birds, which turned round with the wind, were placed on the top of the masts.*

At that time, therefore, instead of the flags used at present, a vane, shaped like a bird, was placed at the summit of the mast; perhaps also the figure of a cock, as the emblem of vigilance, but in this case not of clerical vigilance. In the cathedral of Bayeux, in France, is a piece of tapestry, representing the actions of William the Conqueror, executed with the needle, either by his consort or under her direction, in which vanes are seen at the top of the masts, in many of the ships.†

GILDIN G.

THE astonishing extensibility of gold, a property in which it far surpasses all other metals, induced mankind, at an early period, to attempt beating it

The Encomium Emma was printed for the first time in Du Chesne, Historia Normannor. Scriptor. Lutet. Paris. 1619. fol. It is there said, p. 166: Hinc erat cernere leones auro fusiles in puppibus, hinc autem volucres in summis malis venientes austros suis signantes versibus. It is inserted also by Langenbeck in Scriptor. Rerum Danicar. tom. ii. Hafniæ 1773. fol. p. 476. In all probability versionibus, or versationibus, was contracted in the manuscript, and the transcriber thence made versibus. The meaning however is clear: The birds turned according to the wind, and thereby announced its direction.

+ This honourable memorial of the last half of the eleventh cen. tury is explained and illustrated by a figure in Memoires de l'Academ. des Inscript. Paris 1733. 4to. vel. viii. p. 602.

into thin plates, as the value of it led them to the art of covering or gilding things of every kind with leaves of it. It is proved by Herodotus that the Egyptians were accustomed to gild wood and metals; and gilding is frequently mentioned in the books of the Old Testament. The gold

* Herodot. lib. ii. 63. p. 133: το αγαλμα είν εν νηῳ μικρῳ ξυλινῳ κατακεχρυσωμένῳ. Simulacrum in parvo ligneo sacello deaurato. At the end of the same book, p. 193: ayahμa eяixpcov. See Winkelmann's Geschichte der Kunst. Vienna 1776. 4to. p. 25. Caylus, Recueil d'antiquités, i. p. 193. Gori seems to have had in his possession two Egyptian gilt figures. See Mus. Etr. t. i. p. 51.

+ Having requested professor Tychsen to furnish me with some information on this subject, I received from him the following remarks. In the books of the Old Testament gilding and gold plates are clearly mentioned. Moses caused several parts of the sanctuary to be overlaid with gold. 1st. The ark of shittim wood, which was covered with that metal, both on the outside and inside, Exodus, chap. xxv. ver. 11, also the staves, ver. 13. 2d. The wooden table with its staves, ver. 23 and 28. 3d. The altar of burnt incense, chap. xxx. ver. 3. 4th. The boards which formed the sides of the tabernacle, chap. xxvi. ver. 29. They were in number forty-eight, each about seventeen feet and a half in length, and two feet and a half in breadth, making a surface of about forty-three feet and a half, without including the five rows of bars with which they were kept together.

Solomon caused various parts of the temple to be overlaid with gold. 1st. The whole inside of the house, 1 Kings, chap. vi. ver. 21 and 22. 2d. The altar of burnt incense, ver. 20 and 22. 3d. The wooden cherubim above seventeen feet in height, ver. 28. 4th. The floor, ver. 30. 5th. The doors of the oracle, on which were carved cherubims, palm-trees, and open flowers, ver. 32 and 35, so that the gold accurately exhibited the figures of the carved work.

Now the question is, whether all these were gilt, or covered, or overlaid with gold plates. I am acquainted with no work in which this has been professedly discussed, and therefore I submit the following remarks to your examination:

plates, however, used for this purpose, as may be readily conceived, were not so thin as those made. at present; and for this reason, the gilding on

1st. The expression continually used for overlaying is MEY, the original meaning of which in the Arabic clear, to be bright, seems still to remain. The signification, therefore, is to make clear, to render bright: but, as is commonly the case, nothing decisive can be obtained from this etymology, for it is equally applicable to gilding as to overlaying with gold.

2dly. Overlaying with copper occurs in Exodus, chap. xxvii. ver. 6, and chap. xxxviii. ver. 6, where the altar of burnt-offering and its staves were to be overlaid (nn) with that metal.

3dly. Several, therefore, have understood this word, where it is combined with gold, as alluding to plates of that metal. Philo (de vita Mosis, iii. p. 517) says; the Mosaic ark was covered with thick plates of gold: and the Talmud speaks of three boxes, two of gold and one of wood, placed within each other, so that the wooden one was in the middle.

