, till it remains shiny. Then, before your size is quite dry, strike here and there a confused quantity of spots with bistre grinded with common water. When dry, varnish it with the Chinese varnish.


XXV. To give a fine colour to the cherry tree wood.

Take one ounce of orchanetta; cut it in two or three bits, and put it to soak for forty-eight hours in three ounces of good oil of olive. Then, with this oil anoint your cherry-tree wood after it is worked and shaped as you intend it: it will give it a fine lustre.


XXVI. To marble wood.

1. Give it a coat of black diluted in varnish. Repeat it one, two, three, or as many times as you think proper; then polish it as usual.

2. Dilute next, some white in a white varnish made with white gum, or shell-lack, and white sandarac. Lay this white on the black ground tracing with it what strokes and oddities you like. When dry, give a light rub with rushes, then wipe it, and give a last coat of fine transparent white varnish, in order to preserve the brightness of the white. Let this dry at leisure, then polish it.


XXVII. To immitate white marble.

Have the finest white marble you can find; break and calcine it in the fire. Grind it as fine as you possibly can, on a white marble done, and dilute it with size. Lay two coats of this on your wood, which, when dry, you polish as usual, and varnish as before directed.


XXVIII. To imitate black marble.

Burn some lamp-black in a shovel red hot, then grind it with brandy. For the bigness of an egg of black, put the size of a pea of lead in drops, as much of tallow, and the same quantity of soap. Grind and mix well all this together; then dilute it with a very weak size water. Give four coats of this; and, when dry, polish as usual.


XXIX. To marble, and jasper.

The wood being previously whitened with two coats of whitening, diluted in leather size, then polished as directed Chap. v. art. 1. n. 2. put on with a pencil what other colours you like, then burnish it with the burnishing tooth, which, in doing it, you rub now and then on a piece of white soap.

You must only take notice, that if you have employed lake, cinabar, orpine, and some other colours, they will easily receive the burnishing; but as for the verdigrise and azure powder, you will find moif difficulty to succeed in doing it.

As for the jasper, you must only give two or three coats of different colours fancifully drawn and intermixed, chusing always a green or a yellow for the ground as the most proper. And, when with a brush of hog's bristles, you shall have laid and variegated all your colours, let the whole dry; polish it with rushes, and give the last coat of white varnish.


XXX. For the aventurine.

Prepare a brown ground colour, with a mixture of vermilion, umber, and lamp-black, and give a first coat of this on your wood. According as you should want this ground darker or redder, you may add or diminish the quantity of some of these colours. When these coats are dry, polish them, then heat them, and give another of a fine and clear varnish, in which you have mixed the aventurine, powder sifted through a silk sieve. And after the proper time for drying, you may polish as usual.


XXXI. A counter faction of coral.

1. Reduce goat's horns into it a subtile powder. Put it in a clear lye made of lime and pearl ashes. Let it there rest for a fortnight. I reduced into a palp, add cinnabar in powder, or, dragon's blood in tears, pulverised very fine, in what wuantity you a may judge necessary to give the quantity of matter you have got a fine and perfect coral hue.

2. Next boil this composition till it comes very thick; then take it off from the fire and mould it in moulds shaped in forms of coral. Or else caat it again in what other sorts of moulds you like, to make figures of it, and other sorts of work, which will produce a fine effect.

Observation. This secret has been worth immense sums of money to him who found it out. The Turks, to whom these sorts of works vere carried, paid them magnificently. But this branch of trade was soon put to an end by the cheats which were practised with the merchants of Tunis and Algiers, who used to buy those curiosities.


XXXII. To soften amber, otherwise karabe.

Melt fine white and pure wax in a glass vessel. When melted a put your amber in it, and leave it there till you find it soft to your satisfaction. Then take it out, and give it what form and shape you like. If afterwards you put it in a dry place in the shade, it will be come as hard as you can wish to have it.


