ROYAL INSTITUTION AND SOCIETY OF ARTS. 667 



While the encouragement of art pure and simple thus formed 

 the main object of the Society, investigation was directed toward 

 many practical subjects related to the central idea. Endeavors were 

 made to improve the materials employed by artists, and much atten- 

 tion was devoted to the various engraving processes as they gradually 

 came into vogue. Wood-engraving, aquatint, and mezzotint, were 

 the subject of anxious care, as were improvements in pigments, oils, 

 and varnishes. 



Bronze casting and chasing, iron-castings, and artistic metal-work, 

 were also encouraged, and at a later date, when Alois Senefelder, an 

 actor of Muuich, discovered lithography, the new art was first intro- 

 duced to this country under the auspices of the Society of Arts. 

 Steel engraving was also first taken seriously in hand by Mr. Charles 

 Warren, chairman of the Fine Arts Committee, who, at the suggestion 

 of Mr. Gill, chairman of the Mechanics Committee, adopted a new 

 method of treating steel plates. Previously to this, many attempts 

 had been made to engrave on steel. Albert Dllrer is said to have 

 etched on steel, and there are four plates etched by this artist, impres- 

 sions of which exist in the British Museum, and which in all books 

 of art are recorded as having been executed on steel. In the attempts 

 to revive this art, pieces of saw-blades were selected as the most prom- 

 ising material, but these efforts were attended with very little success. 

 A Mr. Raimbach then endeavored to engrave on blocks of steel, but 

 without achieving any material advance. Mr. Gill now drew the atten- 

 tion of Mr. Warren to the method employed at Birmingham in the 

 manufacture of ornamental snuffers and other articles of cast-steel. 

 The process employed at Birmingham was " to subject the steel, after 

 having been rolled into sheets, to the process of decarbonization, by 

 means of which it was converted to a very pure soft iron, being then 

 made into the required instrument or other article. The ornamental 

 work is engraved or impressed on the soft metallic surface, which, by 

 cementation with proper materials, is again converted superficially into 

 steel. Mr. Warren modified this process, and obtained thin plates of 

 steel capable of being acted upon by acids and cut with the graver, 

 without destroying the cutting edge of the tool as was the case with 

 the saw-blades. The resulting plate yielded a greatly-increased num- 

 ber of impressions." When brought to perfection, steel plates were 

 found equal to the production of ten or twelve times the number of 

 impressions yielded by copper plates. Capital was invested in the 

 production of works of a high class, with the effect of spreading far 

 and wide through the country myriads of prints calculated to elevate 

 and improve the taste of the people. This process of conversion and 

 reconversion of steel was soon afterward applied by Perkins to the 

 production of steel rollers. These were first softened and then pressed 

 into the engraved surface of a hardened steel block, and having ac- 

 quired a design in relief were themselves hardened in their turn, and 



