-The secrets of the methods employed for lacquering furniture by the Chinese and Japanese workers have always been carefully guarded, but, according to H. P. Shapland, in a Cantor lecture on the Decoration of Furniture, delivered before the Royal Society of Arts, definite information is now available from three different sources which, in many details, corroborate each other. The best-known account, and the one most frequently quoted, is that of a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, a Jesuit missionary named Father D'Incarbille, who sent home his memoir from China about 1740. For the next detailed account of the process Europeans had to wait for more than a hundred years. Then, at the beginning of the year 1882, Mr. John J. Quin, a British Consul, domiciled in Tokio, wrote an exhaustive paper on the subject ; the original may be consulted in British consular reports. A year or two after this, Dr. J. J. Rein, a professor at Bonn University, was sent to Japan to study the industries of the country on behalf of the German Government, and the results of his investigations were published in 1889 in a book entitled " Industries of Japan," an English translation of which may be found in most important libraries.

I propose, having indicated the best sources of information, to give the briefest possible outline of the process. The raw material is obtained from lacquer trees ; the sap, which is collected by tapping, is first of all exposed to the sun in shallow vessels in order to eliminate the water which exudes with it. The process of evaporation is hastened by the addition of a further small percentage of clean water and by stirring it from time to time. The raw material is of a cream colour. Before use it is treated with vermilion, black and other colours, and it is most carefully strained to eliminate dust and sediment as far as is humanly possible. The process consists of the application of many coats of lacquer, drying after each application in a damp press and rubbing down with various substances to obtain an absolutely smooth surface. Between the first application and the last rubbing down, it is said that there are as many as thirty or thirtyfive different processes, and this for ground work alone, before ornamenting in gold and colour. Each of the accounts mentioned above lays the greatest possible stress on the drying of the lacquer, which can only be effected in a damp atmosphere. D'Incarville, in his memoir, for instance, says, " At Peking, where the air is extremely dry, it is necessary, in order to dry the varnish, to put it in a humid press surrounded by matting, which they sprinkle with fresh water. If it is an article which is so situated that it cannot be moved, they are obliged to hang wet cloths about it." Quin also states that the articles are set in damp presses. These are airtight and made of rough un-planed planks which are thoroughly wetted with water before the articles are put in to dry. Unless placed in a damp, closed atmosphere, the lacquer will not dry. This method of drying is undoubtedly a very important point, and one very little understood by European craftsmen. Varnishes, as we know them in Europe, are dried in a warm, dry room, while these Oriental lacquers are dried in a wet, cold atmosphere.

As far as chemical investigation has gone, the reason for this would appear to lie in the fact that the drying process does not consist in the evaporation of a solvent as with ordinary varnishes, but that it is due to a chemical oxidation which occurs in the lacquer itself, hardening it in course of time. This oxidation is brought about by the action of a ferment of the kind known as an enzyme. The enzyme contained in lacquer requires a damp atmosphere in order to work to the best advantage, and it is through this curious chemical action that the lacquer becomes hard. It was surfaces such as these, built up with extraordinary care and skill, that the Chinese and Japanese artists then proceeded to decorate. Lacquer may be incised, carved, inlaid, or painted, and there is no method of enriching furniture in which such splendid decorative effects can be obtained. In surface texture, colour and ornament, a fine piece of lacquer is an incomparable achievement of craftsmanship. During the many recurring periods when furniture in the Chinese manner has been fashionable, European craftsmen have endeavoured to imitate the lacquer work of the East, but as the Western craftsmen lacked both definite knowledge and inherited skill, the lacquer work which they have done, although some of it was quite admirable, is wanting in the vigour and spirit of the Oriental pieces. It is really a kind of glorified coach painting. It is evident that the decorators are working in a technique with which they are not fully acquainted, and it is obvious when the Eastern and Western work is compared side by side that the Japanese or Chinese painter has an unconscious deftness and unerring precision, whereas the Westerner is feeling his way in an unaccustomed medium. Much European lacquer was the work of amateurs, dating from the time when painting and japanning of furniture was a fashionable accomplishment o f young ladies, and it is probable that Chinese and Japanese artists, steeped in the tradition of their craft, would hold that the greatest part of the lacquer furniture which is made commercially in Western Europe at the present time was very amateurish.

(English Mechanics.)