XXXIII. To take the impression of any seal.

Take half a pound of Mercury; the same quantity of chrystaline vitriol; as much verdigrise. Pulverise well these two last ingredients, and put them along with the first in a new iron pan, with smith's forge water. Stir all well with a wooden spatula, till the mercury is perfectly incorporated with the powders. Then wash that paste with cold water, and change it till it remains quite clear as when you put it in. Put the lump in the air, it will harden, and you may keep it for use.

2. When you want to take the impression of a seal with it, take it and place it over the fire on an iron plate. When there appears on it some drops like pearls, then it is hot enough; take it off and knead it in your bands with your fingers, it will become pliable like wax; smoothen one side of it with the flat side of a knife blade, and apply it on the seal, pressing it all round and in the middle to make it take the impression. When done, lift it up, and set it in the air, where it will come again as hard as metal, and will serve you to seal the same letter, after having opened it, with its own coat of arms or cypher, &c. as the original seal itself, without any probability of discovering it, should even the real one be laid on it.


XXXIV. Another way.

Heat some mercury in a crucible, and silver filings in another, in the proportion of two parts of mercury to one of silver. As soon as the mercury begins to move, pour it on the silver filings. Let this cool, and then put it in a glass mortar. Pound it well with a pestle of the same, and add a little water in which you shall have dissolved some verdigrise. Stir this, for three days, five or six times a day. At the end of the term decant out the verdigrise water, and replace it with good vinegar, with which you pound it again in to same mortar, as before, a couple of hours, changing vinegar as soon as it blackens. Pound it again, two other hours, with chamber lye inflead of vinegar, changing it the same, during that time, as you did the vinegar. - Then take that matter, lay it on a wash leather skin, which you bring up all round it, and the it above with a string. Press the lump well in that skin, so as to separate and squeeze out all the superfluous mercury which passes through the leather. And, when none comes out any longer, open the skin, take the lump in your hand, and knead it with your fingers, and smoothen one side of it to take the impression you like, proceeding, for the rest, as above directed. It hardens in the air, and softens with the heat of the hand, assisted with the working of the fingers, as you would do a piece of wax.


XXXV. To get birds with white feathers.

Make a mixture of semper-vivum-majus's juice, and olive oil, and rub with it the eggs on which the hen is fetting. All the birds which shall come from those egg, will be white feathered.


XXXVI. To soften ivory.

In three ounces of spirit of nitre, and fifteen of white wine, or even of mere spring-waterr, mixed together, put your ivory a-soaking. And, in three or four days, it will be so soft as to obey under the fingers.


XXXVII. To dye ivory, thus softened.

1. Dissolve, in spirit of wine, such colours as you want to dye your ivory with. And when the spirit of wine shall be efficiently tinged with the colour you have put in, plunge your ivory in it, and leave it there till it is sufficiently penetrated with it, and dyed inwardly. Then give,that ivory what form you will.

2. To harden it afterwards, wrap it up in a sheet of white paper, and cover it with decrepitated common salt, and the driest you can make it to be; in which situation you mall leave it only twenty-four hours.


XXXVIII. Another way to soften ivory.

Cut a large root of mandrake into small bits, and infuse first, then boil it in water. Put your ivory in this boiling liquor, and boil it too, till it is as soft as wax.


XXXIX. Another way.

Take one pound of black alicant kaly, and three quarters of a pound of quick lime, which you put into boiling water, and let it rest for three days. If, after that term, the liquor is reddish, it is strong enough; if not, you must add again of the above ingredients, till it acquires that degree.

2. Then putting a soaking in this lye any bone, or ivory, for a fortnight, they will become as soft as wax.

3. To harden them afterwards, dissolve an equal quantity of alum and scuttle fish-bones powder, in water, which you boil to a pellicula; soak your bones or ivory in this for about one hour only; then take them out, and put them in a cellar for a few days.


XL. To whiten ivory, which has been spoiled.

Take roch-alum, which you dissolve in water, in a sufficient quantity, to render the water all milky with it. Boil this liquor into a bubble, and soak your ivory in it for about one hour, then rub it over with a little hair brush. When done, wrap it in a wet piece of linen to dry it leisurely and gradually, otherwise it would certainly split.


