Papier Mache Articles. by degrees, with the addition, now and then, of a little spirit or oil of turpentine. When the amber is melted, sprinkle in the same quantity of sarcocolla, continuing to stir them, and to add more spirit of turpentine until the whole becomes fluid; then strain it out clear through a coarse hair bag, pressing it gently between hot boards. This varnish, mixed with ivory-black in fine powder, is applied in a hot room on the dried paper paste, which is then set in a gently-heated oven, next day in a hotter oven, and the third day in a very hot one, and allowed to remain each time till the oven grows cold. The paste thus varnished is hard, durable, glossy, and is not affected by the liquor, however hot. Maps, in relief, are occasionally made of papier-mâché. This SUCH articles have been made in France for more than a century, for, in 1740, one Martin, a German varnisher, went to Paris to learn this manufacture from Lefevre. On returning to his own country, he was so successful in his exertions that his paper snuff-boxes were called after him, "Martins." So much money went from Prussia to France in purchase of papier-mâché articles, that Frederick the Second, in 1765, established a manufactory at Berlin, which soon became very successful. Brunswick, Nurenberg, Vienna, and other German towns, by degrees commenced the manufacture, and it is now carried on to a considerable extent. Two modes are adopted The most remarkable instance of the emfor making articles of this kind:-1. By ployment of papier-mâché is one of which glueing or pasting different thicknesses of mention is made in Ersch and Gruber's paper together. 2. By mixing the substance" Allgemaine Encyclopädie.' Near Bergen, of the paper into a pulp, and pressing it into in Norway, a church has been built capable of moulds. The first mode is adopted principally for those articles-such as trays, &c.-in which a tolerably plain and flat surface is to be produced. Common millboard, such as forms the covers of books, may convey some idea of this sort of manufacture. Sheets of strong paper are glued together, and then so powerfully pressed that the different strata of paper become as one. Slight curvatures may be given to such pasteboard, when damp, by the use of presses and moulds. Some of the snuff-boxes are made by glueing pieces of paper, cut to the sizes of the top, bottom, and sides, one on another, round a frame or mould, which is afterwards removed. When dry, the work is done over with a mixture of size and lampblack, and afterwards varnished. The black varnish for these articles is prepared as follows:-Some colophony, or turpentine boiled down till it becomes black and friable, is melted in a glazed earthen vessel, and thrice as much amber, in fine powder, is sprinkled in The papier holding nearly a thousand persons. We willingly insert this communication from a respected correspondent. It is supplementary to the chapters which have already appeared in this work "On the Use of PapierMâché in Interior Decoration, &c.' TO BRONZE BRASS, ETC.-To six pounds of muriatic acid add two pounds of oxide of iron, and one pound of yellow arsenic; mix all well together, and let it stand for two days, frequently shaking it in the meantime, when it is fit for use; whatever may be the article which requires bronzing, let it be perfectly cleaned and free from grease, immerse it in the above solution and let it stand for three hours, or rather, till it will turn entirely black; then wash the spirits off and dry it in sawdust, Second Method.-From the point в with any which has been found the best; after the radius, describe an indefinite arc a c D. Set article is perfectly dry, apply to it some wet off the same radius A B on the arc a D, from A black the same as used for stones, and then to c, and from c to D. From the points c and shine it up with some dry black-lead and D, with any radius, describe arcs intersecting | brush, and it is fit for lacquering. B Progress of Lighting by Electricity. the light being developed in a glass her would ensure perfect safety in the foulest pits, metically closed, and to which no explosive gas could penetrate.-Mechanics' Magazine. MR. STAITE continues with great ardour and perseverance his laudable endeavours to render the light, attainable from electricity, avail- FRANCIS RONALDS, ESQ., F.R.S., ON PHOTOable for practical purposes. We were favoured GRAPHIC SELF-REGISTERING METEOROLOGICAL a few days ago with a private exhibition of an AND MAGNETICAL INSTRUMENTS.