Chapter V: Part 5

In the old days the composition was cooked in a caldron over a coal fire, with water between two jackets to make the steam that forced the melting. The cast-iron moulds were placed near a stove to give them the necessary warmth of inner surface, a warm mould being required to give a good "face" to the roller in the casting. While cooking, the composition was constantly stirred with a stick to assist in the proper assimilation of the ingredients. After it had reached the proper stage, it was strained from the melting kettle into pouring kettles, similar to ordinary milk pails. The composition was poured from the top. Naturally, this let into the moulds, with the composition, the air bubbles and froth that were always present, which caused imperfections in the rollers. After pouring, it was necessary to let the moulds stand all night, so the composition might become sufficiently cool to permit the "drawing" of the rollers. This was effected by placing a stick against the iron journal at one end of the roller core and pushing until the roller was forced out of the mould.

But the roller factory of to-day is quite a different affair. Instead of separate moulds standing about a stove to get ready for the pouring, there are moulds in nests, or cylinders, resembling a Gatling gun, or a tubular boiler. There will perhaps be twenty roller moulds in a nest. The cylinders are balanced in the centre on journals, thus enabling the workman to place them at any angle desired, for purposes of oiling the moulds and loading them with the roller cores. The cylinders have hot and cold water contact, by which they may be surrounded by either at will. To warm the moulds the cylinder is put in an upright position, and hot water circulated about it the required length of time.

The composition--which is something more than the old-time glue and molasses--is prepared for pouring by melting in a double-jacketed steam kettle, the stirring being done by a mixer run by steam power. When ready, the composition is drawn off from the bottom of the cooking kettles into pouring kettles which have air-tight hoods. To these a hose is attached, the other end of the hose being connected with a tank which is charged with air by a pump. The hose being then attached to the cylinder, the air is introduced from the tank into the pouring kettle, forcing the composition upward into the cylinder, and all air from the moulds. This insures a perfect roller.

When the composition has reached the top of the roller stocks, the valve at the bottom of the cylinder is closed, and the process is continued to the next cylinder ready for pouring. The cooling of the cylinders is effected by turning the cold water current around them, and a nest of moulds may be filled and emptied four or five times a day. After the cooling, the bottom plate of the cylinder is removed; the rollers drop out, are trimmed, and are ready for the shipping box.

THE ILLUSTRATOR

By Charles D. Williams.

It is only in comparatively modern times that the art of illustration has received the encouragement that makes for perfection. For this, the cheapening of the manufacturing cost in printing is mainly responsible. An illustration proper should always accompany text and in days past the making of a book was so costly in itself that the possibility of illustration was almost beyond thought. Only the wealthy could afford illustrated books and as their reading was very limited, naturally illustration was crowded to the wall. Those with money to spend on pictures preferred decorations or portraits, consequently the endeavors of artists were aimed at supplying what suited the tastes of buyers. Illustration is and always has been the art of the people. It makes clearer to the imagination their stories and their songs, it mirrors their manner of life, interests, and pursuits in a way that brightens what would otherwise often be commonplace.

Art seems to entwine itself about the strongest figures in a community, absorbing with its nourishment the ethical qualities of the leader. Thus we have Michael Angelo in a community ruled by the church, creating, at its demands, a "Day of Judgment," a "Magdalen at the Cross," a "Moses," and Velasquez, evolving a marvellous technique while immortalizing in wonderful portraits the vanity of his Spanish lords.

So that at the present day, with the people in ascendency, what is more probable than the perfect development of the art which most appeals to their tastes? Every day, artists of the highest intelligence find in illustration an opportunity to give the best that is in them, and the chances that illustration will reach the heights of perfection attained by other branches of art are exceedingly good.

The opportunities for an illustrator are without end, and the problems are beyond number. It is a difficult performance to hand out, to order, pictures in which human emotions stand counterfeited. In the fact that illustration springs from and stands with the written tale and must finally serve its proper place between board covers, the man who labors at it finds some of his work already finished for him by the author. But it is a saving that tantalizes more than it assists.

The technical equipment of the artist must twist into realistic semblance, clear to the eye, the imaginary product of the author. He must not add to it nor take away from it--even for the sake of beauty in his picture--one iota of the facts given him. His imagination, grasping all the ideas of the author, must assemble them and find a place for each one, good, bad, and indifferent, and present them to the reader in a form that will command his approval.

The artist cannot tease the mind with the vague influence of description, as can the author, nor can he veil his products with the pleasing glamour of unreality. Without haze his work stands forth, bold facts in half-tone reproduction and printer's ink, fighting an uncertain fight at best with the imagination of the reader.

People will have illustrations, though. If the pictures do not literally fill the bill, they nevertheless please. Something definite, carrying a story idea, is always acceptable.

