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444 Mechanical Processes of Engraving. 
saddle on the right horse, and the drawings should cer- 
tainly be all the better for such a change. 
Of the rapidity and certainty which should characterize 
such a process I need hardly speak, as these would follow 
almost as matters of course; but a few brief words may — 
be said as to the value of such qualities. Illustrations 
often fall flat and dead from the publishers, because the 
events which have called them forth, being of passing 
interest only, have been too long past the sunny time of 
their hay-making, as illustrations, having been wasted in 
the tedious process of engraving. Many events would be 
pictorially iecorded, and so employ the artist and still 
further popularize his art, if it were possible to publish these 
events with sketches of scenes or circumstance associated 
with them immediately after they had transpired. As to 
the question of certainty, most of us know how common 
it is for wood-cuts to be rejected in consequence of bad 
engraving, or most reluctantly inserted in a work, because, 
coming in at the last minute, there was not sufficient time 
to get them re-drawn and engraved, and having been ad- 
vertised, they could not be withdrawn. 
Another all-important requisite should be cheapness, 
than which nothing tends more greatly to popularize works 
of any kind. Yo render good art cheap is not, as some 
think, to degrade it, but is to increase the demand for it 
continuously, to open up new sources of success and profit, 
and carry art into new fields now undreamt of. Cheapness, 
like rapidity and certainty, would come as a matter of 
course with any truly good mechanical process of en- 
graving, and this also may, therefore, be dismissed with the 
mere mention. 
Now, permit me to briefly review some of the attempts 
which have been made in the direction in question. I need 
not make this sketch a very comprehensive one, as one of 
our members quite recently went over similar ground. 
The first process introduced as a substitute for wood 
engraving to which I gave attention, was a mechanical 
engraving process, invented by Mr. E. Palmer, and called 
Glyphography. This was introduced in 1844, if I am not 
deceived, and some energy and capital were expended in 
endeavouring to popularize it. It seemed a very promising 
process, and obtained some small share of success, and is 
still, I believe, used in out-of-the-way nooks and corners 
by amateur artists and others. Great claims were set up 
for it on the score of its superiority to wood engraving, and 
