ENGRAVING 291 



from all parts, and this I believe may be most conveniently done by causing jets of 

 water forcibly to strike against all parts of the surface. The plate is then dried and 

 washed with spirits of turpentine, when it is ready for being printed from in the 

 ordinary manner. 



4 If an engraved copper-plate be prepared by this process, instead of a comparatively 

 limited number of impressions being obtained and the plate wearing out gradually, a 

 very largo number can bo printed off without any sign of wear in the plate, the iron 

 coating protecting it effectually ; the operation of coating can be repeated as many 

 times as required, so that almost an unlimited number of impressions can be obtained 

 from one plate, and that a copper one. 



1 This process will be found extremely valuable with regard to electrotype plates, 

 and also for photogalvanic plates, since they can be so protected as to acquire the 

 durability of steel, and more so, for a steel plate will require repairing from time to 

 time, these will not, but simply recoating them whenever it is found necessary; by 

 these means one electro copper-plate has yielded more than 12,000 impressions, and 

 was found quite unimpaired when examined minutely.' J. D. 



For a more complete description of the process of precipitating iron by the electro- 

 type process, as now practised, see ELECTRO-METALLURGY. 



EWGRAVIWG OX WOOD. The art of wood-engraving is so intimately con- 

 nected with that of book-printing, that it is impossible to dissever the one from the 

 other, inasmuch as the earliest books were printed from large woodcuts, the entire 

 page, text, and illustrations being engraved in one solid block. Hence the term 

 ' block-books ' given to these ancient works. The impression from these engraved pages 

 is generally taken in a thin ink, sometimes of a brown hue, which occasionally spreads 

 or blots on the lines or letters ; and the printing is generally supposed to have been 

 effected by friction on the back of the damped paper laid on the inked lines ; the sheets 

 so printed were afterwards pasted back to back, and thus formed consecutive pages 

 of the volume. Such books originated from the large woodcuts of a devotional 

 class, which, in the early part of the 15th century, were spread by the clergy among 

 the common people, perhaps to counteract the evil produced by the use of playing 

 cards, which were also printed in large sheets of cuts, and severed afterwards ; but on 

 this point typographical antiquaries are not agreed, as dates and other evidence are 

 wanting to enable us to fix either time or place to these early productions. The 

 earliest woodcut bearing a date is that belonging to Earl Spencer, and representing 

 St. Christopher carrying the Saviour across an arm of the sea ; it has two lines of 

 text beneath it, and the date 1423 thus expressed: ' millesimo cccc xx tercio.' The 

 British Museum is possessed of some very early single-leaf woodcuts : one represent- 

 ing Christ brought before Pilate, is executed in bold coarse outline, the figures are 

 very large, and retain the characteristic features of the drawings seen in manuscripts 

 of the 14th century. Another undated cut is one of those fanciful inventions which 

 the scholastic men of that early day delighted in constructing; it is termed Turris 

 Sapiencie, every stone of which is inscribed with the name of some moral virtue, the 

 foundation buttresses being prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance ; the windows 

 which give it internal light being discretion, religion, devotion, and contemplation. 

 Another representing the Seven Ages of Man is supposed to be a work of the middle 

 of the 15th century. It was found pasted inside the covers of an old book, a practice 

 which has preserved many specimens of old engraving which would else have been 

 lost. On the opposite cover is a fragment of another large cut, representing the Virgin 

 with St. Joachim and St. Anne. The St. Christopher above named was discovered in 

 the cover of a volume in the conventual library at Buxheim, in Suabia. All these old 

 woodcuts, as well as the block-books, are generally daubed with flat tints of coarse 

 colour, supposed to have been done with stencil-plates, such as the card painters used 

 on some occasions ; but evidently rudely executed by hand in others. They are all pre- 

 cisely of the kind to attract the uneducated eye ; and to this day similar coarse prints 

 are used by the clergy to aid the devotions of the peasants of the Germanic nations. 



The most celebrated of the block-books is that termed the ' Biblia Pauperum.' Each 

 page is divided by architectural compartments into three subjects, from the Old and 

 New Testament, selected to form parallel passages ' of sacred writ ; above and below 

 are other compartments with heads of the Prophets, and in the intervening spaces, 

 or upon scrolls, are explanatory inscriptions. The page measures 10 inches by 7f, 

 and is one of the most elaborate works of its class ; but it exhibits very small claim's 

 to attention as a specimen of art, certainly less than the ' Cantica Canticorum,' each 



1 Much interest was excited some few years ago by the discovery of a cut in the library at Brussels 

 apparently bearing an earlier date ; but strict investigation has since proved that one of the C's in 

 the date has been omitted ; this makes just one hundred years difference in its age. But the date 

 thus altered is quite in accordance with the general character of the design and execution of the cut, 

 which, on the contrary, do not at all agree with the earlier date originally assigned to it. 



u2 