Something which excites the imagination invariably challenges interest, and the illustrator who is true to his calling and above shirking his task enhances the interesting features of a book a thousand fold, if he spares no pains in arriving at an actual expression of the author's intention.

The knowledge that an illustrator brings to his work should be as broad and varied as human history. Above and beyond his ability to draw or execute in a manner technically pleasing, should stand his knowledge of people, places, and events. It should include all Things, Ologies, and Isms. A living Index he must be, knowing just enough to readily discover more, and with this knowledge he must make others feel and imagine.

If the author would tell of wars, Trojan, Egyptian, or Siamese, the illustrator must follow him and be truthful. He must know enough of Troy, Egypt, or Siam to make clear to the reader the face, form, and clothes of the characters, their weapons of bloodshed, their way of killing, how they marched to do it and through what manner of country. He must know or find out all these things, and within all his pictures must carry the spirit of terror and murder that stalked at the time, so carefully expressed that the terror and murder will be of that particular epoch and no other. All this must be shown as clearly as that the characters belong to their helmets or shields, their war chariots or bamboo lances. Simple the task may seem in these days of public libraries and ready reference, yet it is a most nerve-racking business, this placing an embossed helm or set of greaves on the hero of a story, so that he may stand out a Roman, and when the labor is finished having him stare genially out at you, insistently proclaiming the masquerade, and seemingly proud of his resemblance to a St. Louis button salesman.

When all is said and done the illustrator's strongest asset is spirit. Technique and a grain of insight will help a man over many a rut in portraiture, and a knowledge of patting clay and using a chisel has saved many a sculptor, but technical equipment alone never made an illustrator, because he deals too directly with life in action. Slack drawing and impatience of method will always be pardoned in an illustrator, if his picture convinces.

Let a writer tell of a pair in love and the illustrator pictures their kiss; if he convinces the reader that the kiss is in earnest, the drawing may be full of faults, but the point is made and nothing more is asked, save that "she" be pretty and "he" manly. Consider the difficulty of this trick of convincing, when the words of love carefully weighed and prepared by the author and set into the atmosphere of a scene equally well prepared will often occasion derisive smiles. So it may be explained that the purpose of illustration is to carry the spirit of action rather than to serve as a basis for deft expression of technical skill, and illustration will reach its highest development along the lines which give it an excuse for its existence.

The mechanical processes for the reproduction of illustrations have served to develop various methods of drawing the original picture. The half-tone screen in connection with photography has made possible an almost exact copy of the artist's work, and at very small cost. Formerly an illustration was drawn on a wood block and turned over to a wood engraver, who laboriously cut it into the block and as he cut away the drawing as he worked it was impossible to compare his reproduction with the original. It can be readily seen that only a very good engraver was to be trusted to reproduce anything of value, and as there were never very many engravers of the first class, artists' work usually suffered. Half-tone engraving reproduces a drawing by photography and necessarily shows much of the individual method of the artist. Zinc etching of pen-and-ink drawings is even more exact in its results. Lately, methods of reproducing colored originals and paintings have been brought forward, and the results are surprisingly good. Scientific photography is at the bottom of this, and the old method of lithography, which demanded ten or twelve printings in reproduction, and then fell short, seems to have seen the last day on which it will break the heart of the artist.

Because of the sun and the dry plate, illustrators had to find inks and methods which would aid the engraver as much as possible. The use of opaque white as a ground for the mixture of tones, with its resultant bluish cast in black-and-white drawing, has almost disappeared. The camera will not find gradations in blue and artists have found it better to use pure india ink washed out in water, allowing the white of the paper to serve for high lights. Of course, opaque has its uses, but it is only after much experience and many disappointments that an artist can learn just where to use it and how. Pen-and-ink drawings and crayon drawings on rough paper in which the crayon is applied direct, and not rubbed, will always please the engraver most and return the best reproductions; but in this case cleverness and technique demand the greater notice from the artist if he would have the result interesting. A successful pen drawing is an achievement almost equal to an etching and it is unfortunate, considering the ease with which it may be successfully engraved, that good pen drawing is so rare.

Black-and-white oil offers an inviting field to the illustrator who aims at a sense of completeness in his work. Honestly handled, there is no other method of working that can convey an equal feeling of solidity and earnestness. By its use an artist can suggest all the qualities of a full-color painting and impress one with the last-forever look that thought and study gives to earnest work.

Most drawings for reproduction are worked in wash--why, it is hard to say. Oil will shine and reflect lights, and the engraver has this to overcome; but, barring the lightness and appearance of ease that wash suggests, there is no very apparent difference in the reproductions, and oil has the advantage of greater simplicity in detail.

For deftness and brilliancy illustrations finished in crayon rubbed into tones easily surpass those done by other methods, but the process has the disadvantage of appearing thin in the reproduction, unless the plate is very carefully tooled and printed.

