Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/247

25, 1860.] “Vowing to honour, I scorned and hated, Dreaming on all I had loved and lost, But, ah! more bitter, more darkly fated, That ever again our paths have cross’d!”

She felt the clasp of his hand so tender, One kiss he press’d on her cheek so fair,— Hark to that curse! May heaven defend her! Dark Gordon is standing before the pair!

Proudly he lifted his Scottish bonnet, O, but his smile was dark to see: “What ho! Sir Nevill, my life upon it, Thou comest to win my bride from me!”

Now foot to foot, as the sun was sinking, Both lover and husband frowning stood, The fiery chieftain’s blade is drinking The brave young Nevill’s knightly blood.

She tore the ring from her lily finger, With, “Nevill, beloved, I come to thee! In the Gordon’s halls no more I linger If this weak hand can set me free!”

She pluck’d the dirk from her bleeding lover, She buried it deep in her breast so white,— With, “Nevill, beloved, our woes are over!— To the Gordon’s thrall a glad good-night!”

The chief look’d down on the hapless lovers;— O, but his frown was dark to see: “I would give the best of my lands, proud Nevill, To hold the heart thou hast lured from me!”

He knelt him down as her life was ebbing, On the trampled heather he bent the knee; “I would pluck the heart from my breast, false Ellen, For one soft smile of love from thee!” 1em

have all of us laughed at the grotesque appearance made by toy heads of vulcanised india-rubber. A little lateral pressure converts its physiognomy into a broad grin, whilst a perpendicular pull gives the countenance all the appearance that presents itself when we look into the bowl of a spoon held longways. The pressure removed, the face returns to its normal condition. Of the thousands of persons who have thus manipulated this plaything, it perhaps never struck one of them that in this perfect mobility lay the germ of a very useful invention, destined to be, we believe, of great practical value in the arts. If we take a piece of sheet vulcanised india-rubber and draw a face upon it, exactly the same result is obtained. This fact, it appears, struck an observant person, and out of his observation has sprung a patented process, worked by a company under the name of the “Electro-Printing-Block Company,” for enlarging and diminishing at pleasure, to any extent, all kinds of drawings and engravings. It must be evident that if a piece of this material can be enlarged equally in all directions, the different lines of the drawing that is made upon it in a quiescent condition, must maintain the same relative distance between each other in its extended state, and be a mathematically correct amplification of the original draft. The material used is a sheet of vulcanised india-rubber, prepared with a surface to take lithographic ink; this is attached to a moveable framework of steel, which expands by means of very fine screws. On this prepared surface lines are drawn at right angles; these are for the purpose of measurement only. The picture to be enlarged is now printed upon its face in the usual way, and supposing it is to be amplified four-fold, the screw frame-work is stretched until one of the squares formed by the intersection of the lines, measures exactly four times the size it did whilst in a state of rest. It is now lifted on to a lithographic stone and printed, and from this impression copies are worked off in the usual manner. If the picture has to be worked with type, the enlarged impression has, of course, to be made from block plates, the printing lines of which stand up like those of a woodcut. This is accomplished by printing the picture with prepared ink, upon a metal plate: the plate is then subjected to voltaic action, which eats away the metal excepting those parts protected by the ink. On the next page are examples of the amplification and reduction of a woodcut by this process. Both are exact transcripts of the original, even to little defects. The human hand, with unlimited time, could never reproduce such a fac-simile as we have here performed in a few minutes, at a very trifling expense. Where it is required to make a reduced copy of a drawing, the process is inverted; that is, the vulcanised india-rubber sheet is stretched in the frame before the impression is made upon it. It must be evident, that on its being allowed to contract to its original size, it will bear a reduced picture upon its surface from which the copies are printed. The application of this art to map-work is very apparent. Let us instance the ordnance maps. Both enlargements and reductions of the original scale on which they were drawn have been made in the ordinary way at an enormous expense, the greater part of which might have been avoided had this process been known. As it is, we have gone to work in a most expensive manner. The survey for the whole of England was made on the very small scale of one inch to a mile for the country, and of six inches to the mile for towns, and now there is a cry for an enlarged scale of twenty-five inches to the mile. In other countries, comparatively speaking poor to England, this scale has been far exceeded. For instance, even poverty-stricken Spain is mapped on the enormous scale of as many as sixty-three inches to the mile. The Government maps of France and of Sweden are equally large; it does, therefore, seem strange that, when we are making a second edition of our Doomsday books, with the pencil rather than with the pen, our Legislature should shrink from undertaking a scale of only twenty-five inches to the mile for so rich a country as our own. But with this question we have nothing to do; our purpose is only to show that it would be a great saving if the twenty-five-inch scale had been originally carried out, as with this new process all the smaller scales could have been produced with perfect accuracy from this one at a very small cost. Indeed, the public could, if they wish, have pocket facsimile copies of that gigantic map of England and Scotland on the twenty-five-inch scale, which, according to Sir M. Peto, would