440 
ON THE MECHANICAL PROCESSES OF 
ENGRAVING.* 
BY A. H. WALL. 
CLEVER writer, speaking of work done by machinery, 
after pointing out that machines are nothing but 
superior tools, says, “Man were hardly man without this 
machinery. The tool-maker, the tool-improver, these are 
his characteristic titles. When was he not a tool-maker ? 
The first and earliest glimpse we get of him, long before 
written history begins, he is a tool-maker. The tools and 
‘the head lie together. Deep under centuries of drift is 
found the skull, but close by, in the same millenial grave, 
is found the rude flint instrument; as if it were provi- 
‘dentially to preserve to man his self-respect; to show him 
that man has always been ingenious, ruling the rest of the 
world to his own purposes, making tools and machines. 
Show me the Gorilla that ever made a flint celt.”. The 
same author adds, “ Direct manual labour, where manual 
labour multiplied by machinery would answer the purpose, 
is a waste.” 
Some few years since, an immense quantity of work of 
all kinds was done by hand which is now done by machi- 
nery, and on each occasion, when any such alteration was 
first introduced, there arose a fierce outcry against the use 
-of machinery, and those who advocated it. But when it 
was clearly demonstrated that machines did the work in 
question cheaper and better, with greater rapidity, uni- 
formity, regularity and certainty, it was also found that the 
demand for such work rapidly and largely increased; that 
new fields for labour were developed, and new sources of 
profit introduced in connection with it; that violent oppo- 
sition to the use of machines, was merely the old-fashioned 
mistake made by those ancient foes to every kind of pro- 
gress, ignorance and prejudice. 
Men were never made merely to do the work of machines, 
or they would not have been endowed with those mental 
instincts and impulses, which are antagonistic to their being 
so employed, Work in which the mind has no part, yields 
no true delight, and men engaged therein must be conscious 
* Communicated by the Author. Read before the Associated 
Arts Institute, Saturday, March 23, 1866, the chair being occa 
by Charles La Coste Cockburn, Esq. 