When the illustrator has chosen his subject and decided on the method of treatment that will best serve the demands of the story to be pictured, fully half his labor is completed.

The preliminary sketches necessary to the condensing of his ideas open the door to the real pleasure in his work--standing up a model and creating therefrom a character is pure joy, and it is for this alone that the illustrator toils through the dry dust of reference libraries and costume shops.

Models are either a great aid or a great drawback in the picturing of characters, for while they assist the artist by simplifying the labor of drawing, they often handicap him by intruding their own personality into the work, thereby spoiling the sense of character aimed at. When an illustrator allows this to happen, it does not matter how beautiful or accurate his sketch may be, he fails in the first essential of his craft, entering forthwith into the field occupied by painters and decorators, who can do the same thing very much better. So, while the model is often a necessary appendage to the construction of a character, it is imperative that the spirit and sense spring from the artist, whose business is, not to reproduce the model, but to use it sparingly as he would a book of reference.

The illustrator finds that the speech an author puts into the mouths of his characters is the best index to their personality. They may be described as tall or short, dark or light, stout or thin, and their creator may explain their capacities for love, hate, villany, or dissipation, but it is only the words with which they express their ideas that really describes them. His description of the beauty of a girl will not be accepted on trust. He must supply her with deportment and breeding before her beauty can be truly imagined. Thus it may be explained that the measure of an author's conception and clearness often determines the qualities in an illustration. The true illustrator is sensitive to faults in the delineation of character, and, although he may not be aware of it, his work will show it. Of course it often happens that an artist is taken up with ideas of technique and, author or no author, will make his pictures in just such a way; but such work is hardly illustration and serves itself better standing alone.

And thus it goes throughout the scene to be pictured--place, time, and people, all must be imagined twice and equally clear, by both the author and the illustrator, before the reader will agree.

To the illustrator, hampered by given quantities, falls the most difficult task in this duet of imagination, and he can at best hope only for the reader's approval, as all credit for conception goes to the author. It is on this approval, though, that he builds, for if he succeeds in making things clearer to the reader's imagination, he has accomplished what he set out to do and has proved himself worth his hire.

So the aims of illustration are set forth, but whether the laborer completes his work well or ill, whether he brings great ability or only honest intention to its accomplishment, he is engaged in a business as fascinating as it is uncertain. Failure only drives him to another try, and success is always just around the corner. The illustrator who would live by his work must live with it. If he has a thought in his mind that does not deal in some form with illustrations and half-tone plates, he is wasting that thought and his time besides.

HALF-TONE, LINE, AND COLOR PLATES

By Emlyn M. Gill.

Practically all book illustrations, as well as those in catalogues and periodicals of all kinds, are made by some method of photo-engraving. Wood engraving is almost a thing of the past, and many who are in a position to know predict that after the present generation of wood engravers has passed out of existence, artistic wood engraving will be a lost art. It is certain that there is now no younger school of wood engravers growing up to take the place of the engravers whose work in the leading magazines, up to a few years ago, made them famous.

The quickly made and comparatively inexpensive process plates have not only taken the place of wood engraving, but have increased the field of illustration to a very large extent. They have made possible hundreds and even thousands of publications which could not have existed in the old days of expensive wood engraving. The use of photo-engraved plates has increased enormously each year during the past twenty years, and with this increased use has come the inevitable decrease in cost, so that illustrations are no longer much of a luxury to the publisher.

Photography is the basis of all the mechanical processes that come under the general head of photo-engraving. These processes are generally called mechanical, yet, as in photography, great skill is required to produce the best results. The higher grades of half-tone work require much careful finishing, which is all done by hand, and which, moreover, must be done by a skilful, intelligent, and artistic engraver. Practically all things may be reproduced successfully by photo-engraving, but the vast majority of subjects that go to the photo-engraver are either photographs or drawings.

All methods of relief plate photo-engraving come under two general heads: "Half-tone" and "line engraving," the latter being very generally known as "zinc etching." Zinc etching is the simplest method of photo-engraving and should be thoroughly understood before one begins to inquire into the intricacies of the half-tone process. It is used to reproduce what is known as "black and white" work, or line drawings. Any drawing or print having black lines or dots on a white background, without any middle shades, may be engraved by this process. The old-fashioned "wet-plate" photography is used in making practically all process plates, either in line or half-tone.

