The Progress of the Marbling Art from Technical Scientific Principles: with a Supplement on the Decoration of Book Edges

Publisher Marketing: No product finds so many and ample applications as color. Nearly every trade requires it for the decoration of its products so as to adapt them more generally and pleasantly to the present demands. The art of marbling is that branch of our trade, in which color is brought into use for the decoration of bindings, yet it has not found the desirable general introduction into our book-binderies because practical men have not so intently employed their time and endeavors, to overcome the difficulties, which resist its general application. Who could solve easier and more correctly than the mechanics, to whom these difficulties and obstacles offer themselves in practice? He is the only one to find the remedy, scientific men not possessing sufficient technical knowledge. Only he is ready and able to stand up for such special trades, to work and to fight for them, who is himself interested and who not only learned to understand the art of marbling from former instructions and traditions, but from his own practical experience. To him only, will it be possible to gain by close study true points, on which to further develop the whole subject. My original plan was, not only to remove the technical difficulties of the art of marbling, but also to ascertain the correct colors from the mass at present manufactured, for the purpose of manufacturing marbling colors. But in this I did not succeed as easily as I expected. Every color manufactory possesses another system to produce its products, and after thousands of experiments I was finally forced to resort to chemistry for the purpose of gaining a knowledge of the raw products viz: earths, metals, acids, bases and their conditions and qualities in order to study their compositions and precipitations, the coloring composite of lake colors and their bodies, and to subject them to investigation on their effects on marbling size. This was a tiresome work which demanded much patience and pertinacity. During these investigations, I have learned to know the influence of sizing upon colors and how it hindered or expedited a beautiful marbling or comb edging.