The Nature-printed British Sea-weeds

Book excerpt: "The most crystalline water could scarcely more delicately float these lace-like trophies of the Garden of the Sea than do [the] . pages [of this work]" (preface to vol.IV). "It will be seen that a full and accurate history of each species has been given; and where the species has not been such as to allow of its being Nature-Printed, engraved magnified dissections have been introduced into the text. The work will be continued on the same plan" (Advertisement, in vol.I). The final tally of 222 plates includes 220 that are nature-printed. They are printed in two or more colours, most plates include a single nature-printed specimen with engraved magnified dissections, but there are occasional plates which include more than one specimen and no engraved dissections. The process that Henry Bradbury employed to print the present plates was first developed in 1853 by Alois Auer, Director of the Government Printing Office of Vienna. Bradbury learnt details of the process in Vienna and subsequently brought the knowledge and equipment to England. The plates were produced by passing the object to be reproduced between a steel plate and a lead plate, through two rollers. The high pressure exerted imbeds the object (in the present case examples of sea-weed) into the lead plate. Coloured inks are subsequently applied to this stamped lead plate, and a printed copy can be produced. If more than one colour is needed then several were applied individually, by hand, to appropriate areas of the plate but all the colours would then be printed together from one pull of the press. Very few books were printed using this process, and two of the best were produced by Henry Bradbury: the first was published in 1857 (The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland) and the present work is the second. Ferns and seaweeds proved to be ideal subjects for nature-printing: the process was particularly successful with the thin two-dimensional fronds of ferns and seaweed -- Abe books website.