These colours are mixed with water, together with a little size or gum, by which the colours are made adhesive without being too stiff for working. If the paper is to be glossy when completed, or if any one of the colours with which it is printed is desired to be glossy, the pigment for that colour is mixed with oil of turpentine and certain gums and resins which will give a glossy surface to the paint when dry. Before the printing commences, the piece of paper (which is about twelve yards long) is coated all over with that colour which is to form the _ground_. Powdered whiting is mixed with melted size to a proper consistence, and laid on with a large brush, in the same manner as a ceiling is whitewashed: the piece of paper is then left to dry. If the ground is to be white, nothing more is required before the printing; but if it is to be coloured, a second ground is laid on, made of melted size, and of such colouring substances as will give the required tint: this, when dry, is the ground which is to receive the ornamental pattern. If the ground is to be glossy, the colouring substance is mixed with varnish, gum, resin, &c., instead of size and water. When the ground is thoroughly dried, the device is laid upon it, and this is, in most cases, done by a process almost exactly corresponding with wood-cut printing, in the fine arts. An impression is taken from wooden blocks, which are cut in such a manner that the figure to be expressed is made to project from the surface, by cutting away all the other parts. But this raised device only represents that portion of the whole figure which is to be of _one_ colour; so that if the pattern is to be ultimately represented in four colours, as is frequently the case, there must be four differently-carved blocks or stamps to represent these, and the blocks must be so carefully carved with reference to one another, that though the sizes of them are all exactly alike, the devices occupy different parts, and do not interfere with one another: the whole beauty and correctness of the figures depend on the accuracy with which the blocks are carved.