The Preparation of Illustrations for Reports of the United States Geological Survey / With Brief Descriptions of Processes of Reproduction

by John L. Ridgway

A drawing that is to be reproduced by photolithography should be made on pure-white paper in lines, dots, or black masses with black waterproof ink. It should be one and one-half to two or three times the size of the finished print.

Photolithography is particularly adapted to the reproduction of maps, plans, and other large drawings. Within certain limitations, lines may be changed and details may be added after proofs have been submitted. The process is ordinarily used for reproducing illustrations in one color (black), but it is used also for printing in more than one color, generally over a black outline base, each color being printed from a separate stone, as in chromolithography.

OFFSET PRINTING.

In the offset process the design is "offset" from a lithographic plate or stone to a rubber blanket on a cylinder, from which it is printed. By thus obtaining an impression from an elastic surface the finest details can be printed on rough, uncoated paper, which can not be used in other processes, which can be folded without danger of breaking, and which is more durable than coated paper. Plates [II], [III], [IV], [VII], and [VIII] in this pamphlet were printed by this process.

CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY.

The chromolithographic process, by which illustrations are printed in color from stone, is used in Survey publications principally for reproducing geologic maps, but it is sometimes used for reproducing colored drawings of specimens.

There are several kinds of color printing from stones. One produces a picture by superimposing colors that combine and overlap without definite outlines and thus reproduce the softly blended colors of the original. Another reproduces the original by printing colors within definite outlines on a "base" which has been previously printed in black. The first kind is used by the Survey for reproducing colored drawings of specimens. The second is followed in reproducing geologic maps.

As each color must be printed from a separate stone and properly fitted with respect to the others a tracing from the original is made of the precise outlines of each color; or, if the design is to be reduced, a tracing is made over a properly reduced photographic print. This tracing can be made on specially prepared tracing paper or on a sheet of transparent gelatin or celluloid, which is laid over the copy and on which all the outlines and overlaps of the various colors are scratched with a steel point. The scratches thus made on the celluloid are filled with red chalk or like substance, and rubbed in with cotton, and by reversing the sheet and rubbing it the chalk lines are deposited on as many stones as are needed to produce the colors of the original design, each stone bearing all the outlines of the design. Sometimes all the outlines are engraved on what is called a key stone and an impression from it is laid down on each of the color stones. The parts on each stone that are to have one color are then inked in or engraved, and at the same time guide marks are indicated, so that in the composite print from the stones each color will fit its proper place. This fitting is called "register" and is an important part of printing, for each stone must be adjusted to a nicety while on the press in order to make each impression fit the others exactly. The process was originally manipulated entirely by hand, but photography has now replaced much of the handwork and has given rise to several methods by which the same kinds of subjects are reproduced in radically different ways. Tints are sometimes produced by the half-tone and other screens and by machine ruling, and printer's type is used almost exclusively for titles and other matter that was formerly engraved or drawn on the stone.

In reproducing a geologic map the base may be engraved on stone or on copper or it may be photo-lithographed. By either process the map may be transferred to the printing stone. The color stones for geologic maps are prepared by hand, but the geologic patterns, which are printed in colors, are engraved separately on plates, from which impressions are pulled when needed and transferred to their proper places on the printing stones in the shapes required according to the "key" design. The lighter, more transparent colors are generally printed first, and often twelve or more colors and many distinctive patterns are used to produce a geologic map. When proofs of such a map are pulled each stone must be taken up and carefully adjusted on the press, so that the work of proving maps that are printed from a considerable number of color stones is laborious and expensive. It is therefore customary to approve first combined proofs conditionally—that is, subject to the corrections and changes indicated on the proofs—and to hold the lithographer responsible for any failure to make the corrections.