racks from flooring up to ceiling. The quantity
of limestone accumulated seems enough
to smash any ordinary attic and to swallow
up the basement forthwith; yet the
foreman tells us that the house is as firm
on its foundations as could reasonably be
desired, and that no instances have been as
yet known of the stone-crammed garrets
tumbling into the stone-crammed cellars.
Although, he says, quietly, some danger might
be anticipated were all the stones in the house
to be removed simultaneously; for then it is
not improbable that the walls might feel the
loss of their equipoising weight so strongly as
to topple over from sheer light-headedness.
Thus is he, and the district surveyor to boot,
of opinion; so, keep the stones in the house,
I say; or, being removed, send me, if in the
neighbourhood at the time, a good deliverance.

The studio is a large lofty room, with plenty
of windows; for you want no concentrated
rays of light here, as is required for painting
pictures, but plenty of light everywhere.
All round the walls are ranged stout
wooden tables, on which, generally supported
in slanting positions, are the stones. Here are
a score of artists occupied in the production
of almost every variety of stone picture. The
beautiful studies, heads and figures in chalk,
first brought to such perfection by Jullien in
Paris; gorgeously tinted landscapes from
sketches by Stanfield and Roberts, Haghe,
Leitch, and Harding; transcripts from
photographs of the most remarkable objects in the
Great Exhibition; caricatures, political and
social; plans and sections of bridges and
machinery; charts of railways; maps of towns
and countries; botanical specimens;
anatomical plates; song titles glowing in gold
and colours; bill heads, address cards, "show
cards," setting forth the resplendent merits of
pale ales and Monongahela whiskey; illustrations
for books, transfers from copper and steel
plates; imitations of etchings, and woodcuts;
county bank notes, passports, statistical tables;
fac-similes of autograph letters; imitations of
middle-age missals and black-letter printing;
re-productions of Oriental manuscripts and
Chinese drawings.

Here is one gentleman, in a blouse and a
Turkish cap, preparing for the commencement
of a portrait in chalk of, whom shall we say?
Doctor Cruck, shall it be, Regius professor of
Syriac to the University of Saint Alfred the
Great? The artist has the professor's portrait
painted in oil, before him; and before that, at
a convenient angle, a looking-glass. It is his
intention to copy the reflection, and not the
reality of the Cruck portrait; so that when
the drawing is printed, the cut orange held
in the right hand of the professor shall
still be seen held between his dexter fingers.
The first proceeding of the operator, is
to slant his stone to an angle of forty-five
degrees, and examine it minutely with a
magnifying glass, to assure himself that the
grain is evenly laid, and that there are
neither scratches nor holes on the surface.
Then he brushes it sedulously with a large
soft brush of badger's hair, lest any stray
crumbs or grains of dust should be lingering
on it. He then transfers upon it, with an
ivory burnisher, an accurately reduced
outline of the Cruck physiognomy. The stone
is now ready for the commencement of the
chalk drawing; and, with sundry lithographic
crayons before him, cut to various thicknesses
and fineness of point, according to the depth
of tint they are intended to produce, he sets
to his work. It is calculated that every
chalk-draughtsman loses at least one-third
of his time in cutting his sticks of chalk;
and that he devotes another third to the
painful and uninteresting work of laying flat
tints; so that the great masters, the big-wigs
of lithography, have, as Rubens had, apprentices
and assistants to cut points to their
chalk, and lay their tints (skies, distances,
water, and so on), only putting in the details
and finishing-strokes themselves. But the
artist of the Cruck portrait must do all
himself, cutting, tinting, and finishing. How
he does his work, it is no more my
province than it is possible here to describe.
Every artist has, or should have, his distinct
and peculiar manner; and to describe, or
lay down line and rule for execution in
lithography, would be as futile as to tell a
painter what colours he should use for
faces and what for draperies, or to instruct
an author how to describe a storm. He
must not sneeze, nor talk vehemently while
he works. He must not even breathe hard
on the stone, for he breathes a
mucilaginous aqueous vapour, which, condensed
upon the stone, acts as gum-water; nor
must he press his finger on the stone, or
touch it with his hand in hot, or, indeed,
in any weather; for both finger and hand
are greasy, and the marks made by them
would print. He who sins against these
canons will never be a successful
lithographer.

When the chalk-drawing is quite finished,
the stone is placed in the cradle of a " lift,"
and sent down stairs to a room on the
level with the grinding and graining department
to be etched. It is laid in an oblong
trough; and nitric acid, very much diluted,
is poured over it. The drawing is then
carefully washed with rain-water, and is now
ready for "gumming in" and " rolling up;"
and is, for that purpose, carried to the press-
room.

Three stories of the establishment I have
endeavoured to describe are devoted to press-
work, and may hold, perhaps, twenty presses
each. The presses differ from ordinary printing-
presses; insomuch as a scraper, a thin
piece of hard wood, bevelled off at the edges,
scrapes over the whole surface of the stone
plate as it passes beneath the lever; thus
giving a double pressure.

A press being disengaged, the workman to