ould be done as already described on page 25. It
should be rubbed flat with the printing pad and left to dry.

This operation requires careful handling, but it should be done easily
and methodically, without any hurry.

Each side of the set of colour planks should be treated in the same
way--a thin impression of the key-block and its register marks being
laid upon each. It is advisable to paste down a freshly taken
impression, each time, while the ink is still moist, for if these are
allowed to dry, the shrinking of the paper causes errors of register.

When these new blocks are dry, the patch of colour to be cut on each
surface should be clearly indicated by a thin wash of diluted ink or
colour, but not so as to hide the printed key line.

The blocks may then be cut. A V-shaped cut is made round each form, as
in the case of the key-block, and the clearing proceeds in the same way,
but it is only necessary to clear a space of about an inch round each
form: the rest of the wood should be left standing. A section of the
printing surface of a colour block would be as follows:

[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Section of colour-block. A. Colour
mass. B. Depression. C. Surface of Plank.]

When the register marks corresponding to these colour forms have also
been cut, and the paper washed off the blocks, the clear spaces may be
used for pasting down new key impressions for the smaller colour patches
and their corresponding register marks. In this way one side of a colour
plank may contain several different colour forms and sets of register
marks. As a rule the different colour patches would be printed
separately, though in some cases two colours may be printed at one
impression if they are small and have the same register marks.

When the blocks have been cut and cleared it is advisable to smooth
with sand-paper the edge of the depression where it meets the uncut
surface of the wood, otherwise this edge, if at all sharp, will mark the
print.

For any particulars about which one may be in doubt, the sets of blocks
at South Kensington Museum or in the Print Room at the British Museum
are available for examination. In one of the sets at the British Museum
it is interesting to see the temporary corrections that have been made
in the register marks during printing by means of little wooden plugs
stuck into the register notches.

In nearly all cases the Japanese blocks were made of cherry wood, but
planks of box are said to have