El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-09-11

ndtuI ~ III AAS eAPPCdIduCG OaAlAA NAC
modern three color processes, which
now are in an advanced stage of devel-
| opment, the most practical form of
color reproduction has been that of
! TYPOGRAPHY which has been in actual
| use about a century.
The lithographing process. which has
| developed into an important branch OF
| the publishing industry, owes its origin
| to the discoveries of AlOis Senefelder, a
| Bavarian, who conceived the POSSIBLE
| tiles of utilizing stone plates as
means of printing illustrations. The
| earlier experiments of Senefelder were
/ in making plates for printing music
| which he could not afford to have pub
! Hshed His father had been an actor
who had placed his son in college to
| educate him as a lawyer. The father
/ died and the son was unable to con-
tinue his studies.
First Etching on Metal.
The young man, thrown upon his own
| resources, developed a great taste for
music. He composed several pieces and
| unsuccessfully tried to have them pub
| lished. The necessity for economy led
| him to etch these upon sheets OF metal
> and print them himself upon a cheap
: hand press which his mother purchased
for him out of her scant savings While
engaged at this work he bought a piece
of stone from a nearby quarry intend
ing to use it as a slab upon which 10
mix his ink 1t happened to be of q
| smooth, compact nature and the idea
| OF using it as a plate instead of metal
| occurred TO him. At first this was IN
| successful and he was reduced to great
| financial straits, finally joining the
| army as that would afford him a live
| IihoOd, and, at the same time give MN
| more leisure in which to continue his
| experiments than he could secure IN
! any other vocation
| one day his mother came in and
| asked him to write out list of clothes
| for the washwoman- Having no pen
] and paper at hand, Senefelder) Jotted
I down the items upon clean smootn
stone he had prepared, using for the
purpose an ink prepared eo OF soap, M be1
/ about to rub the writing from the
| stone it occurred to him that ne m1gnt
etch it in relief and if successful this
| method might prove an easy way OF Sc
1 curing the printing Of his music he
| put a border Of wax around the. eoge
of the stone and poured a quantity OF
1 acid over the work. In snort ilIS
| the acid had dissolved the surface OF
/ the stone sufficiently to leave ms
writing quite in relief This was not
lithography. but it was the firSt pro-
| cess which led up to 1t
| Idea Patented in 1900.
In the experiments which 1olioWso,
! and his autobiography tells US tn2t ne
| made thousands of them, he discovered
| that calcareous stone (limestone) nao
! a chemical affinity for grease ana aIso;
being Of a porous s n4 1ims y In other
| words, a daub of grease upon ciean
| polished stone would receive pruning
! ink and refuse water, While the Otner
| mart of the stone would retain mois-
! tnre ana refuse to take on ink-the
| natural principle of the mutual repH-
/ sion of grease and water coming INTO
| play. This made it possible Tor a roile9r
| charged with a somewhat greasy lnh
| to be rolled over stone suILaSSS
! which had previously been daInpenS1u
| without parting with any OF It's INK
| except to those places which had pre-
viously been prepared TO receive II ny
when this point was reached, Sene-
| fielder Datented his discoveries IN Ger
| many, Austria and England. between
! the years 1900 and 1SOS- BeIore NE
| death in 1894 he had the pleasure OF
seeing his wonderful discovery estap11
lfshed as an important industry IN an
I added improvements in the pruning
| presses doing this work have mace
| possible the production Of be2utlt,tI,
I pictures in quantities which would
| seem incredible to the palnstaklhS
inventor IL he could visit a large htho-
trapping establishment of the present
Artistic Color Printing.
| ChromoIithography developed rather
| slowly. one of its first uses IN EnSIailu
being the production of playing caroS
! nv printing them in oils instead OF
sfenciling. rs had been done previously
This was done py LONDON Ilri III, III
1882. The first important w9rA ~ luz us .
trated in this manner in England was
| a volume known as The ARABIAN An
tiauities of Spain" written oy oven
Jones, who was so Impressed WIN 'llt
! beauty of the old Moorish palace at
| Granada and other ruins OF the same
| period that he desired to prepare an Il
Illustrated description Of them LOT ne
! benefit of pOSterity. he set 10 WoiA
/ with pencil and brush, copied some o.
the finest details, which ne TOOK 10
/ England to have printed.
Finding difficulty in securing any ohe
! capable of reproducing his pictures ne
set up a lithOgraphing estapllsnIne.nn emo oA
his own and proceeded with the Illus us
/ tration of his book by HthoSraphlc
! processes, using six or seven Unts, IN,
| Guiding gold, which had not peeh 1sSu
| before in any meehanlcal means -, % -
lustration. This book was published
| in 1896 and, although it was not the
success its author hoped for, II had an
important bearing upon the progress
| of artistic color printing
| While the effects of the lithograph-
! ing processes of color reproduction are
in many cases most beautitul they nay {
/ until comparatively recently been at
/ tended with much labor and expense.
| A different stone plate had to pc mays ee
, for each color used and as many as ~
| or 80 stones have been used IN ~. ~
! production of a single picture FOR TINS
! reason, modern photographers are
. greatly changing the early processes.
The modern printing press also IS ~
as well adapted to the lithographlnS
stone as to the metal plate, SO that sps-
| cial presses are in use for AthoS IePiniI
| ing. In the opinion OF many II VIZ 81
1 eventually give way to process BLOCK
and the three color printing, Wnlch
seem better adapted to modern Illus
, ] N.
purposes for which lithOgraphy seems
/ still to be best suited and 1t VIII De
wears before it ceases to provide a
large proportion of the colored pictures
in use.
Aside from religious publications
scientific books were among the IlrS'
: to be embellished with colored lllus-
trations In the library of the surgeon
| general of the United States at Wash
: ingtOn there is the finest collection o.
| early medical works in the Wotlo-
! Most of these old Ye1umes are illus,
trated and some OF them in colors, =
) | medical work published in Milan II
the 10Th century had four large col
ored plates representing the human IA
| ternal organs They are printed upoI
a flesh colored ground. the veins pens
= | shown in darker red or, by parts ~
, | the engraving being cut out, IN white
| Some of them, as well as all OF the let
| tering of the text and the solid blacI
ground which surrounds it, were print
ed in black Compared with the won
I. | derful colored plates which now Illus
| trate medical books these had little tC
| commend them, although they were {
| great Improvement upon the ordinary
D ! black line wood cut of the period