4thly. But when the passages are compared with each other, it` seems, in several places, to denote gilding; for even if plates of gold could be made sufficiently fast to smooth wooden surfaces, though the drying of the wood and the softness of gold, which in regard to the staves, floor, &c. would soon be rubbed off, seem to occasion difficulties, I much doubt whether the thinnest gold plates could be so applied as to fit and exhibit accurately carved wooden figures and flower-work, as is said in 1 Kings, chap. vi. ver. 35. Would not the parts of the Mosaic tabernacle, had they been covered with plates of gold, been too heavy for transportation, especially as several of them required to be carried on the shoulders of men? And where could Moses have obtained this immense quantity of gold? He had only twenty-nine talents (kikar) and seven hundred and thirty shekels, Exodus, chap. xxxviii. ver. 24, which, according to the calculation of Michaelis, make 127,520 ducats, but according to others 300,000 ducats. Even if we take the last calculation, for both are hypothetical, I doubt whether Moses, who caused so many vessels and other things to be made of pure gold, would have enough left to plate all the articles above enumerated. [The sum here mentioned, ac

statues, which have lain many centuries in the earth, appears to be still entire. Winkelmann says, that among the ruins of two apartments in the imperial palace, on the palatine hill, in the Villa Farnese, the gold ornaments were found to be as fresh as if they had been newly applied, though these apartments, in consequence of being buried under the earth, were exceedingly damp. The circular bands of sky-blue, with small figures in gold, could not be seen without admiration. The gilding also is still preserved in the ruins of Persepolis.

But, in the time of Pliny, the art of gold-beating was carried so far at Rome, that an ounce of gold could be beat into seven hundred and fifty leaves

cording to Arbuthnot, would amount only to about 10,000l. sterling. TRANS.]

"The oldest translation, the Alexandrian, where gold is alluded to, always expresses ПDY by the word xaτaypurow, to gild, and the vulgate by deauro. The more modern translators and Michaelis use, for the most part, the ambiguous expression to overlay, obducere; yet Michaelis, in regard to the boards of the tabernacle, uses the term to gild. Exodus, chap. xxvi. ver. 34.

"The Hebrews might have brought the art of gilding with them from Egypt, where it seems to have been very old, as gilding is found not only on mummies, the antiquity of which indeed is uncertain; but, if I am not mistaken, in the oldest temples, on images. It appears also, that in the time of Moses the Hebrews understood the art both of gilding and of overlaying with plates of gold, and expressed both by the general term DY. In determining where the one or the other is to be understood, the philologue must consult the technologist."

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and more, each four square inches in size.* I shall not compare this result with what the art can do at present, because the account of Pliny is not the most accurate, and because the conversion of the old measures into the modern standard is always attended with uncertainty. Buonarotti, however, who made some researches on this subject,† is of opinion, that the gold used at Rome for fire-gilding, in his time, that is, at the end of the seventeenth century, was beat six times as thin; and that the gold employed for gilding wood and other things, without the application of fire, was twenty-two times as thin as the

* Lib. xxxiii. 3: Nec aliud (metallum) laxius dilatatur, aut numerosius dividitur, utpote cujus unciæ in septingenas et quinquagenas pluresque bracteas, quaternum utrobique digitorum, spargantur. The thicker gold-leaf was called, at that time, bractea Pranestina; the thinner, bractea quæstoria.

† lo mi son trovato più volte a sentir discorrere sopra la vivacità dell' indorature, che si veggono sopra de i bronzi antichi; questa non è cosa da maravigliarsene, perchè, tralasciando le diligenze, che vi hanno potuto usare attorno maggiori di quelle degli artefici moderni, le foglie d'oro, che adopravano, erano più grosse delle nostre a proporzione di sei a uno in circa, parlando di quelle, che servono per indorare a fuoco, e di 22 a 1, e più, di quelle, che s'adoprano per i ligni e altre cose senza fuoco, come si cava da Plinio, il quale scrive, che a'suoi tempi d'un' oncia d'oro cavavano 50 e 70, e più foglie, larghe per ogni verso quattro diti, cioè 36 semisestule; quando adesso, per quanto m' hanno fatto vedere gli artefici, d'un oncia qui di Roma, ch'è ancora di minor peso dell' antica, cavano delle più grosse, per indorare a fuoco 230 foglie large 52, delle medesime semisestule antiche per ogni verso, e 1800 delle più sottili, e ordinarie larghe 35 in quadro. Osservazioni istoriche sopra alcuni medaglioni antichi. In Roma 1698, fol. p. 370.