NATURE-PRINTING. 



475 



Then there is as much difference in the papers made by wasps 

 as in those made by man. In this country all wasps' nests are 

 made of very fragile material, but in South America there are 

 some wasps which make the external covering of their nests as 

 hard and white as the stiff cardboard employed by artists. 



HAVING now got our paper, we will glance at one or two modes 

 of using it for Art. Papier-mache has already been mentioned, 

 and it is worthy of notice that there are now in existence 

 many decorated ceilings which are made of this material, on 

 account of its great strength and its non-liability to fire. 



The* first invention which we shall notice is that which is 



FERNS IN COAL. 



NATURE-PRINTING. 



known by the name of Nature-printing, and which has been 

 so successful in transferring to paper an exact representation of 

 vegetable foliage. 



One simple tolerably efficacious mode of Nature-printing 

 has long been known. A piece of paper being rubbed with 

 lamp-black and oil, the leaf was laid upon it and gently rubbed, 

 so as to transfer the lamp-black to the nervures. It was then 

 laid on a sheet of white paper, and again rubbed, when an 

 impression of the leaf was left upon the paper. 



The present system of Nature-printing is far in advance of 

 this rather rude method, and amounts to an exact reproduction 

 of the plant, not only in form and detail, but in colour. 



In order to illustrate this beautiful process, I cannot do 

 better than transfer to these pages the following account of 

 Nature-printing as given in Tire's "Dictionary of Arts," &c. 

 It is an abstract of a lecture delivered by Mr. H. Bradbury at 

 the Royal Institution. 



" Nature-printing is the name given to a technical process 



