There were no other developments of note in the practice of printing during the 18th century. The old wooden hand press, unimproved except for minor devices, was still in universal use. Ink was little improved; paper was handmade; type was made from hand moulds. The ink was still applied by dabbing with inking balls of wool-stuffed leather nailed to wooden forms. The leather was still kept soft by removing it and soaking it in urine, after which it was trampled for some time to complete the unsavory operation. Paper still had to be dampened overnight before printing, and freshly inked sheets were still hung to dry over cords stretched across the room. [24] D. C. Thomson, _The life and works of Thomas Bewick_, London, 1882, p. 152. [25] D. B. Updike, _Printing types, their history, forms and use_, Cambridge and London, 1922, vol. 2, pp. 122, 123. But with a more sympathetic surface for receiving ink from relief blocks, a new avenue for wood engraving was now open. In the following year, 1797, the first volume of Bewick's finest and best-known work was published. This was the _History of British birds_, for which he and his pupils did the cuts while Ralph Beilby, his partner and former master, provided the descriptions (see figs. 12, 13, and 14.) It achieved an immense and instantaneous popularity that carried the artist's name over the British Isles. The attractiveness of the subject, the freshness of the medium--which could render the softness of feathers and could be interspersed with text--the powerful and decorative little tail pieces, and the comparative inexpensiveness of the volumes, brought the _Birds_ into homes everywhere. [Illustration: Figure 10.--Tailpiece by Thomas Bewick (actual size), from _A general history of quadrupeds_, 1790, in the collections of the Library of Congress.] Actually, wood engraving was not immediately adopted on a wide scale. Having done without it for so long, printers and publishers made no concerted rush to avail themselves of the new type of cuts. Bewick's pupils found little of this kind of work to do before about 1830. Luke Clennell dropped engraving for painting; William Harvey restricted himself to drawing and designing; Charlton Nesbit and John Jackson remained engravers, as did a host of lesser individuals. Dobson says:[26] The pupils who quitted him to seek their fortunes in London either made their way with difficulty, or turned to other pursuits, and the real popularization of wood-engraving did not take place until some years after his death. One reason for delay in adopting the new technique may have been the danger of the block splitting, or of the sections of wood coming apart at the mortise-joints during the printing operation. If this happened, work had to be suspended until a new block was engraved, or until the sections were reglued. For periodicals with deadlines, this was a serious hazard. Wood Engraving and the Stereotype