220 
GEAPHOTYPE. 
[Nature and Art, December 1, I860. 
depends upon the taste and skill of the original 
draughtsman, and the dexterity and appreciation of 
the engraver, as well as, to some extent also, upon 
the good management of the printer. The process 
is in all classes of work the same, different as the 
results may be ; and under the hands of many 
eminent designers and engravers since the days of 
John Bewick, to whom we owe its revival in this 
country, it has been brought to such perfection and 
cheapness that wood engravings have for many 
years been almost indispensable adjuncts alike to 
the most luxurious and to the meanest of publica- 
tions. 
It was reserved for an American draughtsman, 
Mr. De Witt Clinton Hitchcock, to discover very 
unpremeditatedly that the lines of a drawing made 
with silicating ink upon a surface of chalk would 
absolutely resist ordinary friction, while their in- 
terstices could be removed by a brush of delicate 
hair, or a rubber of velvet, leaving in bold relief a 
type or block, which could either be “ printed from 
direct,” or used as a mould for stereotype. 
The story of the discovery as told by the inventor’s 
able brother artist and representative, Mr. Henry 
Fitzcook, is not, in our opinion, to be condensed or 
improved upon : so we take leave to adopt it : — 
“ In the summer of 1860, whilst engaged in the pursuit of 
his art, the discovery was made in the following manner: — 
In the course of making a drawing on box- wood, he found it 
necessary to alter a portion of his design by erasing it and 
i’e-whitening the exposed surface of the wood. The material 
used for this purpose was the enamelled surface of an 
ordinary visiting card, softened by water and a brush, a 
method known to most draughtsmen on wood. This card 
happened to be one printed from a copper plate, and after 
the removal of all the enamelling, as described, the artist 
discovered that the printed letters were undisturbed, and 
standing up in a bold relief. 
“ Mr. Hitchcock undoubtedly was not the first or only 
draughtsman who had used a card in this way or with the 
samo result : but it must be conceded that he was the only 
one who perceived in this mutilated visiting card the basis of 
a mode of producing a relief printing-plate : without the 
skill of the engraver, and who proceeded to experiment 
thereon. 
“ The first trial was upon a piece of chalk one inch in 
thickness, sawn from the ordinary lump, and smoothly 
surfaced by scraping. The ink used was silicate of potash, 
commonly termed liquid glass, coloured with indigo ; with 
this and a quill pen, a drawing four by six inches was made. 
“ The inventor well knew that the application of water to 
his chalk block would undermine the lines, and consequently 
destroy the drawing; he, therefore, departed from the method 
used with the visiting card, and, with the aid of a tooth- 
brush, pulverised or disentegrated the surface of the chalk 
not immediately drawn upon. 
“ The lines of the drawing being literally composed of 
stone, withstood the assault of the tooth-brush, but the in- 
tervening particles of exposed chalk succumbed, and vanished 
in a cloud of snowy dust, leaving the impregnable lines 
standing in relief, inviting a proof of their strength by 
printing on paper. This could not be done until the whole 
mass of chalk was changed into stone, by saturating it with 
the liquid glass, and in half-an-hour the chalk engraving or 
block was inked and printed in the ordinary way, on paper by 
burnishing. 
“ Sawing and surfacing the chalk block, preparing the ink, 
making the drawing (quite an elaborate one), brushing it into 
relief, petrifying the block, and printing therefrom, occupied 
only four hours — four happy hours for the inventor. 
11 The new process now needed a name. It was a living 
act, but the dead languages must be exhumed for its 
appellation. It was christened Graphotype, literally signi- 
fying a type made immediately from a drawing. 
“ Prior to a second experiment it was thought necessary to 
use a substance of a finer and more uniform quality of grain 
than common lump chalk, so a cake of French white powder, 
used by ladies for improving their complexions, was obtained, 
and the result was highly satisfactory. The faot that these 
cakes of white beautifying powder were compactly formed 
by hydraulic pressure suggested a valuable improvement to 
the process.” 
It will be gathered from the above passage, 
whicli gives but a faint idea of an inventor’s 
labours and anxieties, that although Mr. Hitch- 
cock literally “ stumbled,” as his exponent says, 
“ over this notion,” he grasped its wide scope, and 
its importance to the public (peradventure to him- 
self also) with the acumen characteristic of his 
countrymen, and with their native vigour reduced 
it to practice. The details of the process were not 
matured, as may be imagined, without study ; for 
our reader must not assume that any so-called 
silicating ink, or any piece of chalk, will answer 
the purpose of the graphotyper, or that art and 
technical skill were not called into requisition 
at every step. Still, in the fulness of time, 
the Graphotype was brought to the notice of the 
Society of Arts. According to the custom of 
that body, Mr. Fitzcook was permitted to read a 
memoir before it, on the 6th of December, 1865 ; and 
to submit the invention to the scrutiny of a hap- 
hazard tribunal, comprising, probably, true experts, 
representatives of old or new rival interests, ignor- 
amuses, and crotcheteers in general. The verdict 
was favourable : indeed, it could hardly be other- 
wise. For the inventors were there at work with 
their frames of indurated chalk, their tiny hair 
pencils, their silicating ink, and their spacing- 
brushes and rubbers, in lieu of boxwood blocks, 
lead pencils, tinters, and gravers. One man at the 
Graphotype was doing two men’s work at wood 
engraving, and in a tenth part of the time. The 
press was at hand to prove the tale, and the minor 
technical objections — so often fatal — having been 
satisfactorily disposed off, the Society of Arts was 
pleased to acquiesce in the “ inexorable logic of 
facts,” and to pronounce success successful. 
Fortified by the verdicts of the Society and the 
press, and by the experiments of a crowd of ap- 
proving artists, the Company wisely associated 
itself with some practical men, and embarked at 
once in business, offering to execute work for all 
comers. As, under favourable conditions, the 
managers can turn out a stereotyped block ready 
for the printing-press, in less than two hours after 
receipt of a finished drawing on the chalk block ; 
and as they charge one half the price of a wood 
engraving (the drawing being found in both 
instances), there is no room to doubt that a 
demand must be forthcoming from the publishers 
of cheap books and periodicals, irrespective of all 
artistic considerations. But it remains for time to 
disclose whether the new art will ever vie with 
wood engraving of the highest class. Some of the 
published specimens favour the presumption that 
such may be the case ; from others, adverse conclu- 
