The outlines of the drawing must be drawn on the finest and thinnest paper that can be obtained. Then a very finely polished stone is prepared with aquafortis and gum, or, better still, with phosphoric acid, nutgall, and gum, cleansed with water and dried. Then it is coated very thinly with tallow, which is patted with a very clean leather ball or with the hand, so that it shall be very uniformly laid over the stone. Everything depends on the thinness and uniformity of this tallow coating. Then the stone must be smoked with a wax torch or a tallow candle. The durability of the ground depends on this smoking, as without it a very thin coating of tallow would be penetrated by the acid. Now the stone is ready for the design. It must not be touched by so much as a finger. The designed paper is pasted to the stone at the ends, without pulling, as the least motion would injure the stone's surface. The arrangement of elevated supports for the hand (previously described) is needed for the succeeding work. The drawing is then done on the paper with Paris chalk, delicate Spanish chalk, an English lead pencil, or with a small piece of lead. All that is drawn on the paper will impress itself on the stone underneath and remove the ground at those places, thus opening the surface for etching. When the drawing is finished, it is etched and covered as with the etched process, and afterward is printed as in that process. When sufficient practice has made one a master of this style, it will be amazing what great perfection, what miniature-like delicacy, and also what strength can be obtained by proper etching. Besides, this latter process is applicable in combination with the etched process. VII TOUCHE DRAWING WITH ETCHING INK This method is very useful for filling-out etched or engraved designs, also for correcting and completing the various aquatint processes. Dip a little brush into lemon juice mixed with a little lampblack and draw the design on the finely polished and prepared stone. The acid will eat little holes into it, which will take color if the lemon juice is washed away as soon as it has completed its etching, and the etched part has been dried and rubbed-in with fat color. To produce darker shadings it can be laid on the same place twice, and for lighter shadings the acid either is washed away sooner or diluted with water. I do not doubt that a skillful chemist could invent an etching ink which would be even more perfect, and then a drawing could be washed on the stone as easily as on paper, which would mean immense advance for the art. CHAPTER III MIXED METHODS