IMPROVEMENTS IN PRINTING
Year: 1841

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ISHAM
BAGGs, of Cheltenham, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Twenty-third day of January, in the fourth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, tho said
Isham Baggs, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority,
that I, the said Isham Baggs, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Isham Baggs, my exors, adñiors, or assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during tho
term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exer-
cise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, my Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN PRINTING;" in which said Letters
Patent is contained a proviso that I, the said Isham Baggs, should cause a
particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in Her said Majesty's High Court
of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference
being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW, KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Isham Baggs, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention consists,
first, in applying the chemical powers of electricity to the purpose of printing

page_text: in one or more colors; and, secondly, in a mode of employing tests in
printing.
I would here observe that I do not confine myself to the use of the galvanic
battery alone, wherein the chemical agency is principally manifested, but that
I use, as occasion requires, the electricity derived from other sources, as from
friction, the atmosphere, the induction of magnetism, and the bodies of
animals. There are two perfectly distinct qualities pertaining to electricity,
quantity and intensity, and as the relative proportion in which these two pro-
perties are manifested materially influences the nature of my Invention, it
will be necessary to point out two different modes of working to suit the
predominance of the one or the other. And, first, with reference to the use
of the voltaic and magneto-electric batteries, wherein quantity is the leading
characteristic, a design is prepared for printing in the following manner :-A
number of small plates of different metals, about one-sixteenth of an inch in
thickness, are to be cut, filed, or stamped into any required forms, and after
being soldered to the surface of a true metallic plate in such positions as to
form the given pattern, their surfaces are to be turned or ground to a perfect
plane. Suppose, for instance, it was required to produce a colored represen-
tation of a yellow flower, with green leaves, and brown stalk, the leaves may be
made of copper, the flowers of iron, and the stalks of silver; these are to be
soldered to a copper plate and brought to a true plane, as above directed.
The graver must now be employed to form the required lines in the flowers
and leaves of the subject in the ordinary way, after which it is ready for
printing. Another mode of forming the patterns for printing by electricity
is by weaving the required design of wires of different metals, which when
woven are to be placed over a wooden or other suitable block and fixed thereto,
which should be placed in metallic communication with the battery, as will
be hereafter described. The method of effecting this last operation is as
follows: Suppose that I am going to print on paper, I take a sheet of paper
'slightly. moistened with a solution of carbonate of soda, and place it upon
"the-negative pole of an active battery, and upon the paper place the metallic
design. Things being thus arranged, the paper will remain perfectly clean
and white so long as the circuit is not completed, but the moment the upper
plate is touched with the positive wire electrolysis takes place, the alkali of
the carbonate passes to the negativo.pole, and the acid to the positive; when
acting upon the various metals thus presented to it, a faithful impression of
the design in its proper colors is immediately produced. The cause of this is
obvious; carbonate of copper is green; carbonate of iron is yellow, carbonate
of silver is brown, and these three salts are formed by electricity in the

page_text: manner described, wherever the respective metals touch the paper. By sub-
stituting ferrocyonate of potassa or any other appropriate solution for the
carbonate of soda, a different set of colours are obtained. The metals em-
ployed in the formation of a plate entirely depend upon. the result required.
Light. tints. are obtained by the use of alloys; thus, in the instance just
given; as carbonate of copper is green, and carbonate of zinc white, a light
green. would be produced by brass. Any of the usual modes for preventing
the colors, from running during the operation of printing may be adopted
with my mode of printing. The second. method of working refers to the use of
electricity of high tension and small quantity.. The fact must not be lost sight
of,, videlicet, that the due proportion of the action surface of. the electrode to
the quantity of electricity which traverses it is an essential element in polar
decomposition. Frictional electricity is so very deficient in quantity, that it
would be: wholly inadequate to: the production of impressions from such a plate
as the one above described. The surface of action must be reduced to a mere
point: before any effect is obtained, and this fact would totally preclude its
application. to printing, but. that. its high state of tension supplies the means
of multiplying its effects to any required degree. The same principle which
regulates the production of light in the common luminous tubes applies to
this matter. A. design is to be formed upon a glass plate by cementing upon
its surface a number of small pieces of very fine platinum wire in consecutive
order, so as to form a series; it is then to be laid upon a sheet of paper
moistened with any appropriate solution, say, iodide of potassium and starch,
and submitted to the action of a spark or a current. Every separate piece of
metal immediately exercises a polar influence, and the purple compound of
iodine and starch is formed throughout the lines of the drawing, so as to pro-
duce an impression of the original.. It is needless to remark that other
metals and other solutions. may be employed according to the effect required.
After the electricity has traversed one plate it may be conducted to a second,
from that to a third, and so on, and thus with a single discharge, a hundred
or more impressions from as many different plates may be simultaneously
produced. There are some of the metals so rare and refractory, that their
use in this way is all but prohibited.. Aluminum. is one of these, and yet
alumina is a most important base in the production of colours. The method
of overcoming this difficulty will be readily understood from the following
simple illustration: Let it bo required to print the area of a circle pink, and
the periphery green; a copper tube the size of the circle is to be closed at one
end with a thin plug of plaster-of-paris; the tube is then to be filled with a
solution of cochineal and potassa. To print with this, connect the copper

page_text: tube with the positive pole of the battery, and use paper moistened with
acetate of alumina. The resulting precipitates will be of the required colors,
the pink not being produced by electricity, but by the the percolation of the
cochineal and potassa through the pores of the plaster, and the reaction of
these substances upon the acetato of alumina. It will thus be seen from the
above explanation how the various sources of electricity, enumerated in the
commencement, are to be employed. It will only be necessary to ascertain in
any given instanco whether quantity or intensity predominate, and regulate
the proceedings according to the principles already detailed. In the employ-
ment of atmospherical electricity, power may be obtained from elevated con-
ductors in the usual way. Where it is convenient to print by means of the
bodies of animals, such as the electrical cel, the saddle collectors introduced
by Dr. Farraday are to be used. In most of the present arrangements for
the generation of electricity by magnetism, the current consists of a rapid
succession of electric waves in alternato directions. Every second ono of
these must be cut off or undergo a reversal by the appropriate disposition
of the connections, or the anions and cations will be mingled together and tho
effect destroyed.
Another part of my Invention relates to a mode. of employing tests in print-
ing. It frequently occurs that I am limited to certain colors by the application
of particular tests, in the manner described. Thus, iodide of potassium will
produce a beautiful yellow with lead, but if I am desirous to form a blue at
the same time, there is no metal which will give one by this reagent. The
plan to be adopted in this case is to make a mixture of different tests with a
due regard to the play of affinities which will be called into action. The
protosalts of iron give a beautiful blue with sesquiferrocyanuret of potassium,
but are not at all affected by iodido of potassium. If, therefore, I make a
mixture of these two latter reagents and apply them instead of the simple
iodide, there will immediately result the required blue and yellow; or I
might apply the iodide first and the sesquiferrocyanuret afterwards.
Having thus described the nature of my Invention, and the manner of
performing the same, I would have it understood that I do not confine myself
to any particular solutions for the preparation of the material to be printed
upon; but what I claim is, the mode of printing in one or more colors by the
application of electricity, however obtained, as herein described; and I also
claim the mode of employing tests herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Isham Baggs, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twenty-third day of July, One thousand eight hundred
ISHAM (L.S.) BAGGS.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-third day of July, in
the year of our Lord 1841, the aforesaid Isham Baggs came before our said
Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification afore-
said, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above
written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to the
tenor or of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Twenty-third day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and forty-one.