than by reason of the natural desire which
every artist has, to terminate in person, the
work he has conceived and begun. The statue
is usually returned to the sculptor in a half-
finished state, the fine touches which will
constitute the special beauty of the work yet
remaining to be done. The most delicate of tools
are then employed; slender chisels with the
finest points; toy hammers with scarcely a
weight to them, little graters that fit on,
something like thimbles, to the top of the
forefinger. And to polish the marble and smooth
it, tripoli, lead, chamois-leather, sand-paper,
sponges steeped in oil, and the palm of the hand
are used. When the work represents a naked
figure, the amount of care needed for the
correct modelling of the limbs and muscles is
inconceivable. Works like the Laocoon, the
Dying Gladiator, the Venus of Medici, the
Apollo Belvedere, must have cost the makers
more trouble and anxiety than any sum of
money could repay. And it is but common
generosity on the part of the critic, even when
he pauses before what he considers a faulty
statue, to be very lenient in his judgment
of it.

We pass to statues in bronze.

In this case, as in that of marble sculpturing,
the preliminaries, in so far as regards the
sketching on paper and the modelling in clay,
are identical. But there are two ways of casting
in bronze: piece by piece or all at once.
We will deal with the latter method first.

When the clay model is finished, it is not
cast in plaster, but is covered with a coating of
wax, of the intended thickness of the metal.
A preparation composed of a peculiar sort of
clay, which has been mixed with horse-dung
and reduced to powder, after having been
allowed to ferment and then to dry, is taken
and wetted so as to form a paste. To give a
certain degree of consistency to it, there is
added a small proportion of calf's dung, the
cohesive properties of which answer better, for
this purpose, than any other matter known.
The mixture thus obtained is capable of resisting
the most intense heat, and is therefore superior
to plaster, which cannot support more
than a certain temperature. The clay model
coated with wax is thickly covered with this
substance, and set in a warm place to dry.
When the drying is completed, the wax
between the interior of the mould and the outside
of the model is slowly melted by fire; the
mould is then strengthened by being tightly
bound round with broad iron bands, chains,
and three or four layers of wet plaster and
earth. The whole is well heaped over with
clay: a sort of chimney hole and a few
ventilators being contrived to allow free passage to
the air and smoke. A monster fire is next
lighted, and seven days and seven nights of
burning are required to bake the mould. After
this, a pit is dug, the mould is lowered into it,
and once more covered up with earth; a few
ventilators are made as before, and an orifice
is perforated by which the molten metal may
flow in a large jet, through the opening at the
bottom of the mould. The orifice is connected
with a huge caldron, over which, or attached
to which, is the furnace where the brass is being
melted in a raging fire.

It is then that the exciting part of the work
begins; for, however carefully all the precautions
may have been taken to this point, there
is nothing as yet to guarantee success. The
blunder of a workman, the imprudence of an
apprentice, may undo everything, and may
cause the making of a new model, and the
baking of a new mould (another month's work),
to be necessary.

When the masses of brass in the furnace are
nearly melted, the caldron is carefully swept,
that there be neither straw nor pebble left
in it. The master founder then inspects the
six or eight plugs which stop the vent-holes of
the caldron, and, after seeing that they are
properly closed, commits the keeping of each
of them to a separate workman, whose duty
it will be to pull quickly out at the word of
command.

The operation of casting an important statue
requires brave and intelligent men, who will
not lose their presence of mind at sight of the
sudden rush of flaming metal, nor faint under
the stifling heat of fire and smoke. To protect
their faces and necks from sparks of molten
bronze, they wear masks; their arms and hands
are covered by canvas gauntlets, previously
steeped in water, and daubed over with wet
earth. When the brass has at last been liquefied,
the final charges of pewter and zinc are
cast into the furnace. These last two metals
melt immediately, and the mixture which makes
up bronze is then completed. Everything is.
then ready for the casting. The workmen
take their posts. A deep silence reigns. The
master founder, armed with a strong bar of iron,
steps forward, and, with a vigorous blow,
knocks in the iron plate which stops the reservoir
of the furnace. The white-hot metal gushes
out with a hissing sound, like a torrent of
burning lava, and fills the caldron. The workmen
pull out the plugs, the molten bronze flows
gurgling through the orifices into the mould;
whiffs of blue flame and steam dart out from
the ventilators; the caldron is empty, and the
statue is cast.

The cooling process occupies several days.
The next thing to do is to break the nucleus
model in clay, and to empty the statue. This,
although a tedious work, is a safe one, and after
it is accomplished the bronze figure is well
washed, furbished with dry brushes, packed up
in cocoa-nut matting, and ready to be sent to
its destination.

The casting piece by piece is attended with
more trouble but with fewer risks than the
casting in a single jet. It would be tedious to
give a detailed description of the process
employed, for words would scarcely render the
thing intelligible without the aid of diagrams.
The advantages of the piece by piece system
lie in the fact that the spoiling of a part does
not mar the whole, as is the case when the
statue is cast after the fashion we have just