I will describe briefly all the operations gone through in making a line plate, taking for a subject a map drawn in black ink on white paper or a head drawn by Charles Dana Gibson,--subjects wide apart in an artistic way, but of absolutely equal values so far as making the plate is concerned. The drawing is first put on a copy board in front of a camera made especially for this work, in whose holder the wet plate has already been placed by the operator. The subject may be enlarged or reduced to any desired size, nearly all drawings being made much larger than they are desired to be reproduced in the plates. The exposure is much longer than in ordinary dry plate work, generally lasting in the neighborhood of five minutes. The result is a black and white negative. That is, the lines that were black in the drawing are absolutely clear and transparent in the negative, but the rest of the negative is black. From the photographer, the negative goes to the "negative-turning" room. Here the negative is coated with solutions of collodion and rubber cement, which makes the film exceedingly tough--so tough that it is easily stripped from the glass on which it was made, and is "turned" with the positive side up on another sheet of glass. If this were not done, the plate would be reversed in printing--that is, a line of type would read from right to left, or backward. After the negative is "turned," it is ready for the etching room. Here the surface of a sheet of zinc about one-sixteenth of an inch thick, which has been polished until it is as smooth as plate glass and without a scratch or a flaw of any kind, is flowed with a sensitized solution, easily affected by light. The negative is placed in a printing frame over the sensitized zinc and a print is made. That is, it is exposed to the sunlight or to a powerful electric light, and the light shines through the transparent parts of the negative, and hardens the sensitized surface; while the black part of the negative protects the sensitized surface from the action of the light. The plate is next "rolled up" with a lithograph roller which distributes a thin coating of etching ink over the entire surface. The plate is then washed off carefully by the operator, but the ink adheres to all portions of the plate that have been acted upon by the light. We now have a fully developed print on the highly polished surface of the zinc that is an exact reproduction of the original drawing. It is now necessary to make this print acid proof, and this is done by covering the plate with a coating of very fine resinous powder, called "dragon's blood," which adheres to the printed portions of the plate. The plate is subjected to enough heat to melt this powder, and is then ready for the acid bath.

A strong solution of nitric acid is used for etching zinc plates. This acid is placed in trays, which are rocked constantly, either by power or by hand, while the plate is being etched. The melted dragon's blood makes a perfect acid resistant and the acid, therefore, does not affect the print (or picture itself), but eats away the bare surfaces of the metal between the black lines and the dots. When this etching has proceeded far enough to make a plate that may be used in printing, the lines and dots of the picture stand up in bold relief, while the metal around these lines and dots has been eaten away to a considerable depth.

There are many details that cannot be described in a short article, but these are the principal operations gone through in etching the plate. One very important detail in etching is to prevent "undercutting." It is obvious that if the acid will eat down, it will also eat sidewise. The acid resistant is only on the surface. If means were not taken to prevent it, as soon as the acid got below the surface, it would begin to eat in under the print and the lines and dots of the picture would disappear; therefore, as soon as the plate has had its first "bite," it is taken from the acid, dried, and dragon's blood is brushed against the sides of the lines. This powder is then melted and the plate given another etching. While the plate is being etched down, it is removed from the acid several times, and the sides of the dots and lines are again protected. After leaving the etching room the plate goes to the "router," an ingenious machine, with a cutting tool revolving at a speed of fourteen thousand revolutions a minute, which quickly removes the waste metal in the large open places between the lines and dots. The zinc plates are carefully looked over by a finisher, defects are removed, and the metal plates are then nailed on wooden blocks, so that they will be "type-high," that is, of exactly the same height as the metal type-forms used in printing. Hand presses are a necessity in all photo-engraving shops, and with these several "proofs" of each plate are printed in order that the customer may judge of the quality of the plate.

While the line, or zinc etching process is immensely useful, in reproducing pen-and-ink drawings, maps, wood-cut prints, etc., yet the half-tone process is the one that practically revolutionized all known methods of illustration, after it had become perfected. While zinc etching is limited in its capabilities to the reproduction of black and white subjects, practically everything in art or nature may be reproduced by the half-tone process. The half-tone "screen" makes it possible to take a photograph or wash drawing and break the flat surface of the picture up into lines and dots, with the white spaces between that are an absolute essential in relief plate printing. If a half-tone print taken from any magazine or periodical is examined closely, either with the naked eye or a magnifying glass, it will be seen that the entire picture is a perfect network of lines and dots, and that there are two sets of lines running diagonally across the plate at right angles to each other. In the darker portions of the picture it will be seen that the lines are very heavy, with a small white dot in the centre of each square, made by the intersecting lines. In the lighter portions of the picture, these lines will be found to be very fine, while in the lightest parts, or in the "high lights," as they are called, the lines disappear and in their places are a mass of fine dots, not much larger than a pin point.

To make a half-tone plate of a photograph or other subject, it is necessary to break the negative up into lines and dots. It is for this purpose that the half-tone "screen" is used. The screen consists of two thin pieces of plate-glass, on the surface of which a series of very delicate parallel black lines have been ruled running diagonally across the glass. When these pieces of glass are placed together, face to face, the parallel lines ruled on them intersect each other at right angles, giving a very fine "mosquito-netting" effect. The method of making the negative is very similar to that described in making line negatives, excepting that in making a half-tone negative the screen is placed in the plate-holder directly in front of the negative. The subject is then photographed, and the result is a negative completely covered with a mass of fine transparent lines and dots.

