gold applied in the usual way will immediately stick. Sweep off the
superfluous portions of the leaf, and when quite cold it may be
burnished, taking care to interpose a piece of india paper between
the gold and the burnisher. It sometimes happens when the varnish is
not very good that by repeated washing the gold wears off; on this
account the practice of burning it in is sometimes had recourse to;
for this purpose some gold powder is ground with borax, and in this
state applied to the clean surface of the glass by a camel hair
pencil; when quite dry the glass is put into a stove, heated to
about the temperature of an annealing oven, the gum burns off; and
the borax, by vitrifying, cements the gold with great firmness to
the glass, after which it may be burnished.

The gilding upon porcelain is in like manner fixed by heat and the
use of borax, and this kind of ware, being neither transparent nor
liable to soften, and thus to be injured in its form in a low red
heat, is free from the risk and injury which the finer and more
fusible kinds of glass are apt to sustain from such treatment.
Porcelain and other wares may be platinized, silvered, tinned,
or bronzed, in a similar manner.


16. GILDING THE EDGES OF PAPER

The edges of the leaves of books and letter paper are gilded
whilst in a horizontal position in the bookbinder's press or some
arrangement of the same nature, by first applying a composition
formed of four parts of Armenian-bole and one of candied sugar,
ground together with water to a proper consistence, and laid on by
a brush with the white of an egg. This coating, when nearly dry is