A recently patented copying technology appeared briefly in Jamaica in 1879 but does not seem to have caught on as I find no references after 1880 - it was called Jacob's Lithogram, but many similar methods were being promoted at the same period - chromograph, copying-pad, copygram, hectograph/hektograph, polygram, copygraph, autograph, cheirograph, graphotype, electrograph, theikogram, centregraph, transcript, Ziebers's Multiplying Slate, Nixon's Chevrograph; none of these seem to have appeared locally either.
A decade later, however, someone using the pseudonym 'Hortus Siccus' described in a letter to the Editor his experience with several copying technologies. He was using the copying press and the Cyclostyle, and also what he calls the gelatine graph and the 'A B C graph', which seem to be similar to Jacob's Lithogram, but which I have so far been unable to find other references to. His account seems to indicate that, even away from metropolitan centres, ordinary folk were trying out the range of new technologies which were being introduced, in much the same way that their descendants in the 21st century are doing now!
Daily Gleaner, November 25, 1890 . . . . I for some years past have found need, or made occasion to attempt the handling of small machines and the adoption of short-cut “processes,” which have been invented in Europe and America to facilitate the multiplication of copies of manuscripts and diagrams. I have sought to confine my energies to the manipulation of the simpler and cheaper of these, even although they be not intrinsically the most effective, fecund, and generally satisfactory from the artistic point of view. I have, and occasionally have utilized a “Cyclostyle,” but only use it when I must produce, say, in less than 3 hours, from 50 to 100 copies of a circular, containing more than 100 words: but although I know that by a few experts it has been successfully used for the multiplication of of diagrams and designs (as is the case for class-work-illustration at the Mico Institution in Kingston) yet I have found that I can never be an adept with the “Cyclostyle;” as it seems to require a handwriting somewhat angular or Italian in character, such as young ladies were taught a generation ago. Our modern young, ladies “copy up their letters in a big round hand,” and so do we. I keep 4 graphs (costing pans and all about 2s. each;) of various sizes, constructions and compositions if not in daily use, at least more or less ready for daily use; and although most persons who have tried these appliances, in this climate, have pronounced them to be irritating “frauds,” yet after some trouble learning how to coax and humour them, and when they become too ridiculous occasionally to remelt them, I have got some very encouraging promises of better things to come from them. I will, however, only say here that there is no need to scour away at a gelatine graph, or to throw away the washing of an ABC one. In the case of the first a light and rapid application of a damp sponge after use, is all that is necessary, the gelatine will in 24-hours absorb the remains of the “reverse” or “negative” from which impressions have been last taken, and in 36 hours a fresh design may be safely put over the old one, without the new copies shewing any trace of the older design. And as to the A B C, graph I carefully save and settle all my washings —- then draw off the water with a glass syringe, and store the residue.for filling in my graph when it gets too hollow in the middle to receive impressions comfortably. Occasionally I dig out all the composition from the pan, I next pound it (I suspect it is putty made with whiting and glycerine and without linseed oil) I pound then with a little water in a mortar; mixing it at the same time with a dose of new material, and all my old salvages, and in 24 hours I have a new and full ABC graph to go to work upon. The advantage of the ABC, is that you need not wait for the interval of 36 or even 24 hours between the applications of each prepared design; but as soon as you have washed off, you may dry (take care not to make too dry} in the sun or by a stove in 10 minutes, snd go off again with a new design at once. I think I may say that I have brought press copying to within measurable distance of a fine art, being able to give (with proper paper and ink) two clear reproductions of the original — both these copies on the same or as good paper as used for the original; er else if needful, I can secure 4 clear copies of a written document on Japanese Tissue copying paper, and then about a week after —- thai is when the ink is thoroughly dried, or absorbed and darkened, I paste without a ruck or a smudge, those 4 tissue impressions, on one side, (or if successive sheets of a document are to be so arranged then on both sides) of ordinary good white writing paper. The paste is seasoned against mice, and insects by aloes, or corrosive sublimate,.and this paste acting as a size, allows, when they are thoroughly dried — the sheets to be touched up by hand with ordinary ink, slightly strengthened by gum arabic; so that any defective letters &c. may be brought out fully which is generally necessary in the 3rd and 4th impressions; but ought not to be so in the 1st and 2nd. “Hortus Siccus” |
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