Copper is generally used instead of zinc in making half-tone plates. In making a print on copper the light shines through the transparent lines and dots of the negative and hardens the sensitized surface of the plate. The black parts of the negative between the transparent lines and dots protect the sensitized surface. When the plate, after printing, is placed under a water tap, the parts of the sensitized surface that have not been acted upon by light wash away, leaving a print that becomes acid proof after being subjected to an intense heat.

The method of etching a copper plate is similar to that already described for etching zinc plates, excepting that sesquichloride of iron is used instead of nitric acid. In a half-tone the dots and lines are so close together that great depth is neither desirable nor possible, and no steps are taken to prevent undercutting.

The half-tone plate, after it has been carried as far as possible by mechanical processes, is capable of great improvement in the hands of skilful engravers. The plate as it comes from the etching bath may be termed a mechanical product. Though great skill is necessary in making the negative, the print, and the etching, the hand-finishing gives the plate many of its artistic qualities. The unfinished plate is apt to be more or less "flat" in appearance; the high lights may not be light enough, while the dark portions of the plate are apt, in cases, to be too light. The most common methods of finishing are reetching and burnishing. The finisher dips a camel's-hair brush in acid and applies it to the high-light portions of the plate, or other places that are too dark, and allows it to act on the metal until these parts of the plate are lightened sufficiently. The parts of the plate that are too light are made darker by rubbing down the surface of the plate with a tool called the burnisher. The skilful, artistic finisher has other methods at his command of making the plate reproduce as accurately and as artistically as possible the original drawing or photograph. High lights are sometimes cut out entirely, or a fine engraver's tool may be "run" between the lines; while a "wood-engraved" finish is produced by cutting, in certain portions of the plate, lines similar to those used in wood engraving.

In the price-cutting that has been going on as a result of the fierce competition that has existed among photo-engravers during the past few years, the artistic possibilities of the half-tone have been lost sight of to a certain extent. The product of the engravers is sold by the square inch, regardless of the fact that the cost of one plate may be double the cost of another plate of the same size, but from a different subject.

A point also worth remembering is that until the plate reaches the finishers' hands, it has been more or less of a mechanical product; and that the plate is made an artistic creation by the skill, care, and brains of an intelligent class of men earning from $25 to $50 a week. Those expecting "the best" at "the lowest price" can easily guess about how much of this high-priced finishing they will get when the price paid barely covers the cost of the mechanical product. Then, engravers striving for high quality in the product pay from twenty-five to fifty per cent higher wages, as a rule, than the cheap, commercial shops. But the idea of square-inch price has so generally permeated the buying public, that the larger and better shops have been compelled, to a greater or less extent, to meet the prices of their less skilful competitors. They are enabled to do this and give their customers much greater value for their money, only through better business methods, more modern facilities, and by conducting the business on a very large scale.

The screens used in making half-tones represent an enormous outlay in the large shops. A comparatively small screen costs in the neighborhood of $100. A screen 18 x 20, ruled 120 or 133 lines to the inch, costs about $500. Screens are made with different numbers of lines to the inch, from 65, for coarse, newspaper work, up to 400. The screens in general use are 65, 85, 100, 110, 120, 133, 150, 166, 175, and 200; but intermediate sizes are also used, such as 125 and 140. A screen containing 200 lines to the inch is about the finest ever used for ordinary printing purposes, though a few screens with 250, 300, and 400 lines to the inch have been made. A well-equipped photo-engraving establishment must have all these screens, and all of them in many different sizes. In the writer's shop there are fifteen cameras, all of them in constant use in the daytime and five or six of them are always in use all night. Some days the bulk of the work in the place will be a fine grade of magazine engraving calling for a 175 screen. In order to keep all the cameras at work all the time, a thing that is very important in a well-regulated place, it is necessary to have a number of 175 screens almost equal to the number of cameras. The same is true of most of the other screens in general use. Fortunately for the engraver and the consumer these screens practically last forever if carefully handled.

The greatest developments in process work during the past few years have been in the making of color plates. Beautiful results are obtained in two colors by the "duograph" or "duotone" processes, the plates being made for two printings. The three-color process aims to reproduce all colors in three printings, by using inks of red, yellow, and blue. This process is very interesting, but somewhat intricate. Primarily, the results are made possible by color separations. The aim is to take a colored subject--an oil painting, for instance--and by photographing it three times, each time through a different colored piece of glass, to divide all the colors into what are called the three primary colors--red, yellow, and blue. From each of these color separations a half-tone plate is made, and when these plates are put on the printing-press, and the impressions are printed over each other in yellow, red, and blue inks, respectively, the result is a printed picture reproducing correctly all the colors of the original subject.

