Old silver lace, ½ oz.; nitric acid, 1 oz. Boil them over a gentle fire for about 5 minutes in an earthen pot. After the silver is dissolved, take the mixture off, and mix it in a pint of clean water, then pour it into another vessel free from sediment; then add a tablespoonful of common salt, and the silver will be precipitated in the form of a white powder or curd; pour off the acid, and mix the curd with 2 oz. salt of tartar, and ½ oz. whiting, all together, and it is ready for use.

How To Use

Clean your brass or copper plate with rotten stone and a piece of old hat-rub it with salt and water with your hand. Then take a little of the composition on your finger. and rub it over your plate, and it will firmly adhere and completly silver it. Wash it well with water. "When dry, rub it with a clean rag, and varnish with this varnish for clock-faces: Spirits of wine, 1 pt.; divide into 3 parts, mix one part with gum mastic in a bottle by itself; 1 part spirits, and ½ oz. sandarac in another bottle; and 1 part spirits, and ½ oz. of whitest gum benjamin, in another bottle; mix and temper to your mind. If too thin, some mastic; if too soft, some sandarac or benjamin. When you use it, warm the silvered plate before the fire, and, with a flat camel's hair pencil, stroke it over till no white streaks appear, and this will preserve the silvering for many years.