the names and in the spaces between
lines, thus filling up all these spaces with a round, smooth body of
wax. From this mould an ordinary electrotype is made by the method
described elsewhere in this book.

All these operations require much skill and patience at every step,
but the plates produced by the wax process are always much deeper and
stronger than those made by any other process.

MAKING INTAGLIO PLATES

By Elmer Latham.

The method by which a photogravure plate is produced, is probably the
least understood of all of the many photo-processes of reproduction.
This is chiefly on account of the difficulty of the process, which is
not an easy matter to explain in detail, and also on account of the
secrecy with which all plate makers guard their processes.

The reproduction of a mezzotint or line-engraved print, when made by a
good photogravure process, produces in most cases a print which cannot
be detected from the original. The originator of the process was
probably Fox Talbot, an Englishman. The writer has seen one of his
prints, made between 1855 and 1860, which was a very creditable piece
of work. Dujardin of Paris took up Talbot's process, and after much
modification, succeeded in developing a successful process which he is
working to-day. All photogravure plate makers of the present time have
more or less copied the process of Fox Talbot.

There are three different methods of making these plates known to the
writer. The reader probably knows that a photogravure plate is not a
relief plate, but an intaglio, and is printed on an etching-press in
the same manner as an etching and requires special skill in printing
on the part of the printer to produce the best results. I will give a
brief explanation of the three different processes.

The first is known as the transfer process. In this process a reversed
photographic negative is made from the copy, from which a positive or
"transparency" is made, either by contact or in the camera. A piece of
carbon paper is then coated lightly with gelatine, sensitized with
bichromate of potassium and allowed to dry. The paper is then placed
in contact with the positive and printed in daylight until the image
is imprinted on the gelatine coating of the paper, such portions of
which as have received the most exposure from the action of light
becoming quite insoluble. A copper plate, cleaned so that it is free
from grease, is introduced into a large box into whic