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ing a mixture of three pounds of linseed oil, and one ofoil of turpentine, covering the vessel, and boiling themfor an hour over a gentle fire, and grinding the mixture,as it is wanted, with so much pumice stone in fine pow-der as will reduce it to the consistence of paint. The fishbeing wiped dry, the mixture is spread upon it, and thegold leaf being then laid on, and gently pressed down,the fish may be immediately put into water again withoutany danger of the gold coming off, for the matter quicklygrows firm in water. As the qualities of this cementexcellently fit it for some other purposes, it was thoughtworth while to insert the whole process.
Drinking-glasses, gilt on the edges, have of late beenmuch admired : the best of these are brought from Ger-many; those hitherto made in England, though equal inbeauty to the foreign, being greatly inferiour in thedurability of the gilding. It is supposed that the Germanglasses are gilt by fire : and it is certain that gold leaf maybe made to adhere firmly to glass softened by heat, andthat the effect may be promoted by the interposition ofsome vitrescent bodies more fusible than the glass itself:a piece of glass pipe being moistened with a weak solutionof borax, then covered with gold leaf, dried, and heatedto a full red heat, the gold was found cemented morestrongly than that on the German glasses, so as scarce atall to be scraped off with a knife ; though in some partsit appeared fpecky or full of small holes, probablyfrom want of sufficient address in the application of it.But how firmly soever the gold may be thus cemented, itwould be very difficult to gild the edges of a glass in thismethod without damaging the rest; and a careful exami-nation of some of the German glasses shewed pretty plainlythat the gold had been fixed on them by other means.The glasses had evidently been ground and polished ; yet
K the