from the living animal to the inanimate human skeleton, a cover is produced in a wonderfully short space of time, and, shortly after that, the thick plate fit for printing is produced.
Since the last few weeks the results of this process have extended in a considerable manner. It affords me great pleasure to be able to tell you, that this imitation of the original and the application of the galvanic stream are perhaps the most important inventions that have ever been made, since Gutenberg presented us with his invention of the press and the forms for printing. The field for booty is without limits, the profit that may be gained from this process is incalculable. This mode of proceeding has already met with such sympathy abroad, that very shortly they will there take the lead of us with grand vigor. Don't let us again be made acquainted from thence with the value of our own thoughts and inventions. Patents obtained abroad are not profitable, if the thing be not carried on here, or carried on in a negligent manner. The subject must be laid hold of at home with all possible vigor and energy.
If the original is of so fragile a nature that it would not appear advisable to effect the copying by means of impression, we have discovered the means for copying objects that require the most cautious treatment, by using dissolved gutta percha and the mass above mentioned.
if we wish to diminish an object in any manner, we may surely make use of photography, and can afterwards effect its multiplication by mechanical means; but a still simpler means has been discovered in a substance, the communication of which we owe very lately to His Serene Highness Prince Metternich; by this means we obtain the most wonderful diminutions of any desirable shape, in the smallest details, and thus a form for printing has been discovered as a collateral invention to photography.
How manifold are the forms that printing has assumed, if we cast back our looks on the troublesome methods for confiding pictures to the wood-cut that have been in use since the days of