XLI. Another way.

Take a little black soap, and lay it on the piece of ivory. Present it to the fire, and when it has bubbled a little while, wipe it off.


XLII. To whiten green ivory; and whiten again that which has turned of a brown yellow.

1. Slack some lime into water, put your ivory in that water, after decanted from the ground, and boil it till it looks quite white.

2. To polish it afterwards, set it on the turner's whel, and after having worked it, take rushes and pumicestones subtile powder with water, and rub it till it looks all over perfectly smooth. Next to that, heat it, by turning it against a piece of linen, or sheep's-skin leather, and, when hot, rub it over with a little whitening diluted in oil of olive, continuing turning as before; then with a little dry whitening alone, and finally with a piece of soft white rag. When all this is performed as directed, the ivory will look as white as snow.


XLIII. To whiten bones.

Put a handful of bran and quick-lime together, in a new pipkin, with a sufficient quantity of water, and boll it. In this put the bones, and boil them also till perfectly freed from greasy particles.


XLIV. To petrify wood, &c.

Take equal quantities of gem-salt, roch-alum, white vinegar, calx, and pebbles powder. Mix all these ingredients together, there will happen an ebullition. If, after it is over, you throw in this liquor any porous matter, and leave it there a soaking for three, four, or five days, they will politively turn into petrifications.


XLV. To immitate tortois-shell with horn.

Take one ounce of gold litharage, and half an ounce, of quicklime. Grind well all together, and mix it to the considence of pap, with a sufficient quantity of chamber-lye. Put of this on the horn; and, three or four hours afterwards it will be perfectly marked.


XLVI. A preparation for tortois-shell.

Make a mixture, as above, of quicklime, orpine, pearl ashes, and aquafortis. Mix well all together, and put your horn, or tortois-shell, a-soaking in it.


XLVII. To dye bones in green.

Grind well a discretionable quantity of verdigrise, which you put with vinegar in a copper vessel, and the bones in it. Cover this, and lute it so well that no air can come at the contents. Put it in hot horse dung, and leave it there for a fortnight, after which time take your bones out; they will be coloured of a fine green, which will never rub off.


XLVIII. Another way.

1. Put some verdigrise, well grinded, in goat's milk, and leave it till the milk becomes very green. Then put all together in a copper vessel along with the bones; cover and lure it well, then place it in hot horse dung far ten days, after which time you may take the bones oat perfectly well coloured.

2. If you will have them more so, boil them in oil of nut; and the longer they boil in it, the more they will heighten in colour.

3. To polish them, you must use elder's marrow: and lustre them with oil of nut.


XLIX. To dye bones, and mould them in all manner of shapes.

1. Boil together twelve pounds of quick lime, and one of calcined roch-alum, in water, to the reduction of one third of the water you shall have put in. Add, then, two more pounds of quick lime, and boil it again till it can carry an egg, without its sinking to the bottom. Now let it cool and rest, then filter it.

2. Take twelve pounds of that liquor; put in half a pound of rasped Brasil wood, and four ounces of scarlet flocks boil all about five minutes on a slow fire, then decant the clearest part of it, and put it by. Put on the fæces of brasil and scarlet about four pounds of the first water; boil it the same length of time as the other, and decant likewise the clearest part of it on the other. Repeat this operation, till the new added water draws no more colour from the fæces.

3. Now rasp any quantity of bones, and boil them, when rasped, a reasonable time in clear lime water. Then take them out. Put them in a matrass; and, over them, pour some of the tinged water, so as to soak them only with it. Place the matrass on a mild sand bath, and evaporate the liquor. Add some more liquor, and evaporate it again the same, continuing to add and evaporate the tinged liquor, till the rasped bones are all turned into a soft paste.

