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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
102
'Another
early
subject
of
mine,
the
anastatic
printing
process,
found
favour
with
Faraday,
"the
great
and
the
good,"
who
made
it
the
subject
of
a
Friday
evening
lecture
at
the
Royal
Institution.
These
two
circumstances,
combined,
obtained
for
me
an
entry
into
scientific
circles,
and
helped
to
sustain
me
in
difficulty,
until,
by
dint
of
a
certain
determination
to
win,
I
was
able
to
advance
step
by
step
up
to
this
place
of
honour,
situated
within
a
gunshot
of
the
scene
of
my
earliest
success
in
life,
but
separated
from
it
by
the
time
of
a
generation.
But
notwithstanding
the
lapse
of
time,
my
heart
still
beats
quick
each
time
I
come
back
to
the
scene
of
this,
the
determining
incident
of
my
life.'
The
'anastatic'
process,
described
by
Faraday
in
1845,
and
partly
due
to
Werner
Siemens,
was
a
method
of
reproducing
printed
matter
by
transferring
the
print
from
paper
to
plates
of
zinc.
Caustic
baryta
was
applied
to
the
printed
sheet
to
convert
the
resinous
ingredients
of
the
ink
into
an
insoluble
soap,
the
stearine
being
precipitated
with
sulphuric
acid.
The
letters
were
then
transferred
to
the
zinc
by
pressure,
so
as
to
be
printed
from.
The
process,
though
ingenious
and
of
much
interest
at
the
time,
has
long
ago
been
superseded
by
photographic
methods.
Even
at
this
time
Siemens
had
several
irons
in
the
fire.
Besides
the
printing
process
and
the
chronometric
governor,
which
operated
by
the
differential
movement
between
the
engine
and
a
chronometer,
he
was
occupied
with
some
minor
improvements
at
Hoyle's
Calico
Printing
Works.
He
also
engaged
in
railway
works
from
time
to
time;
and
in
1846
he
brought
out
a
double
cylinder
air-pump,
in
which
the
two
cylinders
are
so
combined,
that
the
compressing
side
of
the
first
and
larger
cylinder
communicated
with
the
suction
side
of
the
second
and
smaller
cylinder,
and
the
limit
of
exhaustion
was
thereby
much
extended.
The
invention
was
well
received
at
the
time,
but
is
now
almost
forgotten.
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