388 KEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



Upon these remarks of Mr. Hymans an English writer has based a 

 most astonishing hypothesis, which is calculated to make an already 

 apparently very difficult matter still more difficult. 



" The more we look," says Dr. Willshire (vol. n, p. 58, of his other- 

 wise very useful "Introduction,'' before quoted), "the more inclined are 

 we to believe that the ground [should be, the surface] of the original 

 plate [i. e., of the plate on which. the engraving was executed] has re- 

 mained for the greater part in relief, as it were, and has been inked, and 

 that the white forms or the dots and lines have been cut in intaglio, 

 kept free of ink, and so appear white off black in the impression. But 

 in other parts it would seem that the ground [should again be, the sur- 

 face] has been kept clean or uninked, and the cut or intagliated lines 

 and scratches have been inked and appear black off white, as in ordi- 

 nary copper plate impressions. Where the inked or black ground ap- 

 pears to give the forms, the plate or block may be said to have been 

 engraved iu relief or en taille (Pepargnej but where the inked intagli- 

 ated lines or scratches indicate them, it must have been engraved en 

 creux. This strange mixture of work and effects gives rise, as Mr. 

 Hymans observes, to a combination more singular than agreeable." 



The hypothesis involved iu the preceding paragraph is so extraordi- 

 nary that one is inclined to think there must be some misunderstanding. 

 The summing up, however, of his investigations and speculations, 

 given by Dr. Willshire on pp. 05 and 66, leaves no room for doubt. 

 "That a clear and full knowledge," he says, " of the exact mode of exe- 

 cution of the manure criblee is yet a desideratum, we candidly admit in 

 the face of what we have already stated. Nevertheless we believe we 

 are so far right in maintaining, first, that it was generally practiced on 

 metal plates ; secondly, that the engraving was both in relief and in- 

 taglio, accordingto circumstances ; thirdly, that the larger ' dots ' were 

 punched out of the metal, and the smaller ones indented, but not to 

 complete perforation, or at any rate that all thepunctiform techuicwas 

 in intaglio, and did not receive ink; fourthly, that narrow lined forms 

 or contours, indicated in the impression by black detaching itself from 

 a white ground, were often from relief-engraving on the metal; fifthly, 

 that narrow-lined engraved work and hatchings, indicating texture and 

 shadow rather than forms in the impression, were from work in intaglio; 

 sixthly, that the peculiar effects produced by the admixture of engrav- 

 ing en creux and en taille d'epargne were added to and varied by the 

 removal of the ink in certain parts before printing." 



If the explanation attempted by Dr. Willshire were borne out by the 

 facts, the method of procedure adopted by the engravers of the " dotted 

 prints" might, indeed, justly be called " irrational." It is evident, how- 

 ever, from the quotations given from the dissertation of Mr. Hymans, 

 that the conclusions drawn by the English writer find no basis what- 

 ever iu the utterances of his Belgian colleague. Mr. Hymans does not 

 even hint at a combination of reliefprm£*/£# with iuVdglio-jirinting in 



