CUTTING MISCELLANEOUS MATERIALS.
By these I mean horn jet, malachite, alabaster, cannel coal, glass, and similar substances. For all of these, except malachite, steel will answer, but that steel will not touch. It is not a nice material to work, being apt to check and crack in the most unlooked-for manner. To those who have never seen it, I will say that it is a stone, or species of marble, obtained in Russia, and is green in color, marked with white and greenish gray stripes. The green is specially brilliant, and the effect is very fine. Although it is so hard that steel will not cut it, it is easily scratched in use, and is a soft stone, and can be readily cut on a common vulcanite emery wheel, and polished on a razor strop covered with rouge powder. It is frequently used for jewelry. Glass is easily filed in a lathe with a common file, but I do not know what any one should wish to work glass for, as it is exceedingly dangerous from the splinters which fly from it, is quite friable and easily broken, and is, moreover, so common that no value attaches to it. Very pretty vases can be made out of alabaster by turning them in the lathe.
