GRAPHICS. 169 
grounding is removed according to the various degrees of shade required ; 
so that in the strongest lights the smooth plate again appears, and is 
even polished again. This method, which is exceedingly tedious, produces 
a remarkably soft effect when completed, but will hardly furnish 150 perfect 
impressions. 
The seventh mode, that of printing in several colors, differs from the pre- 
ceding in this respect, that for each color a different plate must be engraved ; 
but lately a method has been discovered of printing several colors from a 
single plate, which is called “coloring in the plate.” This trifling, how- 
ever, has been almost wholly confined to France and England. 
The e¢ghth mode of engraving, the chalk manner, is only a variety of the 
stippling process, which is applied to the etching-ground, while instead of 
the single-pointed needle one of several tolerably blunt points is used, 
together with the roulette, with which the strokes are dotted. By this 
method strokes are obtained which look as if made with chalk. 
The nenth mode, the English dotted manner, answers precisely to the 
stippling above mentioned, except that it is applied to the etching-ground, 
and no roulette is used in it. 
The tenth mode, called aquatint engraving, differs from the preceding, 
and is, properly speaking, etched mezzotinto. Here the outlines are first 
sketched and bitten in. The plate having been cleansed, there is sifted over 
it, according to the fineness of the grain desired, some more or less finely 
powdered colophony, after which it is set over a gentle charcoal fire. The 
resin will melt on the plate in the form of small grains, between which the 
plate will be exposed. All that is to remain quite white is covered over 
with coating-varnish, and the design is bitten in as in etching, the different 
degrees of shade being stopped out as they are etched dark enough; the 
plate is then retouched in order to preserve the soft transitions, after which 
it is ready for printing. Sometimes, too, strokes are laid with the graver 
in the deepest shades. 
The eleventh or aquarelle process is the same with that of Le Blon 
(the seventh mode), except that the plates are worked in the aquatint 
instead of in the mezzotint manner; it is however but little used, if 
at all. 7 
Map-engraving and letter-engraving form special branches of the engravy- 
ing art. These demand a separate study, the main requisites being great 
uniformity and freedom of stroke. Hence the artists in these branches 
seldom engrave other works, and figure and landscape engravers never 
work on lettering or maps. The letter-engraver should possess a knowledge 
of the written character of the most diverse nations ; and we have given, 
for his assistance, in pls. 23 and 24 a variety of Oriental alphabets, with the 
names and powers of the letters, together with the alphabets used in 
Europe already. Letter-engravers are accustomed first to etch the charac- 
ters and then to go over them with the graver, by which means the work 
acquires greater freedom. Attempts been very recently been made to form 
letters by means of machines and to etch them altogether. The artistic 
department of the house which has issued the plates of this work (F. A. 
553 
