VENETIAN MARQUETRY; OR, A PERFECT IMITATION OF INLAID WOOD-WORK. BY CHARLES G. LELAND. There are few persons who have not admired marquetry, or the sort of mosaic work made by sawing out pieces of wood of different colors and fitting them into one another. This is effected in three ways. The first is by simply sawing out squares, diamonds, crosses, or any pattern of which all the pieces are alike and can be fitted together. The designing of these is a very interesting exercise. I may briefly say that it can be done by drawing cross lines at equal distances, like those of a chess-board, and tracing similarly-sized pieces from them. The Arabs and Moors excelled in such designing and work. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR A PATTERN IN ONE COLOR.] The second kind of marquetry is made with a fret, or "jig," or scroll saw. One of these may be had for a few cents, but a good equipment for the work costs from fifty cents up to any price, according to the scale on which the pupil wishes to work. Any hardware dealer will procure a complete outfit, and there are now so many books of instruction and of patterns for the work, that it is hardly necessary for me to explain it more in detail. In a few words, it consists in taking two pieces of very thin board, of different colors, fastening the two together, drawing a pattern on a piece of paper, gumming it on to one surface, and then sawing the two out. Of course, if it be neatly done, one piece will fit into the other. Thus, if one be black and the other white, the black pattern will fit into the white ground, and the white pattern into the black ground. The third kind of marquetry is made with veneers, which are sheets of wood almost as thin as paper, and as the process of making it is rather difficult for amateurs, I shall not describe it here. But there is a fourth, and far easier process, called Venetian Marquetry, which has never, to my knowledge, been fully noticed in print; though it is so obvious a method that I dare say many have used it. Much of the old marquetry was made of white wood stained with dyes. Venetian Marquetry is a very perfect imitation of this, not to be distinguished from the sawed-out patterns. It is made as follows: Take a thin panel, or board, of holly or any other nice white or light-yellow wood. Pine may be used when no other can be had, though it is, from its softness, the worst for the purpose. Draw a pattern on it. This may be done by tracing. Then with a knife-wheel, mark out in the wood the entire outline of your pattern, cutting in to the depth of at least one tenth of an inch. (A knife-wheel is like a pattern-wheel; that is, it is a little disk, or flat wheel, not larger than a three-cent piece, set in a handle; but the edge of a pattern-wheel is like the rowel of a spur, in sharp points, while that of the knife-wheel, or cutting-wheel, is thin and sharp. It must be very strongly made.)