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this beautiful process, and a great number of copies produced 
from the original drawing. 
The invention of Lithography is one of the wonderful things 
which have resulted from accident, Senefelder of Munich, an 
author in poor circumstances, being unable to pay for the print- 
ing of his books, tried to invent a substitute for letterpress 
printing. He found after repeated experiments that a composition 
of soap, wax, and lamp black formed a good ink for writing on 
soft stone. One day whilst practising, his mother desired him 
to take an account of some linen which she was about to send to 
be washed. Having no paper at hand, he wrote the account on a 
stone with his composition ink, intending to copy it at his leisure. 
Afterwards, when he was about to efface the writing, the thought 
occurred to him that he might obtain impressions from it; and 
having bitten away the stone with acid for about the one- 
hundreth part of an inch to elevate the writing, he found that he 
could charge the lines with ink and take impressions from them. 
The principle of Lithography was thus discovered, though some 
years elapsed before the art became recognized as a definite 
printing process. The first specimens of lithographic printing 
were the words and notes of some songs printed for a bandmaster 
in the German army in 1796. 
The Stones used in the process are found mainly in the 
politic formation on the banks of the Danube and Iser in Bavaria ; 
they are usually cream or grey in colour; in composition they 
are limestone: and they are capable of receiving a very smooth 
polish. 
A drawing is made on the prepared stone with lithographic 
ink—or a transfer from an engraved plate or a design traced on 
paper, may be put upon the stone. The design, reversed, adheres 
to the stone. The stone is kept damp and its surface is rolled 
over with another special ink. Both of the inks are greasy in 
composition, and while the printing ink does not adhere to the 
damp stone (grease and water being repellent forces) it takes 
hold of the greasy lines or drawing upon the stone and remains 
on the surface thereof. A sheet of paper is now laid upon the 
stone and subjected to a heavy pressure. An impression of the 
drawing—again reversed so that it is now right side up—is left 
upon the paper. (This was exemplified by the use of a Litho- 
graphic press Mr. Grant had in the room. Drawings were made 
upon paper by several members, transferred to stone, and 
impressions therefrom printed during the course of the Soirée.) 
In colour printing, chromo-lithography, what is called a key- 
stone is prepared and from it are made ready a number of other 
stones, each adapted for receiving a particular colour or tint, a 
separate stone for each separate colour. The sheets to be im- 
printed are impressed upon the various stones in regular order, 