While many subjects may be reproduced accurately by this process, yet the three-color process seems inadequate to give perfectly satisfactory results in all cases. Nearly all three-color process houses are now prepared to add a fourth, or key, plate, to be printed in black, in case the subject seems to need it. The three-color process has enabled many of the leading magazines to use illustrations in colors, and there is not the slightest doubt but that there is a great future for this class of work.

THE WAX PROCESS

By Robert D. Servoss.

Almost all of the maps found in text and reference books, as well as the geometrical diagrams used in mathematical and scientific works, are made by what is known as the "wax process."

This process was invented and patented by an Englishman named Palmer about 1840, shortly after the discovery of the method of making electrotype plates for printing purposes. He announced that he would furnish artists with copper plates covered with a waxlike composition on which they could make their own drawings, in a manner similar to but much simpler than the method followed by the etcher on copper. After receiving the artist's work, the plates were to be returned to Palmer, who then made an ordinary electrotype of the engraving. A circular, issued about 1841, gives the necessary instructions for engraving, and the prices for the wax-coated plates and the subsequent electrotypes, and shows many beautiful illustrations made by artists of that time. It was then called the "glyphographic process."

The process was first introduced into this country by a firm of printers in Buffalo, New York, and was used by them for several years for illustrating the United States patent office reports until it was superseded upon the introduction of photo-lithography and the subsequent adoption by the government of a uniform standard for patent drawings.

This process may be described in a general way as follows: A copper plate having a highly polished surface is first blackened by the application of a weak solution of sulphuret of potassium, or other chemical which will oxidize the copper. Then a composition, made by melting together in proper proportions, beeswax, zinc-white, and paraffin, is "flowed" over the blackened surface, producing an opaque whitish engraving ground. The thickness of the wax is varied according to the subject to be engraved, but in general should not exceed that of heavy writing paper. After it has been allowed to cool with the plate lying perfectly horizontal, the wax is smoothed down to an even thickness by a steel scraper, and the plate is then ready to receive the engraving.

Taking for an example the engraving of a map, the original copy is either photographed on the wax surface, or is transferred to it by covering the back of the copy with red chalk and tracing over every line with a steel point. The photograph, or the tracing, on the wax must not be a reversed one, as might be supposed, but should "read right." The outlines of the map are then gone over, with an engraving tool which cuts out a small channel in the wax, down to, but not into, the surface of the copper plate. The bottoms of these channels will eventually form the surface of the relief lines in the resultant electrotype plate, but now appear as dark lines against the whitish groundwork of the wax.

The engraving tools are made in different sizes, and therefore channels of varying widths at the bottoms may be cut in order to produce lines of different sizes. In cutting lines to indicate rivers,--which must be thin at the source and increase in thickness as they approach the mouth,--tools are used in graduated sizes. The first one cuts its own line of equal width for a very short distance, then another and slightly wider tool is used, the next still wider, and so on until the river line is completed. In reality a series of steps, the work is so done that the line appears to the eye to increase in width evenly and gradually from a very fine beginning to a heavy ending. The wavy lines indicating hills and mountains are made in substantially the same way. Special steel punches are pressed through the wax to the copper to show town and capital marks, and after all the lines and marks are completed, the plate is ready to receive the lettering. The name of each individual town, city, state, or river is set up in printer's type and stamped one name at a time into the wax. The type is placed in a small tool resembling a vise, which holds it in perfect alignment and on a perfect level. Tools of various shapes are used for stamping the names in straight and curved lines. It is necessary to wet the type to prevent its adhering to the wax.

The plate is then carefully compared with the original copy and after any necessary corrections have been made it is gone over by an expert operator, who cuts out any of the channels which may have been obliterated by the burr of the wax, resulting from pressing in the names.

We now have a plate in which the lines have been cut in small channels and the names stamped with type. This is a matrix, or mould, from which an electrotype of the lines now sunken in the wax may be made in high relief for printing, but the blank portions of the wax are so thin that it is first necessary to fill in all these places on the plates with wax in order to produce a sufficiently deep electrotype plate. This is done by "building up" the plate. A small hook-shaped tool, heated over a gas jet, is used to melt small pieces of wax which are run carefully around all the names and in the spaces between lines, thus filling up all these spaces with a round, smooth body of wax. From this mould an ordinary electrotype is made by the method described elsewhere in this book.

All these operations require much skill and patience at every step, but the plates produced by the wax process are always much deeper and stronger than those made by any other process.

MAKING INTAGLIO PLATES

By Elmer Latham.

The method by which a photogravure plate is produced, is probably the least understood of all of the many photo-processes of reproduction. This is chiefly on account of the difficulty of the process, which is not an easy matter to explain in detail, and also on account of the secrecy with which all plate makers guard their processes.

