though little known and not on sale, has been strongly recommended by Bouvier as one of the best blacks that can be used. Soft without being greasy, light, almost impalpable, even before being ground, it gives tints of a very bluish gray when mixed with white, a quality precious for making the blues of the sketch, and dull greens. It is said to dry better than blue or vine black, and to combine admirably with other colours. De Montabert prefers calling it Coffee Brown, giving it as an exemplification of a bluish-brown, but probably this brown hue is owing to want of skill in its manufacture. We have not had personal experience of the colour, but there is no theoretical reason why a carbonaceous black should not be produced from coffee. The mode of proceeding is to calcine the berry in a covered vessel, and well wash the resulting charcoal with boiling water by decantation. In order to prevent the powder, which is of great lightness, from floating, it is made into paste with a few drops of alcohol before adding the water. 300. _Frankfort Black_ is said to be made of the lees of wine from which the tartar has been washed, by burning, in the manner of ivory black; although the inferior sort is merely the levigated charcoal of woods, of which the hardest, such as box and ebony, yield the best. Fine Frankfort black, though almost confined to copper-plate printing, is one of the best black pigments extant, being of a neutral colour, next in intensity to lamp black, and more powerful than that of ivory. Strong light has the effect of deepening its colour. It is probable that this was the black used by some of the Flemish painters, and that the pureness of the greys formed therewith is due to the property of charred substances of preventing discolourment. 301. _Manganese Black_, the common black oxide of that metal, is the best of all blacks for drying in oil without addition. It is also a colour of vast body and tingeing power. As a siccative, it might be advantageously employed with ivory black. 302. _Mineral Black_ is a native impure carbon of soft texture, found in Devonshire. Blacker than plumbago, and free from its metallic lustre, it is of a neutral colour, greyer and more opaque than ivory black, and forms pure neutral tints. Being perfectly durable, and drying well in oil, it is of value in dead colouring on account of its solid body, as a preparation for black and deep colours before glazing. It would likewise be the most permanent and best possible black for frescoes. 303. _Paper Black_, a pigment unknown to the modern palette, like most of our numbered italicised colours, is of the nature of blue or vine black. Very soft and of a fine bluish-gray, it is fitted for flesh, or for mixing with whites or yellows in landscapes. 304. _Peach Black_,