554 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



1/ 



the etched parts, and confessed that no printers' ink could ena- 

 ble them to re-produce the beauty of all the parts visible upon 

 the plate. These plates were done ten years ago in Vienna. 



Mote. — Anode, the entrance of electricity into substances. Ca- 

 thode, its exit. 



MULTIPLICATION OF BOOKS AND ENGRAVINGS. 



Mr. Charles Knight, in his report to the Board of Trade on 

 class 26, drawing, printing, &c., at the Taris Exhibition of 1855; 

 says: 



" I will endeavor to take a rapid view of the new appliances, 

 as shown in tlie French Exhibition, which afford the probability 

 of ultimate extension of the copying processes, as belonging to 

 books and engravings, as well as those which, originating in im- 

 perfect attempts to produce curiosities, have already formed, or 

 are forming branches of commerce. 



" In type founding, machinery has been introduced instead of 

 the common mode of casting each letter in a separate matrix. 

 In the great French foundries of Plou and of Laboulage, as well 

 as in others, many ingenious applications are to be seen. In our 

 own London foundries of Caslon, Figgins, and Bezley, as well as 

 in our provincial foundries, we have the most beautiful, as well 

 as the most useful modern founts." 



It is in the adaptation of it to particular classes of printing 

 that we find the practical good sense of our type founders, as in 

 most other trades. A type of a different character is required for 

 a newspaper tlian for a book — a type compact, not too fine, very 

 enduring. This quality of sustaining great and constant wear 

 has been accomplished, in types faced with copper, or other 

 metal, by the galvanic process. But this beautiful discovery of 

 electrotyping is producing results which stereotyping has never 

 attained. 



A cast from type metal, of a wood cut especially, cannot have 

 the sharpness of the original. An electrotype rather adds to the 

 sharpness than diminishes it. The rapidity of the process is 

 also most remarkable in skillful hands. The wood cuts of the Illus- 

 trated News, and of othei illustrated papers, are thus du|>licated, 

 so as to meet the large demand in a limited time. The large 

 plate of the Austrian types of all languages, tlius produced by the 

 galvanic process, was noticed in the Palace Jury Report of 1851. 

 The same description of plate, with the Calmuck characters 

 added, measuring 540 square inches, was exhibited in 1855. But 

 the Austrian printing office shows new activity in connection with 



