308 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 505. 



markable color reproduction of a slab of Mexi- 

 can onyx, wliich for realism and beauty is as 

 yet unrivaled. 



It is not, of course, within tbe province of 

 an inexpensive VFOrk like this to furnish such 

 splendid plates as those illustrating the Heber 

 E. Bishop book on jade — notably the litho- 

 graphic work of the art objects by Prang, and 

 of the archeological objects by Forbes, of 

 Boston; or the etchings of the French artists, 

 which were colored by being rubbed in with 

 the hand, on the etched plates, that is, the 

 color and the tintings were applied to an etch- 

 ing plate, giving both an artistic as well as a 

 realistic and charming effect; or some of the 

 Chinese wood-cuts, made by the artists in 

 their own homes, from native specimens, and 

 printed on the thinnest paper, which was then 

 mounted. Dr. Farrington's volume contains 

 thirteen plates, while Bauer's great book has 

 twenty in color ; but ' Gems and Gem Min- 

 erals ' contains about one sixth the text of 

 Bauer's book, and sells at one fifth the price. 



To digress for a moment from the review, 

 a few words upon color illustration may 

 not be amiss. Illustrations for works 

 upon science and art have become pos- 

 sible, both in kind and in cost, within 

 recent years, by the wonderful advances in 

 photographic reproduction, to a degree that 

 is indeed remarkable. Plates that are almost 

 perfectly true to nature can now be furnished 

 in black and white at one tenth the cost of 

 producing them twenty years ago; and color 

 illustrations are now within the reach of stu- 

 dents of entomology, ornithology, and, indeed, 

 almost all branches of zoology and botany, to 

 an extent formerly impossible. The realistic 

 effect of such illustrations is often admirable; 

 and these processes can be used in a multitude 

 of cases where either lithographic or hand- 

 colored work would be out of the question on 

 account of its far greater cost. These ex- 

 pensive processes remain for luxurious and 

 elaborate works, in which cost is not consid- 

 ered; but the half-tone and three-color meth- 

 bds have an immense and most valuable field 

 in educational and popular uses. The ques- 

 tion whether a book is to be a commercial 



success, when sold at from two to ten dollars 

 a copy, 'or is to be privately printed in a lim- 

 ited edition, for distribution as a gift by a 

 wealthy man or a large institution, regardless 

 of cost, for the purpose of describing a great 

 collection, naturally involves an immense dif- 

 ference in the character of the make-up. 

 Among the first successful attempts to apply 

 colored illustration to this department of nat- 

 ural objects, were the plates in the volumes 

 by Sowerby, on British and exotic minerals, 

 published in the early part of the last century. 

 In other branches, especially in ornithology, 

 entomology and botany, hundreds of volumes 

 have been illustrated in color, often with great 

 accuracy and beauty, in a manner rarely em- 

 ployed in mineralogy or geology. This dif- 

 ference may be due in some degree to the fact 

 that birds, insects and flowers have greater 

 interest than minerals for the general public; 

 but it is also largely caused by the difiiculty 

 of reproducing successfully the peculiarities 

 of crystalline form, especially when grouped, 

 and the varying effects resulting from differ- 

 ences in luster and transparency. Among 

 the first to avail themselves of the new 

 processes, in a popular point of view, were 

 Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls in the gem and 

 other colored plates in their Standard Dic- 

 tionary. The bird and similar color illustra- 

 tions of Mr. Muniford have already been 

 noted, and their extensive adoption in schools, 

 etc., thoughout the country. One of the latest 

 and best examples of fine color work is in the 

 monumental treatise on Indian baskets, by 

 Dr. Otis T. Mason, recently published by the 

 Smithsonian Institution. All these, however, 

 notwithstanding their beauty and fidelity, and 

 their great general value, can not be compared 

 with such splendid illustrations as those of 

 the North Carolina Geological Survey, which 

 is now publishing a volume upon ' Gems and 

 Precious Stones,' to contain four colored 

 plates, by Taber Prang Art Company, or 

 the Bishop jade catalogue, already referred to, 

 or the great forthcoming work describing the 

 Morgan collection of porcelains, which will 

 consist of an edition limited to 250 copies, 

 and will be of regal elegance in every way ; 



