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To Clean Ivory Ornaments
ent, in order to give it a near resemblance to When ivory ornaments get yellow or dusky- the tortoise-shell. The horn must remain in looking, wash them well in soap and water this manner covered with the paste till it is with a small brush, to clean the carvings, and thoroughly dry; when, the paste being brushed place them, while wet, in full sunshine; wet off, the horn will be found partly opaque and them for 2 or 3 days, several times a day, with soapy water, still keeping them in the sun; then wash them again, and they will be beautifully white. partly transparent, in the manner of tortoiseshell, and, when put over a foil of Dutch gold metal, will be scarcely distinguishable from it.
It requires some degree of fancy and judg- 2008. Bone for Ornamental Pur-ment to dispose of the paste in such a manposes is treated in a similar way to ivory, ner as to form a variety of transparent parts, but less carefully, owing to its inferior value. of different magnitudes and figures, to look The bones of living animals may be dyed by mixing madder with their food. The bones of young pigeons may thus be tinged of a rose color in 24 hours, and of a deep scarlet in 3 or 4 days; but the bones of adult animals take fully 2 weeks to acquire a rose color. like the effect of nature; and it will be an improvement to add semi-transparent parts, which may be done by mixing whiting with some of the paste, to weaken its operation in particular places, by which spots of a reddishbrown will be produced, which, if properly The bones nearest the heart become tinged interspersed, especially on the edges of the soonest. In the same way logwood and the dark parts, will greatly increase the beauty of extract of logwood will tinge the bones of the work, and its similitude to real tortoiseyoung pigeons purple. shell.