126 Perkins aiid Fairman's 



But the impression from the cylinder may be made, if re- 

 quired, upon soft steel, instead of copper, and this, afterwards 

 hardened, becomes capable of affording an infinitely greater 

 number of good impressions than the copper-plate ; it may also 

 be used as a new source of copies upon the cylinders, thus 

 presenting a means of multiplying the engravings beyond pre- 

 cedent, and almost eluding calculation. 



When it is remembered that all kinds of engravings, the 

 finest, as well as the most common, may be multiplied upon the 

 same principle, the utility and economy of the plan, where nu- 

 merous impressions are required, will be at once evident; and 

 a means is afforded of substituting, in a variety of publications 

 requiring many copies of the same engraving, fine and perfect 

 works of art, at the same expense which is now incurred for 

 those of a very inferior description. The despatch too with 

 which all this is effected is not one of the smallest merits of 

 Messrs. Perkins and Fairman's very extraordinary invention ; 

 the specimen (Plate 2.) with which, through their assistance, we 

 are enabled to present our readers, could certainly not have 

 been produced in the ordinary mode of engraving in less than 

 six months ; whereas, by the process we are describing, it was 

 mdented upon the copper from the originals in less than half 

 as many hours. 



It will appear, from our specimen, that engine engraving, 

 exhibited in the border at the top, and repeated at the bottom 

 of the plate, may be combined with that of the artist, and the 

 machine by which these are produced, appears, as far as our 

 information goes, to be preferable to any that has hitherto been 

 employed for the same purpose. It has the property of design- 

 ing its own patterns or figures, and in such endless variety 

 that they can only be compared to the whimsical and infinitely 

 varied combinations presented by the kaleidoscope. 



The border also exhibits another important operation of the en- 

 gine, which consists in producing the engraving alternately in- 

 dented and in relief, so as to imitate copper and wood engraving, 

 every other link of the chain of which it is composed differing 

 from its neighbour, by exhibiting white lines where the other is 



