Some dexterity and experience are required for the successful performance of this operation, as it is necessary that the spots should be very fine and regularly laid on. The higher the presspin is held and the less sprinkle there is in the brush, the finer the spots will be. The whole of the edge should be carefully gone over, so as to keep the sprinkle very regular. The ring of the brush and the press-pin must be frequently wiped on the shavings, or the sprinkle will accumulate and be thrown down in great blots, destructive to the work.

If necessary, the brush can be recharged and the surface again gone over. When the fore edges are finished, the heads and tails should be similarly treated, the backs of the books being from the operator. Care should be taken to give these edges the same amount of color as the fore edges. It should be remembered that the sprinkle dries rather lighter.

Occasionally school books and legal books have their edges sprinkled blue. Any good blue ink will answer the purpose. Other colors are rarely used, though sometimes foreign books are sprinkled in fancy colors; and such expedients as, say, coloring the edge over with yellow or pink, and then laying grains of rice or pieces of breadcrumb over the edge at intervals, and sprinkling it with blue, are resorted to. The rice or breadcrumb being then removed, the edge appears blue or purple, with yellow or pink inters paces. The effects of this kind of thing, however, are hardly sufficiently good to be worth the trouble.

Although the sprinkle-brush described and illustrated is that used almost everywhere, it may be well to mention that there still remain a few old-fashioned bookbinders who adhere to what is termed the "finger-brush." This is a brush about the size of a shaving-brush, of stiff hairs cut square at the ends. The brush, being dipped in the color, is drawn across the fingers, so as to jerk the color off in spots. The fingers should be slightly oiled.

There is still another plan adopted by some. An ordinary nailbrush is dipped in the sprinkle. A common clean wire cinder sifter is then held in the left hand above the row of books, and the brush, held in the right hand, is then worked round and round the sieve with the bristle next to the wires, when the spots will fall in a regular shower.

Self-colored Edges.-At the present time these are almost confined to red edges, which is the revival of a very old fashion. During the last century, however, other colors were in use, especially a lemon color for whole calf books, which has been recently, in some degree, revived. Red edges are very suitable to devotional books, and have lately almost superseded gilt edges for prayer and hymn books. The pigment chosen is generally a vermilion of good quality, to which some binders choose to add more or less of carmine. The color should be carefully ground with the muller upon a slab, some paste being mixed with it as for sprinkle. It is well to add a couple of drops of oil, and the same of vinegar and water. Some binders mix up the color with paste and water only to the proper consistence; others prepare the color with glare.

In coloring the edges equally over, the boards at the head of the volume must be beaten even with the edges, and the book rested on the edge of the press or table; then the back must be held with the left hand, and the color applied with a small sponge, passed evenly over the edge, towards the back one way and the gutter the other, to avoid a mass of color being lodged in the angle of the fore edge. This done, the other parts are similarly colored, the fore edge being laid open from the boards, and a runner held firmly above to prevent the color searching into the book. It will be perceived that a dozen volumes may be done as easily as one. For further security, and to prevent the color searching into the books, it may be advisable to put them into the laying-press and screw them moderately tight.

Black Edges -Books of devotion were generally bound in black leather, and the edges blacked to correspond with the covers, so that it will be as well to describe the process: Put the book in the press as for gilding, and sponge it with black ink; then take ivory black, lampblack, or antimony, mixed well with a little paste, and rub it on the edge with the finger or ball of the hand till it is perfectly black and a good polish produced, when it must be cleared with a brush, burnished, and cased with paper. This kind of edge has, however, quite dropped out of favor, and is now rarely seen.

Colors -The following are the principal pigments used for coloring and sprinkling book edges: Blue-indigo and Prussian blue, with flake white or whiting for lighter shades; yellow

-Dutch pink, King's yellow, and yellow orpiment; brow number burnt over the fire; red-vermilion, or Oxford ochre, burnt in a pan; pink-rose pink (lake will make it brighter);

green -the first and second mixed to any shade. But spirit colors are the best, because they will not rub in burnishing. These are generally made by mixing the colors in vinegar or mineral acid. Judson's dyes make very good colors for the purpose.

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