THE INDUSTRY OP ALL NATIONS.

cylinder, which subjects it to a pressure so powerful as to force the paper againstthe ink in all the engraved lines. Then on lifting the paper from the plate, theink adheres to the paper surface in ridges and peaks, corresponding to the cutlines and dots of the plate. There is room for a high degree of skill in platepi'inting, and it is almost as rare to find a good printer as a good engraver. Notonly must a first-rate printer be versed in all which concerns paper, inks, presses,plates, and their peculiar workings, but he must have sufficient artistic apprecia-tion of his subject to give it the best and best distributed tone of shade. This in-dispensable adjunct of art has not received due attention, especially among our-selves, and a reform of this neglect must be achieved before the best Americanengraved work will compare favorably in proof with the English, French, andItalian products, since their superior printing gives an important vantage groundto their artists of all grades. We will now present a brief synopsis of the chief en-graving processes.

Wood engraving is now uniformly executed on blocks of boxwood cut acrossthe grain, into slices one inch thick, and planed smooth on the face. Good blocksare characterised by a uniform yellow, plane surface, while the prevalence of redor white colors, of knots or of flaws, indicates inferior blocks. Blocks of’fromsix to eight inches square can be procured, but for larger subjects, two or morecan be joined. An important improvement or revolution in wood engraving waseffected by introducing the use of boxwood blocks, a step which originated -inthis country. To the superior clearness of lines given by this wood, and to therecent wonderful development of a popular demand for cheap illustrations, wemay ascribe the immense increase of woodcuts employed during the last twentyyears. The fact that woodcuts can be printed, with the utmost facility on thetype press, enables them to be composed with letter-press, and worked off withthe forms of books, magazines and newspapers, in almost unlimited numbers, espe-cially as either stereotyping or electrotyping can be resorted to when desirablefor their preservation or reproduction. Preparatory to executing a design onwoqfl, the face of the block is slightly roughened, and then covered with a moistpowder of Bath brick and flake white, which, when dried and brushed, offers afine white surface to receive the drawing. This is either drawn in pencil on theblock, or is transferred from the original drawing by tracing, or by throwing downits ink on the white ground. The white parts are then cut away by the use ofgravers, tint tools and gouge tools, leaving the dark lines in relief. As in the printingthe dark masses of the drawing should receive the greatest pressure, and thelightest lines the least, the surface of the block is prepared for engraving by lower-ing slightly according to a traced outline the parts on which the lights are to fall.Then the ground is whitened, the drawing on it made, and the engraving executedconforming in its details to the previous lowering. This lowering, which makesthe block complete in itself, is far superior to the method of patching or underlay-ing, which it is superseding; as the arrangement of underlaying patches to regu-late pressure, threw too much on the printer, and was lacking in delicacy ofadaptation.

Wood engraving has two modes exactly the reverse of each other. Not onlyis wood used to print the drawing lines in black or from relief, but it is employed forprinting the ground in black, while the drawing lines being cut away on the block,are* left white in the impression. The latter mode is exceedingly effective foroutlines and mathematical drawings, to which it gives a striking relief; it is alsomuch more cheaply executed. It is growing into more extended use, and is wellexemplified in B'aillidre’s Scientific Series, and in the Crystal Palace Dome Sectiongiven in No. I. of this Becobd. Its relation to common wood engraving, is thesame which mezzotinting and aquatinting bear to line engraving on copperand steel.

So important is wood engraving to popular art-culture, that it should be sedu-lously cultivated, for improvements both in its processes and in its style. It is farshort of perfection in both these respects, and just now it is peculiarly the victimof an overbearing demand for the more indifferent styles of work. It is muchto be regretted that so strong a tendency now prevails among us to multiply en-gravings, which in all points of style and meaning are beneath criticism. The artthus becomes discredited, and the better class of artist mind turns from a methodso prostituted to the service of deformity. It would, however, be more wise forsome real artists boldly and diligently to enter on a better practice and appli-cation of wood engraving, and the present time seems peculiarly to invite the en-listment of some more masterly minds in a career where so much good can beachieved by raising the tone of popular illustrations. Not only distinction butalso emolument now particularly invites to this career, nor need one scorn tofollow in the footsteps of Albert Durer. Elements of power abound in thisart, and it well deserves to be exalted to a higher rank by enlisting that eminentorder of talent which adorned its glorious dawn. The long neglect in which ithad lain, gave place during the present century to that strangely active agencywhich we now behold in the London Illustrated News, the Art Journal, L’lllus-tration, and numerous other instances (we might specify this Becobd) ; an activitywhich must go on increasing, and which will fully justify every effort to give ahigher character and spirit to an art so boundless in its scope. A country which

can claim an Anderson and an Adams, is certainly not without materials for the

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highest practice of this art; and if superior woodcuts, equal to that from Wil-kie’s Blind Fiddler, are not produced here, it is because the demand has been soexclusively for petty subjects. Why does not some one among us try the ex-periment of woodcuts really of the first class in subject, style, and dimensions ?

