r objects from nature. The depth and richness
of tone of an engraving, the delicate tints of an aquarelle or
india-ink sketch, and the sharpness of the lines of an etching or pen
sketch can be reproduced with such fidelity that it is often
impossible to distinguish the copy from the original, and this is
achieved the more easily as the printing can be done in any color and
on any material, be it paper, parchment, leather, or textile goods.

Another great advantage of a gelatine print is its inalterability and
durability, no chemicals being employed in transferring the picture to
the paper. The picture itself being formed by solid pigments, such as
are used in printer's ink or painter's colors, there is no possibility
of its fading or changing color, which cannot be said even of platino
prints, at present considered the most lasting of all photo-chemical
processes.

Like all new inventions, the photo-gelatine process, in its early
stages, had to undergo severe trials, and for some years almost
disappeared from public view, after many failures precipitated through
unscrupulous promoters and inefficient persons who claimed
impossibilities for the new process. It took years of patience and
perseverance to regain the lost ground and overcome the opposition of
those who had suffered by the failure of this process to produce the
promised results; but at present it is, in Europe, one of the methods
in most general use for illustrating, and in this country it is making
steady progress and rapidly finding favor.

The process, simple as it may seem to the casual observer, requires,
more than any other photo-mechanical process, skilled hands in its
different manipulations to keep it up to the standard of perfection.
The following short description will give the uninitiated sufficient
enlightenment to think and speak intelligently about it.

The foundation or starting point, as of all the other photo-mechanical
processes, is a photographic negative; that is, a picture on glass or
some other transparent substance, in which the light parts of the
picture appear dark, and the dark parts light in transparency,
graduated according to the different shades of tone in the original.
The next and most prominent feature is the printing plate. A perfectly
even glass, copper, or zinc plate is covered on the surface with a
solution of fine gelatine and bichromate of potassium, and dried. This
printing plate is then placed under a negative and