The blanks or body of the buttons be ing ready to receive the shank, they are handed over to workwomen who con nect them. The button is laid fiat, bot tom upwards ; the woman places the shank in the proper position with a piece of bent iron, like a spring clasp ; she presses the shank tightly to the bottom, touching then the foot of the shank where it joins the bottom, with a little solder. W hen some hundreds are so adjusted, the whole are placed on an iron plate and ex posed on an oven to a heat sufficient to melt the solder and unite the shank firmly to the button.
To cleanse the buttons, they are (lipped twice in nitric acid, and let drain. To be silvered they are put in an earthenpan, containing a nearly dry mixture of siIver, common salt, cream tartar, and some other ingredients, and well stirred up for a minute or two. This gives them a sil ver white color. The gilding is a more elaborate process. In sonic eases the gilding is only applied to the thee, or top ; in others, to the whole sur face, called all-orer gilding. For the lat ter purpose the buttons are first pickled in dilute sulphuric acid, and then im mersed in a solution of nitrate of mer cury, which leaves a thin mercurial de posit over the whole surface. For top gilding, the tops are laid on a board, and washed over with a brush. Five grains of gold will cover 144 one-inch buttons, and sometimes even half of that quantity is made to serve. A few grains of gold leaf dissolved in ten times its weight of mer cury, is the amalgam used in gilding. This is gently heated in an iron ladle, and stirred with an iron rod ; then poured in cold water; and finally strained through wash leather, to remove the su perfluous mercury. This mass is then dissolved in dilute nitric acid, and the buttons either dipped in or washed with it. The next process is to drive off the mercury by heat. This is done by plac ing the buttons in a wire cage, within a furnace, framed to carry up and condense the mercurial vapors, and passing them into a vessel of water, to polish, them. They are now removed to the lathe, and carefully burnished with bloodstone.
The florentine and silk buttons have now nearly superseded the gilt button manufacture. These contain each two circular bits of iron, a piece of thick pasteboard, another of canvas, and the outer silk or florentine covering. All these are cut out by stamping presses. The sheet of iron, of paper, of canvas, or of florentine, is shifted gradually till it is nearly all cut up into little discs.
The mode in which all the pieces are fixed together is very remarkable. There is no glue or cement, no riveting, no sew ing, plaiting, twisting, or other modes of fastening ; all being adjusted and fixed simply by stamping or pressure. With in the outer cloth cover is an iron casing called the 'shell,' within this is a disc of paper, then a disc of cloth, and at the back of all a disc of iron having a hole in the centre, through which some of the canvas is forced as a means for sewing the button on the coat or garment. All these are placed, in their proper order, in a kind of die or cell, and a descending punch, worked by a press, first fixes the cover to the shell, and then these two to the other three bits, curling up the edges of the two discs of iron in such a peculiar way as to enable them to clasp all the five bits firmly, and to hide all raggedness and imperfections of edge. The internal mechanism of the presses, to effect this, is beautiful and ingeniouS.
Some of the silk buttons have the iron ' shell ' blacked with japan before being used ; some are convex, while others are fiat ; some have a woven device in the centre of each, obtained by having the silk or other material woven expressly for the purpose, and by having each lit tle disc marked out carefully by a separate apparatus to insure accurate punching ; some have braided edges, produced by an additional number of pieces, and an addi tional complication of the stamping pro cess; and, indeed, there are numerous mo difications of the covered button which it would be difficult to particularize here ; but the punching out of separate little discs, and the fixing of these by stamping or pressure, are the prevailing features of the manufacture among all.
White linen buttons, of a remarkably neat appearance, are among the novelties of recent times. They consist of a tin or white metal ring, over which a disc of linen is stretched like the parchment of a tamborine ; and the beautiful manner in which the two are fixed together by a singular action of the press is very strik ing. The buttons made of bone, of horn, of wood, of mother-of-pearl, and of other materials, are generally the produce of other manufiieturers, who work out their results by the aid of the circular saw, the lathe, the press, and a few other pieces of apparatus.