-The appaelectric lamp, constructed according to his last ratus employed by the author at the Kew patent. We have seen a larger volume of Observatory, and which he terms the Photolight produced from electricity, but never so Electograph, is described by him in the follarge a volume from so small a battery power; lowing words:" A rectangular box, about and at no time, and in no case, a light of this sixteen inches long and three square, constidescription so long sustained and so steady. tutes the part usually called the body of a Lighting by electricity has been a favourite kind of lucernal microscope. A voltaic elecdream of many; but Mr. Staite is unquestion-trometer (properly insulated, and in communiably the first scientific experimenter who has reduced it to (what we may almost venture to call) a practical certainty. Amongst several applications which the inventor contemplates, may be mentioned one wheel we had the opportunity of seeing in operation, namely, telegraphing by means of flashes of light through coloured media. With four sets of electrodes, for example, placed in glasses, coloured white, red, green, and blue, the whole alphabet, with the numerals, are indicated, by a very simple code of signals, and with astonishing rapidity. The key-board of the telegraph is so arranged that each key in the series is coloured white, red, green, and blue; and when either key is pressed down, it completes the circuit, with that particular electrode, at the distant station which exhibits the same coloured flash. There may be any number of keys, and one to strike a bell at the conclusion of each word, or for the ordinary purposes of drawing attention, &c. For night signals on railways, Mr. Staite proposes to have fixed, at required distances from the stations, a signal-post, on which two, three, or more lamps may be fixed; say one enclosed in a red glass, one in green, and one in white. The battery-wires are so arranged, that whichever lamp is required to show a light, the attendant at the station completes the circuit accordingly, and vice versa. The red light may indicate "danger," the green light "caution," and so on. These lights may be shown at any distance from the stations, and be under the perfect control at the same time of the attendants at the station. We think such a system calculated to be of great service in preventing accidents at night, especially in dark or foggy weather. Mr. Staite uses the self-sustaining percolating battery of Messrs. Brett and Little (under licence from the patentees); and he has, by this means, reduced the cost of the battery power to a minimum. Supposing the points of cost and continuousness to be determined in favour of the electric light, there can then be no question of its far surpassing every mode of illumination yet known. Mr. Staite is constructing a lamp combining all his recent improvements, and intends shortly exhibiting it to the public at large. The application of this light to coal mines (which is quite practicable) would be a great boon conferred upon them, inasmuch as it cation with an atmospheric conductor) is suspended within the microscope through an aperture in the upper side, and near to the object end. That end itself is closed by a pane of glass when daylight is used, and by condensing lenses when a common argand lamp is employed. In either case an abundance of light is thrown into the microscope. Between the electrometer and the ether, or eye-end of the microscope, fine achromatic lenses are placed, which have the double effect of condensing the light upon a little screen, situated at that eye-end, and of projecting a strong image of the electrometer in deep oscuro upon it. Through the screen a very narrow slit, of proper curvature, is cut (the chord of the are being in a horizontal position), and it is fitted into the back of a case, about two and a half feet long, which case is fixed to the eye-end of the microscope, at right angles with its axis, and vertically. Within the case is suspended a frame, provided with a rabbet, into which two plates of pure thin glass can be dropped, and brought into close contact by means of six little bolts and nuts. This frame can be removed at pleasure from a line, by which it is suspended, and the line, after passing through a small aperture (stopped with grease) cut through the upper end of the long case, is attached to a pulley (about four inches in diameter) fixed, with capacity of adjustment, on the hour arbor of a good clock. Lastly, counterpoises, rollers, springs, and a straight ruler are employed for ensuring accurate rectilineal sliding of the frame when the clock is set in motion. piece of properly prepared photographic paper is now placed between the two plates of glass in the moveable frame; the frame is removed (in a box made purposely for excluding light) and is suspended in the long case; this is closed so as to prevent the possibility of extraneous light entering with it; the clock is started, and the time of starting is noted. All that part of the paper which is made to pass over the slit in the screen, by the motion of the clock, becomes now, therefore, successively exposed to a strong light, and is, consequently, brought into a state which fits it to receive a dark colour on being again washed with the usual solution, excepting those small portions upon which dark images of the lower parts of the pendulums of the electrometer are projected through the slit. These small por A tions of course retain the light colour of the the time appointed, and immediately cast his If he had a mind to paper, and form the long curved lines or eye upon his dial-plate. bands, whose distances from each other, at any write anything to his friend, he directed his given part of the photograph, i.e., at any given needle to every letter that formed the words