in this country, but they could be
made here by any fine tool maker.

Steel engravings are still used to some extent in this country,
although only in portrait work. A wax ground is laid on the plate as
in etching. A tracing is made from the photograph, from which the
picture is to be made, and is then transferred to the wax ground. The
engraver then follows the lines of the tracing with an etching point,
the hair, head, and outline of the features being gone over carefully.
Then the plate is etched with weak nitric acid. If the face is to be
"stippled," it is covered with fine dots made by a graver directly on
the surface of the metal after the plate has been etched and the wax
cleaned off. If the face is to be a mezzotint, that part of the work
is all rocked over, and then scraped down within the etched outline,
when the flesh is modelled as in a regular mezzotint. The drapery,
background, etc., is usually done by a ruling machine with fine or
coarse, waved or straight lines, as the texture may require. These
lines are ruled through a coating of wax, and then, by etching and
stopping out, the required results are obtained.

This method of engraving is also giving place to process work, and in
a few years more the steel engraved portrait will probably be a thing
of the past.

PRINTING INTAGLIO PLATES

By George W. H. Ritchie.

The method of printing etchings, mezzotint, and other intaglio plates
is the same to-day as it was in the time of Rembrandt and Durer. The
modern inventor has found no way to economize time, labor, or expense
in the work--excepting that in the case of postage stamps, bond
certificates, and similar plates, which are printed in vast
quantities, the work has been adapted to the steam press.

In the olden time the engraver, or etcher, himself was to a
considerable extent his own printer. He worked at engraving his plate
until he needed a proof to show him how the work was progressing. Then
he printed, or "pulled," a proof and resumed his work, taking proofs
from time to time until he had completed the plate to his
satisfaction. Then, if only a small edition was required, he printed
it. Proofs taken during the making of a plate are known by plate
engravers and printers as the "states" of a plate, and it is due to
the whim of the etcher, the softness of the copper, and the wearing of
the plate in printing that we have prints representing many "states"
of a single plate which might othe