We may take this first opportunity of remarking that the patterns for all ornament _intended for casting_ should be _modelled_ like these, never _carved_, as is now so universally the case for cast iron and the applied enrichments of picture frames, the reason being that cast material of this sort, so easily injured, is unsuited for giving definition and high relief, and should accept all the limitations of material frankly and make the most of dull suggestiveness; for in all these the “best are but shadows” the modelling emerging from or melting away in the ground. In two attempts the present writer has made in modelling for lead casting wax was used in one instance, and in the other, where very delicate relief was required made up mostly of threads and dots, gesso was found to answer. [Illustration: FIGS. 4 and 5.--Greek Weights.] The ram’s head (see Fig. 4) for instance has only the frontal, the lips, and the horn, made out, the rest the imagination sees transparently below the field. In the words of Blake “it is everything and nothing.” The raised rim is a good protection. [Illustration: FIGS. 6 and 7.--Greek Weights.] The second, a half Mina of Ægina, is yet simpler--just a pot, but a beautiful one well placed. The third is Attic, a quarter Dimnoun with scarabeus-like tortoise. The last is a Mina of Ægina, it bears the well-known Greek rendering of the Dolphin and the letters ΜΝΑ ΑΓΟΡ. “Market Mina.” The dolphin has the “bowed back” Sir Thomas Browne pointed out as a “popular error” of painters, but the dolphin was to the Greek mind, rather the genius of the waving sea itself than any mere particular fish, and this is the time consecrated form, like this it swims amongst the undulating hair of the Arethusa of Syracuse, the most beautiful coin in the world. The Romans used lead extensively and much in the same way as we do--for roof coverings and water pipes, in masonry and for coffins. In Rome an immense quantity of lead piping has been found. The pipes were formed of strips of cast lead bent round a rod and then soldered. Most of the work was signed by the plumber, his name and that of the owner being impressed in the sand mould.[2] [2] _See_ Prof. Middleton, _Ancient Rome_. [Illustration: FIGS. 8 and 9.--From the Kircherian Museum.] There are many beautiful cistae or circular boxes in the museums of Naples and Rome. These are decorated with little medallions, shells, beaded rods, &c., stock patterns which were impressed in the sand mould in such fresh combinations as the thought of the workmen suggested, just as a cook makes pie crust, which is the subject of nearly the only spontaneous decorative art now remaining to us. Figs. 8 and 9 are from the Kircherian Museum.