larger or smaller than the original. The beautiful
works produced in eccentric turning, such
as the wonderful convolutions of lines in some
of the varieties of bank-notes, are in like
manner copying by tracing. The exquisite
productions in relief engraving are among
the most surprising works of the class now
under notice. Most readers have by this
time had opportunities of seeing, in one or
other of numerous publications, engraved
representations of medals and bassi-rilievi,
in which the deception is so wonderful that
the mind resolutely refuses for a time to
believe that the production is on a plane
surface and not raised. The process is as
curious as it is beautiful. A blunt point
passes gently and slowly over every part
of the medal or bas-relief, in straight lines,
the lines being very close together, but still
clear and distinct. Another and sharper
point is connected with this blunt point by
a system of rods and levers; and this sharp
point passes over and cuts into a plate of
copper or steel. The two points travel, pari
passu, each doing its own particular work;
and if the one travelled simply over a smooth
plane surface, the other would simply cut
parallel lines on the copper or steel plate
uniform and equidistant. But on the bas-
relief the blunt point travels over the little
hills and valleys in the medallion; and this
up and down movement has a singular effect
on the movement of the sharp point. The
more irregular the surface in the medal, the
more irregular is the width of the lines in
the engraving. When the blunt point is passing
over a deep or sloping part of the device,
the lines engraved by the sharp point are
very close together, and thus produce a dark
shade or tint; whereas, when the blunt point
is traversing a raised or convex portion,
the engraved lines become wider apart,
and thus produce the high lights. The
machine regulates this variation, and ensures
a parallelian or ratio between the vertical
deviation in the one case, and the lateral
deviation in the other. The lights and
shadows of the relief are indeed wonderfully
preserved; and we do not know where we could
look for a more delightful kind of fac-simile.

That printing is fac-simile work, we have
already said; indeed it is pretty evident that
such must necessarily be the case. But
how prodigious are the variations in the
modes of producing beautiful imitations or
copies! When a stone is prepared for
lithographic printing the lines of its device can
hardly be said to be either raised or sunken;
they are chemical lines, and yet they yield
wonderful fac-similes. The oil-colour
printing and water-colour printing, and lithotint
printing, and panëiconographic printing
(awful names some of these), and the
stylographic printing, and the anastatic printing,
and the glyphograph, and the electrograph—
all are merely so many means of producing
copies of lines forming devices or words.

When the jury on paper and printing were
preparing their report, at the time of the
Great Exhibition, they had to pass judgment
on various productions of this kind. M. Dupont,
a French printer, exhibited specimens of
litho-typography, being a reproduction on
stone of old books, engravings, and writings.
Mr. Harris, an English artist, displayed his
extraordinary tact in producing fac-similes of
ancient documents—such as imitations of
block-printing, before the use of movable
types; imitations of some of the old books
printed by Caxton, Pynson, and Wynkyn de
Worde; fac-simile title-pages of Coverdale's
Bible and Tyndale's Pentateuch; and the like.
The jury transcribe a letter which they
received from Mr. Harris, giving an interesting
account of his process. About forty years ago,
Mr. Harris states he was first employed by
an eminent bookbinder, to whom Earl Spencer
had suggested the idea of perfecting old
books by the aid of fac-similes; and that
many choice old works in the Spencer
Library, the King's Library, the Fitzwilliam
Library, and the Grenville Library, have
been thus treated by his hand. The mode
of working is patient and pains-taking. At
first, Mr. Harris was accustomed to make
an accurate tracing from the original leaf
(that is, the analogous leaf in another copy
of the book), and to retrace it on the new
leaf by means of a paper blacked on one side;
this produced an outline lettered page, which
was then carefully filled in with pen and
pencil, until an imitation of the original had
been produced. But this process was very
slow and expensive. The patient imitation
of the original was even carried to so great a
length, that two sets of type were made,
like the large and small letters generally
used by Caxton; and those types were pressed
down dry upon the factitious painted letters
of the new page, to give the appearance of
the indentation produced by type. The process
afterwards adopted was to make the
tracing in a soft ink, to transfer it to thin
paper, and to re-transfer it to the intended
leaf. At a later period, when the photographic
process became so much improved and
advanced towards perfection, recourse was
frequently had to this art, especially when
more than one copy was wanted: the copy
being transferred to stone, and there finished
by hand.

Even while these various fac-similes are
passing through the crucible of our thoughts,
we are told by M. Baldus that his imitation
will go far beyond those of ordinary metals.
He declares that while photographers are
causing the sun to produce fac-similes of
objects on prepared surfaces; and that while
galvanists are causing electricity to produce
models of objects in relief, he has been
setting the sun and the electric current to
work together, to produce— not merely
photographs of objects, but electrotypes of
photographs.