red by certain
processes, so that the wood is the same colour within and without. Then
they give them their several shapes as the kind of picture requires,
cutting them according to the size and shape, and stick them with glue
on the board. In the place of wood they sometimes use bone, horn, and
tortoiseshell cut into fine strips, also ivory and silver. The whole
work is called by the Germans 'Einlegen' or 'Furnieren,' because
although each piece is separate from the others no part is taken out
from the surface in which such figures are inlaid, but the whole is
covered." With the use of the fret-saw for cutting the patterns, and the
consequent discovery of the possibility of counterchanging the ground
and the design (that which was black becoming white, and _vice versa_),
called male and female forms, the manufacture of tarsia, or marquetry
rather, commenced to take a more commercial aspect, the cost being
considerably reduced by the making of several copies by one sawing. This
is the process used at the present day.

The durability of inlaid work depends upon the tightness and
completeness with which the inlaid parts are fitted together or mortised
into the main body or bed of the wood, and also on the level grounding
out of the matrix. In Spanish and Portuguese work ivory or ebony pins or
pegs were used also. Marquetry is a form of veneering, and the operation
is thus conducted:--The under surface of the veneer and the upper
surface of the bed are both carefully levelled and toothed over so as to
get a clean, newly-worked surface; the ground is then well wetted with
glue, at a high temperature, and the two surfaces pressed tightly
together so as to squeeze as much out as possible. The parts are screwed
down on heated metal beds, or between wooden frames, made so as to
exactly fit the surfaces in every part, called "cauls," until the glue
is hard. In cutting the patterns of Boulle work two or three slices of
material, such as brass and tortoiseshell or ebony, are glued together
with paper between, so that they may be easily separated when the
cutting is done. Another piece of paper is glued outside, upon which the
pattern is indicated. A fine watch spring saw is then introduced
through a hole in an unimportant part of the design, and the patterns
sawn out as in ordinary fretwork. The slices are then separated, and
that cut out of one slice is fitted into the others so that one cutting
produces several repetitions of th