ons of far countries and foreign animals, of
masterpieces of painting and sculpture, were to middle-class
households fifty years ago.

[26] Dobson, _op. cit._ (footnote 8), p. 174.

[27] George Kubler, _A history of stereotyping_, New York, 1941, p. 75.

[28] Dobson, _op. cit._ (footnote 8), p. 173.

[Illustration: Figure 11.--Tailpiece by Thomas Bewick (actual size),
engraved after a drawing by John Bewick, from _The Chase_, by William
Somervile, 1796. (_Photo courtesy the Library of Congress._)]

We will not pursue Bewick's career further. With habits of hard work
deeply ingrained, he kept at his bench until his death in 1828,
engraving an awesome quantity of cuts. But he never surpassed his work
on the _Birds_, although his reputation grew in proportion to the spread
of wood engraving throughout the world.

The medium became more and more detailed, and eventually rivaled
photography in its minute variations of tone (see figs. 15 and 16). But
printing wood engravings never was a problem again. Not only was wove
paper always used in this connection, but it had become much cheaper
through the invention of a machine for producing it in lengths. Nicholas
Louis Robert, in France, had developed and exhibited such an apparatus
in 1797, at the instigation of M. Didot. John Gamble in England, working
with Henry and Charles Fourdrinier, engaged a fine mechanic, Bryan
Donkin, to build a machine on improved principles. The first
comparatively successful one was completed in 1803. It was periodically
improved, and wove paper appeared in increasing quantities. Spicer[29]
says: "Naturally these improvements and economies in the manufacture of
paper were accompanied by a corresponding increase in output. Where, in
1806, a machine was capable of making 6 cwt. in twelve hours, in 1813 it
could turn out double that quantity in the same time at one quarter the
expense."

[29] A. D. Spicer, _The paper trade_, London, 1907, p. 63.

[Illustration: Figure 12.--Wood Engraving by W. J. Linton, 1878 (Actual
Size). The detail opposite is enlarged four times to show white
line-technique.]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Figure 13.--"Pintail Duck" by Thomas Bewick (actual
size), from _History of British birds_, vol. 2, 1804. The detail
opposite is enlarged three times.]

At about the same time the all-iron Stanhope press began to be
manufactured in quantity, and shortly the new inking roller invented by
the indispensable Ea