The reproduction of a mezzotint or line-engraved print, when made by a good photogravure process, produces in most cases a print which cannot be detected from the original. The originator of the process was probably Fox Talbot, an Englishman. The writer has seen one of his prints, made between 1855 and 1860, which was a very creditable piece of work. Dujardin of Paris took up Talbot's process, and after much modification, succeeded in developing a successful process which he is working to-day. All photogravure plate makers of the present time have more or less copied the process of Fox Talbot.

There are three different methods of making these plates known to the writer. The reader probably knows that a photogravure plate is not a relief plate, but an intaglio, and is printed on an etching-press in the same manner as an etching and requires special skill in printing on the part of the printer to produce the best results. I will give a brief explanation of the three different processes.

The first is known as the transfer process. In this process a reversed photographic negative is made from the copy, from which a positive or "transparency" is made, either by contact or in the camera. A piece of carbon paper is then coated lightly with gelatine, sensitized with bichromate of potassium and allowed to dry. The paper is then placed in contact with the positive and printed in daylight until the image is imprinted on the gelatine coating of the paper, such portions of which as have received the most exposure from the action of light becoming quite insoluble. A copper plate, cleaned so that it is free from grease, is introduced into a large box into which has been blown a very finely powdered resin, which is allowed to settle somewhat before putting in the plate. The plate is allowed to remain in the box until a fine deposit of resin has settled all over it. It is then carefully removed and heated over a gas burner until the resin adheres firmly to the plate. The resin is melted only to such a point that it forms a fine grain all over the plate, leaving interstices of bare copper between. The paper, on the gelatine surface of which the picture is printed, is now placed in a tray of warm water, and the parts of the image which have had the least exposure are thereby dissolved and washed away, the image being thus fully developed on the paper. This is placed in contact with the grained plate, which has been placed in the tray of water, and firmly squeezed in contact with the plate. The paper is stripped off, leaving the gelatine film on the copper. The plate is now removed from the tray and dried, and is then ready for etching, which is accomplished by placing the plate successively in several baths of acid of different strengths until the desired results are obtained. This process gives a shallow plate, of not great wearing quality, and, as a rule, requires a great deal of work by the engraver to bring the plate up to anything like the copy. The light tints come out very soft and smooth, but the black tones etch "flat" and lose all detail. These blacks must be put in by hand. The poor wearing qualities of these plates make them undesirable in cases where a large edition has to be printed.

The next process is the "deposited" plate used by "Goupil" of Paris, in which copper is deposited by electricity upon a swelled gelatine film which has had a grain formed upon its surface chemically or otherwise. The deposition has to be continued until the plate has acquired the necessary thickness, which takes about three weeks; and this is a long time to wait in these days, when a publisher usually expects his order executed in ten days. These plates are practically hand made. The process gives a plate that could not possibly be used without a great deal of retouching by an expert engraver. Goupil turns out a beautiful plate, due principally to his large force of engravers, one man working on a particular part of the plate, then passing it on to another who does some other portion, and so on, until the plate is finished. In this way each engraver becomes exceedingly skilful in one thing. Line engraving is reproduced by this process exceedingly well, but such plates, like the transfer process, are shallow and give out soon in the printing.

The last process that I have to deal with is the one I am working myself. In this process the plates are made in two or more etchings, according to the requirements of the subject which is to be reproduced. This method produces a plate of great depth both in the light and black tints, and on account of the small amount of hand-work required after the plate is etched, the copy is followed very closely. With a good positive and favorable conditions, quite frequently a plate is made upon which the retoucher needs to do no work at all, and a more faithful reproduction is made than by any of the other methods that I have mentioned. After a good positive is procured, the copper plate is cleaned, and a sensitized solution of gelatine is flowed over the plate, dried down, and then printed under the positive, with a short exposure. The plate is grained as in the transfer process, and is then etched.

This first etching, on account of the short exposure, goes over the plate in about three minutes, and is simply intended to get the light tints. The plate is again cleaned off and coated, this time in a different manner, and given a much longer exposure under the positive. The next etching takes about three hours, which gives the blacks great depth. Comparing this with the transfer plate which has an etching of from fifteen to twenty minutes, the reason for the difference in the wearing qualities of the plate is quite evident. This process, whether used by myself or others, I feel free to say is the best one that has ever been worked, inasmuch as it gives a far more faithful reproduction than any of the others with a minimum of work by the retoucher.

Some plate makers claim to make all their plates without any retouching, which cannot be done. As I have mentioned before, occasionally a plate can be made as good as the copy without hand-work. But to say that any chemical process gives such results continually, or that a plate cannot be improved by a skilful retoucher is, to say the least, misleading. All of the different processes are very sensitive to atmospheric influences, and no small amount of chemical as well as mechanical skill is required to keep things running smoothly; and at certain times the best of operators are at a loss to remedy some slight fault that may upset things temporarily. Photogravure making is based upon a foundation of small details, that must be looked after with the utmost care, and the neglect of any one of which means failure at the end. So it may be surmised that at times the operator has trouble of his own.