time, indicate the electric tension of the atmo-that he had occasion for, making a little pause sphere at that time. By certain additions to at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid the instrument above described, the kind as confusion. The friend, in the meanwhile, saw well as the tension of electrical charge is capa- his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to ble of being registered; and by the employ-every letter which that of his correspondent ment also of a horizontal thermometer, &c., it pointed at. By this means they talked togeis adapted to the purposes of a thermograph, ther across a whole continent, and conveyed as well as photobarometrograph and magneto- their thoughts to one another, in an instant, over cities or mountains, seas or deserts." graph." MOZART'S HOUSE AND STATUE.-This is the age for pulling down the former residences of illustrious men, and, by way of compensation, erecting statues to their memory; thus, by a sort of moral compromise, adjusting the exigencies of modern advancement with the claims of departed genius. We learn from the foreign journals, that Mozart's house, at Vienna, is about to be pulled down, in order, on its site and that of the two adjoining dwellings, to erect a large hotel. This is a private enterprise; and the proprietor, M. Gelvino, a wealthy Italian, has publicly announced his intention to erect, in the centre of the large court-yard of the new hotel, a The bronze statue of the great composer. house in question, celebrated as the residence, for many years, of the great maestro, and "Don Giovanni," where, having composed and most of his greatest musical works, he died in 1791, was usually known by the appellation of "the Eye of God," a title which it has retained from an early period, in consequence of its having been the site of a former religious foundation, consecrated under that name. ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.-A passage in No. 241 of the Spectator, offers a curious example of a matter treated by an enlightened writer of the time as a piece of fabulous extravagance, yet more than realised in one of the most extraordinary applications of modern science :"Strada, in one of his prolusions, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends, by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such virtue in it that, if touched by two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to the move, other, though at ever so great a distance, moved at the same time and in the same manner. He tells us that two friends, being each of them possessed of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with twentyfour letters-in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dialplate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the twenty-four letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at Sienna Marble-Mix raw terra de sienna and burnt umber; vein it with burnt umber alone. Black Marble-Mix indigo and madder brown with lamp-black. Buff-colour Drapery-Mix gamboge and Roman ochre, or gamboge and a little lake; shadow with the same, darker; for the more intense shadows, mix gamboge and burnt umber. White Drapery-Shade with a mixture of indigo and Indian ink. Crimson Curtains-Colour with red lead and a little lake. Gilt-Poles-Colour as for or-molu, and shadow with burnt umber and gamboge combined, or with burnt umber and lake, and sometimes with a mixture of lake and gamboge. Q. E. D.-We are indebted to the "Household Book of Practical Receipts," published by Dicks, 7, Brydgesstreet, Covent-garden, for the following :-Cement for Mending Broken Glass Ornaments-Dissolve five or six bits of gum mastich, each the size of a large pea, in as much spirit of wine as will suffice to render it liquid; and, in another vessel, dissolve as much isinglass, previously a little softened in water (though none of the water must be used), in French brandy or good rum, as will make a two-ounce phial of very strong glue, adding two small bits of gum galbanum or ammoniacum, which must be rubbed or ground till they are dissolved. Then mix the whole with a sufficient heat. Keep the glue in a phial closely stopped, and when it is to be used, set the phial in boiling water. L. S. D.-The "Megaloscope" is an instrument for exhibiting the larger varieties of microscopic objects, such as aquatic larvae, entire insects, minerals, shells, flowers, the machinery of chronometers, &c. J. BARKER. Perhaps the following will answer your purpose:-Recipe for Varnishing Metals-Fuse by a gentle heat twelve ounces of amber and two ounces of asphaltum; then add two ounces of black resin, and half a pint of boiled oil. Mix well, remove it from the fire, and, when nearly cold, add three-quarters of a pint of spirit of turpentine. Mix well together. The first Monthly Part of the DECORATOR'S AsSISTANT, in a handsome illustrated wrapper, is now ready. Price 7d. London: Published at the Office of the SPORTSMAN'S MAGAZINE, 17, Holywell-street, Strand (where all commu nications to the Editor are to be addressed); and to be had of all Booksellers.-Saturday, July 3, 1847. Printed by W. COOLE, Lumley Court, Strand. |