especially when the object is to give the relative position of a few of the principal places, rather than a crowded list of names. Most of the larger maps in the Penny Cyclopædia are executed in this manner. The holes in the blocks are pierced with the greatest rapidity by gouges of different sizes acting vertically, and put in motion by machinery contrived by Mr. Edward Cowper, to whose great mechanical skill the art of steam-printing chiefly owes its perfection. Having thus noticed consecutively the progress of map engraving, it may not here be out of place to give a brief account of Breitkopf’s experiment to print a map with separate pieces of metal in the manner of type.[IV-49] Previous to 1776 some attempts had been made by a person named Preusch, of Carlsruhe, to print maps by a process which he named typometric, and who published an account of his plan, printed at the press of Haass the Younger, of Basil. In 1776 Breitkopf sent a communication to Busching’s Journal, containing some remarks on the invention of Preusch, and stating that he had conceived a similar plan upwards of twenty years previously, and that he had actually set up a specimen and printed off a few copies, which he had given to his friends. The veracity of this account having been questioned by an illiberal critic, Breitkopf, in 1777, prefixed to his Essay on the Printing of Maps a specimen composed of moveable pieces of metal in the manner of types. He expressly declares that he considered his experiment a failure; and that he only produced his specimen--a quarto map of the country round Leipsic--in testimony of the truth of what he had previously asserted, and to show that two persons might, independently of each other, conceive an idea of the same invention, although they might differ considerably in their mode of carrying it into effect. [Footnote IV-49: The following particulars respecting Breitkopf’s invention are derived from his essay “Ueber den Druck der Geographischen Charten,” previously referred to.] He was first led to think on the practicability of printing maps with moveable pieces of metal by considering that when the letters are omitted there remain but hills, rivers, and the indications of places; and for these he was convinced that representations consisting of moveable pieces of metal might be contrived. Having, however, made the experiment, he felt satisfied that the appearance of such a map was unpleasing to the eye, and that the invention was not likely to be practically useful. Had it not been for the publication of Preusch, he says that he never would have thought of mentioning his invention, except as a mechanical experiment; and to show that the execution of maps in such a manner was within the compass of the printer’s art.