BRASS LEAF is made of copper, beaten out into very thin plates, and afterwards rendered yellow. The German artists, particularly those of Nuremberg and Augsburg, are said to possess the best method of giving to these thin plates of copper a fine yellow colour like gold, by simply exposing them to the fumes of zinc, without any real mixture of it with the metal. These plates are cut into little pieces, and then beaten out fine like leaves of gold; after which they are put into books of coarse paper, and fold at a low price for the vulgar kinds of gilding. The parings or shreds of these very thin yellow leaves being well ground on a marble plate, are reduced to a powder similar to gold; which serves to cover, by means of gum-water, or some other glutinous fluid, the surface of various mouldings or pieces of curious workmanship, giving them the appearance of real bronze, and even of fine gold, at a very trifling expence, because the gold colour of this metallic powder may be easily raised and improved by stirring it on a wide earthen basin over a slow fire.