1855.] rni Nature- Printing. 115 



period Dr. Branson again made experiments, and endeavoured to 

 bring Nature-Printing into practical operation. He too tried im- 

 pressions on Britannia metal, not altogether with the view of printing 

 direct from such plates, desirable as it would be to dispense with 

 the operation of taking casts — but of transferring impressions to 

 stone; and after printing an impression in some neutral tint, to 

 resort to colouring by hand. (Specimens of this method were lying 

 on the table ; but, on examination, would not bear comparison with 

 the productions of the present time.) 



In the Imperial Printing-office of Vienna, the first application of 

 taking impressions of lace on plates of metal, by means of rollers, 

 took place in the month of May, 1852 :* it originated in the 

 Minister of the Interior, Baumgartner, having received specimens 

 from London, which so much attracted the attention of the chief 

 Director, that he determined to produce others like them. This 

 led to their using gutta-percha in the same way that Dr. Branson 

 had used it ; but finding this material did not possess altogether the 

 necessary properties, the experience of Andrew Worring induced 

 him to substitute lead, which was attended with remarkable success. 

 Professor Haidinger, on seeing specimens of these laces, and learn- 

 ing the means by which they^had been obtained, proposed the 

 application of the process to plants. The results of these experi- 

 ments,! ^^ well as those of Professor Leydolt above referred to, 

 appeared in the fifth volume of Memoirs of the Imperial Academy, 

 published at Vienna, in 1850. 



Up to this time, however, in England, notwithstanding the above- 

 mentioned experiments, the discovery had not assumed any practical 

 form ; but there is little doubt that if any of these persons had had 

 the requisite means and appliances it would have been brought to 

 perfection earlier. These consist mainly in the precipitation of metals 

 upon moulds or matrixes by means of electro-galvanic agency. 



Nature-Printing owes its present success to the electrotype, which 

 was then, and even at the present time is, the only means by which 

 faithful copies can be taken of those delicate fibrous details that are 

 furnished in the examples of the impressions of botanical and other 

 figures in metal. It may be said to be owing to the extensive scale 

 upon which the process of the electrotype is conducted in the Im- 

 perial establishment, that Worring was enabled to render the process 

 of Nature-Printing practically available as a Printing Art. 



The deposition of metals by galvanic agency, though long known 

 and practised in England, has been considered more as a scientific 

 than a practical mode of casting ; and it is only within the last 

 few years that its value in its manufacturing capabilities has been 



♦ The Austrian patent was taken out on the 12th October, 1853, in the name 

 of Andrew Worring. 



t These consisted of specimens of lace, leaves, plants, mosses, serpent-skins, 

 the wing of a bat, agates, fossils, and petrifactions ; and it is somewhat curious 

 that these examples were similar in character to those chosen by Kyhl. 