A great original cost, even if it were necessary, would be amply reimbursed byan extensive popular circulation at the lowest remunerating rates.

Copperplate engraving has perhaps employed the very highest skill in theuse of the graver, from the days of Martin Schoen to the present, and it hasbeen the means of producing a great number of truly noble works of art. Cop-per plates for engraving require to be very pure, and are planished, or hammeredplane and polished before using,, so as to give more hardness and uniformity tothe surface. In copying on copper, locating squares are lightly drawn onits face, and a thin coating of wax is spread uniformly over it, by heating theplate. Then the drawing is traced in pencil on tracing paper, or sheets of fishglue; the tracing is then reversed according to the squares, with its face on thewax, and is either run through a press, or the pencil marks are thrown downby hand, so as to effect their transfer to the wax. Then with a point theseoutlines are traced through the wax into the copper, where they serve as a guidefor all the engraver’s subsequent cutting. The graver is employed exclusively forcutting strong lines into the copper, and for filling in the details the graver and drypoint are used. The graver point is a rhomboid, varying in its angle in differentgravers, and it is pushed in front of the engraver’s hand. The scraper is a three-edged pointed instrument, used for scraping off the burr from the lines, and forerasing by hollowing out. To beat up to the plane of the face the hollows madeby the scraper in erasing, a small anvil is used, on which the plate is held whilethe hollows are bumped up by hammering on the back. The burnisher, a roundpointed tool, is used to rub out light lines and surface inequalities. The ruling ma-chine, an invention of Mr. Wilson Lowry, of London, is used for ruling in with adiamond or hardened, steel point, the parallel lines for skies, water, and uniformshading, giving great delicacy and evenness of shade. When the engraving is com-plete, the burr on the sides of the engraved lines is removed by the scraper, andthe plate is rubbed over with coal to give it a smooth face for printing.

Steel engraving differs from that on copper plates, not in the tools used andthe methods employed in their manipulation, but in the manner of treating theplates themselves. The process of decarbonizing and recarbonizing steel, wherebyit is made soft during the engraving, and then hard for the printing, is due tothe inventive mind of the late Mr. Jacob Perkins of Massachusetts. About thirtyyears since, he matured the means which have served to establish a very generaluse of steel plates for the finest class of subjects. His method, for which hoprocured an English patent in 1823, is briefly the following: The steel plate,die or cylinder which is to be softened for engraving, is imbedded in iron filings,and inclosed in a strong tight iron box. For about four hours this is exposed toa white heat, which deprives its surface layer of a portion of its carbon, in factthus rendering it essentially soft iron, on which the graver works with a facilityapproaching that of copper engraving. When the engraver’s work is done, thehardening or recarbonizing is effected by bedding the plate in a close iron boxfilled with pulverized charcoal derived from leather by dry distillation, and thenheating the whole to white heat for a time, proportionate to the thickness of theplate. Then the plate is withdrawn, and tempered by plunging into cold water,a process requiring for its practice, trained skill to guard against cracking, warp-ing, and imperfect temper. This results in giving a degree of hardness whichenables the plate to furnish a very great number of perfect impressions, thuspresenting a most important advantage over copper for standard engravings.Whereas copper fails in from 1000 to 3000 impressions of good work, and 6000for the coarsest, a steel plate often will give over 50,000 impressions even ofgood engravings, and over 100,000 for the coarser species of work as schoolatlases. On the whole, steel is capable of rather finer work than copper, thoughits engraving costs from a third more to double that of the same subject oncopper.

Mr. Perkins also invented the process and the press used for multiplyingcopies of steel engraved plates. For this purpose he used rollers of soft decar-bonized steel, which are by the press rolled over the engraved plate under sostrong a pressure as to force the soft steel into the lines of the engraving, therebypresenting on the cylinder a raised direct copy of the engraved subject, whichbeing duly hardened, is made in turn to stamp its lines into a new softened plate.Thus from a single engraving, an infinity of impressions can be procured. Unfor-tunately the pressure required is so great as to prevent the application of thepress to any except small designs. It is peculiarly applicable, however, to banknotes; for by its agency, the heads, vignettes, ornamental figures, &c., of abank note can be readily repeated in perfect identity on the same plate, so as topermit the printing of a bill in sheets of four and six copies at a time, with butlittle extra cost for engraving after the first copy. Thus skill, without restrictionof expense, is bestowed on the elements of bank notes, as these can be used notonly in the several copies on one plate, but in various combinations for differentplates, and even for different banks. The very best engravers in this countryare thus employed, as may be seen by inspecting the specimens of bank note