tortoiseshell and brass or zinc of the future 100 is the
price.... The mode still practised in Paris of making a good 'placage'
in preparation for marquetry or Boulle work is as follows:--A thicker or
thinner sheet of Italian poplar is placed between two sheets of oak with
the grain the other way, then on the external sheet of oak is placed the
wood intended to be seen, also with the grain the other way, the whole
of convenient thickness, and glued with the best glue. Good glue is the
nurse of the wood, say the masters. These four or five thicknesses of
wood pulling against each other neutralise all bad effects, and the
result is very good. The external covering is usually either mahogany,
American walnut, or violet wood (a sort of cedar). Sometimes it is
ebony, or perhaps a collection of small pieces of wood, such as acacia,
which are called by all sorts of pretty names. It is of this fine and
good 'plaque' that they still make cupboards at 1000 francs, beds at 600
francs, and bureaus at 800 francs, which are the success and the pride
of Parisian joinery." The marqueteurs of Nice made use of olive for
veined grey backgrounds, orange and lemon for pale yellow, carob for
dark red, jujube tree for rose colour, holly for white, and charred fig
for black; arbutus served for dark flesh, and sumach for light.

It is advisable after the marquetry has been put together to reduce the
surface to a level and do something in the way of polishing, though it
is not necessary to carry the process as far as is often done by the
cheap furniture manufacturers. If nothing but wood has been used, the
surface should be reduced to a level with a toothing plane and scraped
with a joiner's scraper, taking care to apply it obliquely to the joints
as far as possible, so as to avoid digging down and so failing in the
object aimed at. If done very well and carefully it sometimes only
requires to be rubbed down with its own shavings, but it is more usually
necessary to follow with a worn piece of glass-paper on a flat piece of
cork, but the dust must not be allowed to collect into hard lumps upon
it, as these lumps would scratch the surface. Holtzapffel says that when
metal, ivory, pearl, shell, or tortoiseshell are mixed with the wood the
surface must be carefully levelled with flat files, ending with a very
smooth one, after which the scraper should be used if possible and
followed by glass or emery paper very sparingly. When metal
preponderates