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REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF THE DIVISION OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith my second annual report concerning the work of the Division of Illustrations.

Very respectfully,

Hon. J. M. RUSK,

Secretary.

GEORGE MARX,

Chief.

The scope of this division has been considerably enlarged during the last year. Besides the supervision of the regular work of the division in -preparing all kinds of illustrations for the different divisions of the Department, you have also intrusted me with the custody of all original engravings and electroplates of this Department so far as they have been preserved by the Government Printing Office, and the Public Printer has courteously turned them over to my charge according to your suggestion. An extra room has been fitted up for the safe-keeping of this valuable collection, which has cost the Government many thousands of dollars. These plates still retain their value, and I can now with great facility fill orders for supplying electrotype copies of such illustrations when applied for by the various scientific writers, experimental stations, as well as the agricultural periodicals throughout the country, upon their paying the actual cost of these duplicate plates and under the condition that the Department be credited with furnishing the illustration. A register has been made, and every electro and plate has been duly numbered, catalogued, and recorded. This work has considerably increased the labor and responsibility of the division.

The suggestion made in my last report to extend my personal supervision over the different methods by which illustrations are reproduced, both in lithography and photo processes, having been approved by you, I accordingly spent my summer vacation inspecting the leading estab lishments in the East as well as the West, in which illustrations are reproduced in colors, in black and white, and by the various graphic processes. The information acquired through the investigation of the more recent methods of reproduction will be of great benefit in the direction of the general improvement of the character of our illustrations.

It has also commended itself to your judgment to charge me with the duty of inspecting the final printing of those plates of approved proofs which are to accompany the publications of the Department, so that any difference existing between the accepted proof and the final prints may be detected and remedied before it is too late.

The character of the work of my division is the same as heretofore, and the entire force has been kept busy in preparing illustrations for

the various divisions of the Department. Another draftsman has been added to my force, and the division now employs eight skilled artists. The rooms have been made more convenient by the addition of several windows, thus securing more light and better ventilation; a messenger has been added to the force, and telephonic connections made with the lower floors.

The correspondence of the division, copying, filing of letters and proofs, cataloguing and account-keeping has assumed such proportions that I have been under the necessity of detailing the assistant woodengraver for this clerical work, and I respectfully suggest that a clerk be placed at my disposal.

I beg leave to present herewith a short description of the trinsic work of my division.

The artist who has been educated in the schools or academies of ane arts in this or foreign countries can not in the first instance be of great assistance on our work, as the purpose of his education has been principally to attain artistic effect, while our first requirement is accuracy in the most minute details, the effect being of secondary consideration; at the same time my assistants are required to combine both whenever possible. This holds good especially in the drawings and paintings for the Pomological and Botanical Divisions. The latter furnishes its specimens, in a dried state, from the herbarium, where they have been pressed flat and the natural position of the leaves and flowers consequently greatly changed. It requires, therefore, on the part of the draftsman not only artistic ability, but a botanical knowledge of plants to make a successful life-like illustration from these specimens.

Nor does the result of the work of the artists in this division indicate the amount of preliminary manipulation necessary before the subject is in a suitable condition to be drawn, particularly in the case of illustrations for the Bureau of Animal Industry and the Division of Vegetable Pathology. Here the preliminary arrangements are often a greater task than the actual execution of the illustration.

In microscopical sections, when the character of the tissue is to be represented, as in bacterial diseases, etc., the subject is often so indistinct in its aspects that it sometimes requires days of study and manip ulation to bring to a clear view the form or structure of a small organism, and the final result, when it reaches the reader's eye, presents perhaps only a simple spherical or oval line, and the appearance of the drawing does not indicate how much patient study and time have been required to attain this apparently simple result.

The illustrations which accompany the reports on the various diseases of animals are sometimes very trying, and demand a high order of ability as well as endurance on the part of the artist, and it is often a severe test of his faculties when the object is the internal part of a diseased animal, such as a lung, spleen, or intestine in a state of more or less decomposition, which he must closely inspect with a strong magnifying lens in order to examine the subject in minutest detail.

Frequently the subject is in a dried condition, so that it must be boiled in water or soaked in a special preparation, and then "teased out" by fine needles under a dissecting microscope. Many times these efforts prove fruitless, and the patience of the artist is taxed to the utmost before satisfactory results are attained.

During the ripening season of small fruits, such as berries, plums, and apricots, the Department receives in great quantities new and interesting species and varieties for study, which have to be illustrated at once. At such times the whole available force of the division has to be de

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