Every maker of plates, no matter which process he uses, has his individual ways of doing things, so that except in a general way no two processes are operated alike. This gives an individuality to each man's work, and an expert can easily tell one from another. For high-class illustrations, no other photographic process can compare with photogravure, and no doubt it will be many years before anything will be found to excel or even equal it. Much experimenting has been done with other methods, but the results have always been inferior, and I think it is safe to predict that the photogravure will always be popular.

Etchings, mezzotints, and steel engravings are still occasionally used in the illustration of fine books, and brief descriptions of how they are made will be of interest.

An etching is usually made on a copper plate. The plate being covered with a thin coating of wax, the artist works on it with an etching point, sketching his subject on the plate in fine lines as he would in making a pen-and-ink drawing, but cutting his lines through to the copper. The plate is then "walled in" with a high rim of wax, forming a sort of tray of the plate. Into this tray is poured a diluted solution of nitric acid, which etches, or "bites," into the uncovered lines on the plate. Some artists give a plate a short "bite," as the etching is called, for the light lines, then cover these portions of the plate with wax and give the plate successive "bites," stopping out each part as it gains its required depth. Others remove the coating and "prove" the plate by taking a print from it after each "bite,"--each of these prints being known as a "state of the plate" and showing what is still required to be done. In the work of an etcher like Whistler the impressions of the "first state," "second state," etc., are of considerable interest, as they show the progress of the man's work, but, except as an object of interest or as a curiosity, these prints can have no real value as they are unfinished work, simply showing the various stages in the making of a work of art.

A mezzotint is also usually made on a copper plate. A texture, or groundwork, is worked on the copper plate with a tool resembling a cabinet maker's toothed plane iron, except it is rounded at the end. The teeth are very fine, ranging from forty to one hundred and twenty to the inch in different tools. This tool is called a "Bercier," or "rocker." The rounded edge allows the tool to be rocked across the plate, the rocking motion causing the teeth to form indentations in the copper. The rocking has to be continued until the surface of the plate is completely covered, and it then presents an appearance like velvet. Rocking in from forty to sixty directions is necessary to cover the plate properly. The durability of a mezzotint plate depends entirely upon the pressure put upon the rocker, and the depth to which it penetrates the copper. After the ground is thus laid, the outline is sketched in on the rocked surface, which takes the pencil easily, and then with steel scrapers and burnishers the light and middle tints are worked down, leaving undisturbed the portions of the surface where the strongest blacks are to be. From time to time, a print is taken from the plate, to note the progress of the work, which advances slowly to the finish. On account of the length of time necessary for the laying of the ground and the scraping of the plate, many artists hesitate to attempt mezzotint plates. There are very few men in this country to-day who do mezzotint engraving, which, considering the results to be obtained, seems somewhat surprising.

For flesh tones, drapery, and landscapes it has no equal. The velvety richness of the blacks, the beautiful gradations of the middle tones, and the extreme delicacy of the light tints give the artist a power of expression not obtainable by any other method of engraving. Besides this, as the engraving is done on the bare copper, the artist can see at all times the progress of his work without having to take off the wax ground as he must in making an etching. This is a great advantage, for as the effect of each stroke can be plainly seen on the plate, the element of uncertainty which always attends the production of an etching is entirely eliminated, and it is then simply a question of skill with the scraper. The difficulty of obtaining rockers is one great drawback. I doubt if one could be obtained in New York to-day. The teeth have to be very accurately cut, and a perfect tool has a value to an engraver that cannot well be estimated. The lack of demand has prevented their manufacture in this country, but they could be made here by any fine tool maker.

Steel engravings are still used to some extent in this country, although only in portrait work. A wax ground is laid on the plate as in etching. A tracing is made from the photograph, from which the picture is to be made, and is then transferred to the wax ground. The engraver then follows the lines of the tracing with an etching point, the hair, head, and outline of the features being gone over carefully. Then the plate is etched with weak nitric acid. If the face is to be "stippled," it is covered with fine dots made by a graver directly on the surface of the metal after the plate has been etched and the wax cleaned off. If the face is to be a mezzotint, that part of the work is all rocked over, and then scraped down within the etched outline, when the flesh is modelled as in a regular mezzotint. The drapery, background, etc., is usually done by a ruling machine with fine or coarse, waved or straight lines, as the texture may require. These lines are ruled through a coating of wax, and then, by etching and stopping out, the required results are obtained.

This method of engraving is also giving place to process work, and in a few years more the steel engraved portrait will probably be a thing of the past.

PRINTING INTAGLIO PLATES

By George W. H. Ritchie.