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a lighter hammer, till the golden plates have again ac-quired the extent of the skins, they are a second timedivided in four : the instrument used for this division isa piece of cane cut to an edge, the leaves being now solight, that the moisture of the air or breath, condensingon a metalline knife, would occasion them to stick to it.These last divisions being so numerous, that the skinsnecessary for interposing between them would make thepacket too thick to be beaten at once, they are partedinto three parcels, which are beaten separately, with thesmallest hammer, till they are stretched for the third timeto the size of the skins : they are now found to be redu-ced to the greatest thinness they will admit of, and indeedmany of them, before this period, break or fail. TheFrench workmen, according to the minute detail of thisprocess given in the Encyclopedie, repeat the division andthe beating once more ; but as the squares of gold, takenfor the first operation, have four times the area of thoseused among us, the number of leaves from an equal areais the same in both methods, to wit, sixteen from a squareinch. In the beating, however simple the process appearsto be, a good deal of address is requisite, for applying thehammers so as to extend the metal uniformly from themiddle to the sides : one improper blow is apt not only tobreak the gold leaves, but to cut the skins.

After the last beating, the leaves are taken up by theend of a cane instrument, and being blown flat on a leathercushion, are cut to a size, one by one, with a squareframe of cane made of a proper sharpness, or with aframe of wood edged with cane : they are then fitted intobooks of twenty five leaves each, the paper of which iswell smoothed, and rubbed with red bole to prevent theirsticking to it. The French, for sizing the leaves, useonly the cane knife; cutting them first streight on oneside, fitting them into the book by the streight side, and

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