has suffered much in
public esteem by being put to all manner of inartistic trade uses. It is
really one of the most wonderful means of reproducing an artist's actual
work, the result being, in most cases, so identical with the original
that, seen together, if the original drawing has been done on paper, it
is almost impossible to distinguish any difference. And of course, as in
etching, it is the prints that are really the originals. The initial
work is only done as a means of producing these.

A drawing is made on a lithographic stone, that is, a piece of limestone
that has been prepared with an almost perfectly smooth surface. The
chalk used is a special kind of a greasy nature, and is made in several
degrees of hardness and softness. No rubbing out is possible, but lines
can be scratched out with a knife, or parts made lighter by white lines
being drawn by a knife over them. A great range of freedom and variety
is possible in these initial drawings on stone. The chalk can be rubbed
up with a little water, like a cake of water-colour, and applied with a
brush. And every variety of tone can be made with the side of the chalk.

Some care should be taken not to let the warm finger touch the stone, or
it may make a greasy mark that will print.

When this initial drawing is done to the artist's satisfaction, the
most usual method is to treat the stone with a solution of gum-arabic
and a little nitric acid. After this is dry, the gum is washed off as
far as may be with water; some of the gum is left in the porous stone,
but it is rejected where the greasy lines and tones of the drawing come.
Prints may now be obtained by rolling up the stone with an inked roller.
The ink is composed of a varnish of boiled linseed oil and any of the
lithographic colours to be commercially obtained.

The ink does not take on the damp gummed stone, but only where the
lithographic chalk has made a greasy mark, so that a perfect facsimile
of the drawing on stone is obtained, when a sheet of paper is placed on
the stone and the whole put through the press.

The medium deserves to be much more popular with draughtsmen than it is,
as no more perfect means of reproduction could be devised.

The lithographic stone is rather a cumbersome thing to handle, but the
initial drawing can be done on paper and afterwards transferred to the
stone. In the case of line work the result is practically identical, but
where much tone and playing about with the