4. Take this paste, and mould it as you like, in tin or other moulds, to make whatever thing or figure you want. Set it in the mould for a day or two, till it has acquired the shape you would have it; then to harden it, boil it in a water of alum aand saltpetrefirst, and afterwards in oil of nut. Nothing more surprising, and at the same time more agreeable, than these figures, which look incontestibly to be made of bones, without conceiving how they can be made such, out of that matter, and in one solid piece.


L. To dye bones in black.

Take six ounces of litharage, and the same quantity of quick lime. Boil all in common water, alono; with the bones. Keep always stirring, till the water begins to boil. Then take it out, and never cease stirringg till the water is cold again; by that time the bones wiii be dyed black.


II. To soften bones.

Take equal parts of Roman vitriol and common salt. Distil the spirits out of this by the alembic or rather, by the retort. If in the water you get from the distillation, you put the bones a-soaking, they will become as soft as wax.


LII. To dye bones in green.

Pound well together, in a quart of strong vinegar, three ounces of verdigrise, as much of brass filings and a handful of rue. When done, put all n a glass vessel, along with the bones you want to dye and stop it well. Carry this into a cold cellar, wherein leaving it for a fortnight, or even more, the bones shall be dyed green.


LIII. A salt for hardening soft bones.

Take equal quantities of ammoniae, common decrepitated and gem salts, as weil as of plumeum saccarinum, rock and shell alums. Pulverise, and mix all together; then put it in a glass vessel well stopped, which bury in hot horse dung, that the matter should melt into water. Congeal it on warm embers. Then make it return into a delequium again, by means of the horse dung, as before. When thus liquified for the second time, it is fit for use. Keep it and when you want to harden and consolidate any thing, smear it over with it.


LIV. To make figures, or vases, with egg-shells.

1. Put in a crucible any quantity of egg shells, and place it in a potters furnace, for two days, that they may there be perfectly calcined; then rind them dry into a subtile powder.

2. Next, with gum arabick-water, and whites of eggs beaten together, make a liquor, with which you are to knead that powder, and make a paste or dough of it.

3. With that dough, to which you give the considence of potters clay, make and form whatever figure or vase you like, and set them in the sun to dry.


LV. To dye bones and ivory of a fine red.

1. Boil scarlet flocks in clear water, assisted with a certain quantity of pearl ashes, to draw the colour the better; then clarify it with a little roch-alum, and strain this tincture through a piece of linen.

2. To dye, afterwards, any bones or ivory in red, you must rub them first with aquafortis, and then immediately with this tincture.


LVI. To make a paste in imitation of black marble.

Dissolve two ounces of spalt, on a gentle fire, in a glazed pipkin. When in perfect fusion, add a third part of karabe, which you must keep there ready melted for it, and stir all well together. When both shall be well mixed and united, take the pipkin off from the fire, and throw the contents, boiling hot as they are, into a mould of a fine polish in the inside. Then, whea cold and dry, take the piece off from the mould, and you will find that nothing can imitate so well black marble as this deceptive composition, except black marble itself.


LVII. A receipt to dye marble, or alabaster, in blue or purple.

Pound together, in a marble mortar, parsnips and purple lilies, with a sufficient quantity of white-wine vinegar. Proportion the quantity of parsnips and lilies to each other, according to the hue you wish to give the liquor. If you cannot get one of these two juices, make use of that you can get; and to every one pound of liquor, mixed and prepared, put one ounce of alum.

2. In this dye, put now your pieces of marble, or alabaster, and boil them, supposing that they are not too considerable to go into the vessel with the liquor. And if they be, you must heat one part of it as much as you possibly can, then dye it with the liquor quite boiling hot, and thus proceed from place to place, till you have dyed it all over.


LVIII. To bronze wooden, plaster, ivory, or other figures, so that the bronze may stand water forever.

1. Grind English brown red, as fine as possible with nut oil. With this, paint all over the figure intended to be bronzed, and let it dry.

