1855.] on Nature-Printing. 109 



tributing to the beauty and fidelity of the effect, yet had the dis- 

 advantage of frequently rendering indistinct, and even sometimes 

 totally obliterating, the tender structure and finer veins and fibres. 

 Many persons at the time objected to the indistinctness of such 

 representations and the absence of the parts of fructification ; but 

 it was the decided opinion of Linnaeus, that to obtain a fac-simile of 

 the difference of species was sufficient. 



Seligmann, an engraver at Nuremberg in 1748, published in 

 folio plates figures of several leaves he had reduced to skeletons. 

 As he thought it impossible to make drawings sufficiently correct, 

 he took impressions from the leaves in red ink, but no mention is 

 made of the means he adopted. Of the greater part he gave two 

 figures, one of the upper and another of the lower side. 



Even at this early period the idea must have excited much atten- 

 tion ; for it is recorded that Seligmann had announced his intention 

 to give figures of natural objects as magnified by a solar microscope, 

 and that two were to have been published every month. But he 

 died soon after, and a law-suit prevented the prosecution of his 

 work. Two black and twenty-nine red plates of leaves had been 

 already completed, and were published with eight pages of text, in 

 which his coadjutor. Crew, speaks of the physiology of plants, and 

 Seligmann of the preparation of leaf skeletons. The leaves repre- 

 sented on the plates were those of the orange, lemon, shaddock, &c. 



In the year 1763 the process is again referred to in the Gazette 

 Salutaire, in a short article upon a Recette pour copier toutes sortes 

 de plantes sur papier. 



About from twenty-five to thirty years later, Hoppe edited his 

 Ectypa Plantarum JRatisbonensium, and also his Ectypa Plan- 

 tarum Selectarum, the illustrations in which were produced in a 

 manner similar to that employed by Kniphof. These impressions 

 were found also to be durable, but still were defective. The pro- 

 duction of impressions could only take place very slowly, as the 

 blacking of the plants with the printer's ball required much time. 

 Rude as the process was, and imperfect the result, it was never- 

 theless found that the figures thus produced were far more character- 

 istic than any which artists could produce. The fault of the method 

 consisted in its limited application and in its incompleteness ; since 

 the fragile nature of the prepared plant, if ever so carefully treated, 

 would admit of but very few copies being taken, and where any 

 great number would have been required, many plants must have 

 been prepared, a circumstance which was in itself a great obstacle. 



In the year 1809 mention is made in Pritzell's " Thesaurus " of 

 a New Method of taking Natural Impressions of Plants ; and 

 lastly, in reference to the earlier history of the subject, the attention 

 of scientific men was called to an article, in a work published by 

 Grazer, in 1814, on a Netv Impression of Plants. 



Twenty years afterwards, the subject had undergone remarkable 

 change, not only in the mode of operation to be pursued, but also 



