an
inlaid oblong table of granite, porphyry, and jasper, of beautiful
workmanship; the materials were the hard stones of Sweden, which being
nearly of equal hardness, admitted of being polished after the work was
finished.
An
Indian chess-table with an inlaid border, and a number of small
objects from India, the ground being a white marble of a peculiar
saccharoidal texture, attracted great attention. The pattern was a fine
scroll-work, remarkable for the extraordinary delicacy and exactness of
the stems of flowers and the perfect joints—the stems were of flint.
This and another Indian inlaid-work are said to be of great antiquity.
No comparison can be instituted between these Indian and European
works, the mechanical execution of the former being at least equal to
the best of those which have rendered Florence so justly celebrated,
while the taste and design exhibited in them are greatly superior to inlaid work in marble.
The
great expense of inlaying hard- pebbles, which can only be cut as gems,
and the excellent effect that may be produced by imitations in which
marble of various kinds, shells, cement, and glass, replace the jasper
and agate of Florentine mosaic, have caused the introduction into
England, and elsewhere, of a manufacture which may be called inlaid
marble work. In Derbyshire this branch of manufacture has become very
important. There are two principal methods of producing marble mosaic;
that followed in Derbyshire, where a recess is chiselled out of a solid
block of marble, serving as the ground; and that pursued in Devonshire,
where the whole surface is in fact veneered; numerous marbles
of various colors and forms being merely cemented together on a base,
which may consist of slate, or any kind of marble; the whole surface
being afterwards polished together. In Malta the former process is
followed, while in Russia the malachite inlaid work is per-
