Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/154

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INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF INDIA.

is held before the fire, and with a needle or pin short lines are every here and there drawn perpendicularly through the bands of sealing-wax, drawing the different colors into each other, when the stick or hall is rapidly rolled on a cool, smooth surface, and that intricately variegated effect is produced which is so puzzling until explained. The netted mats are made by allowing the thread of sealing wax twisted round a stick to cool, and then drawing off the whole coil, and breaking it into sections of three or four turns each, which are linked together into "mats" of all sorts of variegated colours, but chiefly scarlet and black, and black and golden yellow, I describe the process from actual observation.

Mr. Baden Powell has given a full description of the manufacture of lac bracelets and ornamental beads at Delhi and other places in the Pan jab. To "silver" the lac bracelets tinfoil is mixed with half its weight of dry glue, and these are pounded together until, in about six hours' time, they amalgamate. The mass is then thrown into hot water, when it crumbles into little pieces. They then stir this up and pour off the water, repeating the operation until any dirt or impurity in the water entirely disappears. When the solution is quite pure, it is boiled, and then let to stand for the night. The next morning a silvery glue is found deposited, and this is spread with a brush on the lac, and burnished when dry by rubbing with a string of glass beads. The golden varnish is made by boiling myrrh, copal, and sweet-oil together and applying with a brush. The lac bracelets are often further ornamented, by having little glass beads and bits of tin or copper foil stuck along the edge.

Mr. H. A. Acworth has also minutely described the interesting manufacture of lac bracelets in the district of the Panch Mahals in Gujarat. He says it is the only industry of special interest at Dohad. The lac is collected by the Bhils in the neighbouring forests of Ali Rajpur, Udaipur, and Devgad Bariya and sold by