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GILDING

Experiment XI.

Gold unites with alcaline sulphurets loth in the dry andhumid ivay.

To exhibit this, some leaf-gold may be digested with heat in asolution of sulphuiet of potash. Or,

Equal parts of sulphur and potash may be fused quickly withgold-leaf.

REMARK...Some chemists have persuaded themselves that thiswas the process made use of by Moses to render the. Golden Calf,which the Israelites cast in that metal and set up in the wilder-ness, to worship during Moses’s absence on the Mount, potable,which, as related in Exod. XXXII. that legislator ground to pow-der, burnt, and mixt with the water the people were to drink.There is however nothing related concerning the operations ne-cessary for that purpose.

GILDING,

Or the art of covering the surfaces of bodies with gold. Ma-nufacturers use the term improperly to denote silvering, as wellas gilding, and likewise die various methods of producing agolden colour without actually using gold.

The real application of gold, as a covering, may be performed,either by a metallic mixture after the manner of a pigment; orby friction, upon the same principle as black-lead, and colouredchalks are used; or by the chemical precipitation of gold frommercury', or some other fit solvent; or, lastly, by glueing, orfastening extremely diin leaves of gold, to the surface intendedto be gilt.