As gold is not liable to tarnish or rust, it is frequently employed for ornaments of dress. But, beyond its use in the coinage, its most important uses are for goldsmith’s work, in jewellery, and for gilding. In each of these its standard or purity is different. That denominated _coinage_, or _sterling gold_, consists of an alloy of about twenty─two parts of gold with two parts of copper; whilst gold of the _new standard_, of which gold plate, watch─cases, and many other articles are made, consists of only eighteen parts of gold, and six parts of copper. Each of these is stamped at Goldsmiths’ Hall; the former with a lion, a leopard’s head (the mark of the goldsmith’s company), a letter denoting the year, the king’s head, and the manufacturer’s initials; the latter is stamped with the king’s head, letter for the year, a crown, the number 18 to designate its quality, and the manufacturers initials. The coinage gold of Portugal and America is of the same standard as our own; that of France is somewhat inferior; and Spanish gold is inferior to the French. The Dutch ducats and some of the Moorish coins are of gold unalloyed. _Trinket gold_, which is unstamped, is in general much less pure than any of the above; and the _pale gold_ which is used by jewellers is an alloy of gold with silver. The ductility and tenacity of this metal, particularly when alloyed with copper, are extremely remarkable, and are fully proved by the great extent to which a very small quantity of it may be beaten into leaves, or drawn into wire. Leaves of gold may be beaten so thin, that a single grain may be made into fifty─six leaves, each an inch square. These leaves are only 1/282000 of an inch thick; and the gold leaf which is used to cover silver wire is but the twelfth part of that thickness. An ounce of gold upon silver wire is capable of being extended more than 1,300 miles in length: and sixteen ounces of gold, which, in the form of a cube, would not measure more than an inch and a quarter on each side, will completely gild a silver wire in length sufficient to compass the whole earth like a hoop.