A little stick for tracing the colors is also necessary. A butcher's skewer is as good as anything. Besides this, the colors are drawn by combs of various widths; these are easily made by gluing pins with this heads at fixed distances between two strips of mill-board: the result is a tool resembling a comb. All requisites can be conveniently kept in a little wooden box together with the colors. Nowadays only Halfer's ready made colors are used.

Any one wishing to learn the processes of marbling edges would be wise not to attempt all the styles at once, but should be content to learn one before proceeding to another. We will commence with "comb" marbling, also known as "feather" marbling.

When marbling is to be done, the colors must always be tested first. A little color is shaken into each bowl and its brush placed with it, and one or two drops of prepared oxgall added to each color so as to make the color float on the surface.

One prepares one's own oxgall. An ox gall in the gallbladder is procured from a butcher, a glass funnel is placed in a bottle which has been weighed beforehand, and the bottom of the gall blander is pierced so that the bladder empties its contents into the bottle. After finding the weight of the gall, add to the weight of the gall alone one-sixth and pour into it spirit of wine until the weight is equalized; shake thoroughly and strain the mixture, which will now be quite clear and ready for use.

The colors, with their brushes, are placed in the order in which they are to be used, beginning with the darkest and finishing with the lightest.

A drop of color is let fall from the black brush upon the body, the surface of which had previously been drawn off with a strip of paper; the surface of this drop must be about the size of a crown piece. If part of the color sinks to the bottom, the body is too thin or the color too thick, or the drop was too large and could not spread quickly enough; in the latter case the surplus color will be seen lying at the bottom and will have no connection whatever with the color on the surface; but if a cloudy connection can be traced from the surface to the bottom then the body has already become sour and in most cases unfit for use. If the color does not retain its smooth outlines and becomes jagged, it also shows that the body is too old. If, however, the drop extends as desired and shows none of the faults above mentioned, a drop of blue color is let fall in the centre of the first, which drives out the first drop in the form of a ring; when it has not this effect, but strongly contracts again, a drop of gall must be added, the colors wiped off to the sloping partition, and the whole process repeated. If the action of the color was too strong, a little undiluted color must be added.

If the result is satisfactory, a drop of red is added to the blue. The color scheme is seen in the accompanying drawing. Lastly, yellow is dropped into red, and black is thereby reduced to a very thin ring.

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