When the moulding is dry after this smoothing process, it is further smoothed with sand or glass paper, and is then coated with five or six layers of _burnish gold size_. This is a very peculiar composition of suet, black lead, clay, parchment-size, and other ingredients, mixed to a stiff consistency. These successive coats or layers are well dried after each application; and after one or two other processes by which the gold size is rendered smooth, the moulding is ready to receive the leaf gold. Gold, in the form in which it is thus used, is one of the thinnest substances which the art of man has ever prepared in a solid form, since it would require more than a quarter of a million of the small sheets into which it is beaten, to make a pile _one inch_ in thickness. A solid piece of gold is rolled into the form of a ribbon by means of a flatting-mill: and the gold-beater then reduces it to the thickness--or rather thinness--to which we have alluded, by means of hammering. The gilder receives this leaf gold in the form of sheets or leaves about three inches square, inclosed between the leaves of a small book. He blows out some of these leaves on a leather cushion surrounded by a parchment border on three sides; this border, is to prevent the gold from being blown away, the fourth side being left open for the future proceedings of the workman. The gilder supports the cushion on his left hand, and with a knife in the other, he takes up one of the leaves of gold, and by dexterous management, spreads it out smoothly on the cushion. He then considers the width of the moulding, (which is laid before him,) and determines how he can best cut up the leaf of gold so as to adapt the pieces to the width of the moulding:--if for instance a slip one inch in width will cover the width of the moulding, he cuts the leaf into three equal pieces. He is next provided with a flat camel-hair brush, called a _tip_, the hairs of which are from one to two inches in length, and laid parallel with great regularity.