2. Have next some powder of German gold in a shell; and, in another, some of the varnish described in the following article. Dip a pencil in the varnish, and then in the gold, and give as smooth and equal a coat of this to your figure as you can.

3. For saving expence, you may instead of the German gold, take some fine bronze, which is a good deal cheaper.


LIX. The varnish fit for bronzing.

Pound, into subtile powder, one ounce of the finest shell-lac. Put it in a glass matrass of three half pints fixe. Pour upon it half-a-pint of the best French spirit of wine. Stop it well, and place it in the cool for four days, that the lac may have time to dissolve at leisure. During that time, negled not to shake the matrass, as if you were washing it, four or five times a-day, for fear the lac should make a glutinous lump, and stick to the bottom of the matrass. Should your lac, at the end of those four days, be yet undissolved, set it on a gentle sand-bath, to help finishing it; and, when dissolved to perfection, the varnish it done.

Note. When you pour the spirit of wine on the lac in the matrass, observe to do it gently, and little at a time, in order it may penetrate the powder the better. Observe also to stop pouring by intervals, at different times, and take the matrass and shake it as it were for rinsing, in order to mix all well, thus continuing to do till you have introduced all the spirit of wine into the lac.


LX. A water to dye bones and wood.

1. Put the strongest white-wine vinegar in an earthen pan, in which set to infuse, for seven days, copper filings, Roman vitriol, roch-alum, and verdigrise.

2. In this liquor, put a-boiling what you want to dye, and it will take the colour perfectly.

3. If you want a red dye instead of verdigrise, put some red; if yellow, put yellow, and so forth, according to the various colour you may require, with a discretionable quantity of roch-alum for either.


LXI. To dye bones and ivory an emerald green.

Put in aquafortis as much flos ænei as it can dissolve; and in that water put a-soaking, for twelve hours only, whatever you want to dye, and they will take the colour to perfection in that spsce of time.


LXII. To dye bones any colour.

Boil the bones first for a good while; then in alye of quick lime mixed with chamber lye, put either verdigrise or red or blue chalk, or any other ingredient fit to procure the colour, you want to give to the bones. Lay the bones in this liquor, and boil them, they will be perfectly dyed.


LXIII. To whiten alabaster and white marble.

Infuse, for twelve hours, some subtile pumice stone's powder in verjuice; then, with & cloth, or a sponge, wet your marble with the liquor, and it will become perfectly white.


LXIV. To blacken bones.

Mix charcoal dust with wood-ashes and water; rub the bone with this wash, then with ink; and, when dry, polish it.


LXV. Another way to dye woods and bones red.

Infuse for twenty-four hours your wood in redwine vinegar. Then add to this vinegar a sufficient quantity of Brasil wood and roch-alum, both in powder, and boil all altogether, till you see the wood, or bones, have acquired the degree of colour you wish to have them.


LXVI. The same in black.

After the twenty-four hours infusion as above, add to the vinegar a sufficient quantity of vitriol, orpine, pomegranates' rinds, and, gall-nuts, all in powder, and boil as before directed.


LXVII. For the green.

Supply for the above ingredients, two parts of roch-alum, and one of alumen plumeum, with which you boil the wood or bones to the reduction of two thirds, or thereabouts; then put them a-soakingin a lye of soap and verdigrise, in a sufficient quantity, till they are perfectly green.


LXVIII. To dye wood vermilion colour.

Smoothen and rub well the wood first; then give it four or five coats of vermilion subtilely pulverised, and diluted with lime and curd-cheese water. - When dry, polish it over again with rushes and oil of spike; then for the last, give it four or five coats of varnish, made with karabe and oil of spike, and let it dry.


LXIX. To soften born so that you may cast it in a mould as melted lead.

Make a strong lye with equal quantities of pearl ashes and quicklime. Rasp your horns, and put these raspings in that lye. They will soon turn into a pap. Then put in this pap whatever colour you like, rind cast it in what ever mould you chuse. - To dry and harden these figures afterwards follow the directions prescribed in Art. xlix. at the bottom, and in liii.