TO T/IE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Loudon, 12th June 183R.
Slit—The favourable mention which has been made in the last number of the Spectator of the new medallion portrait of the Queen, engraved in the has- relief style, after the bust executed by Mr. H. Ws: EK Es, fur and at her Majesty's command—which is one of the gems of the Sculpture-room in the present Exist. bitinn in Trafalgar Square—induces me to offer you some explanation, and to rectify an error with respect to the machine said to have been employed on that OecallOCI. It is not, as you state, by COLLAS'S process that it has been executed, under my din ction; but by • srachine wholly different from any hitherto in use, lately invented and constructed here in London by an American engineer of great merit and ingenuity. His name is JAMES BOGARDUS, of New York ; m whom, amongst many oilier most valuable inventions, the public is indebted for two metres for measuring gas, of different principles, both of which have been patented in this country. The engraving-machine employed in the late medallion portrait contains a self-ucting tracer, which, when once set in motion by the application of any power, will engrave medals, cameos, bas-reliefs, and intaglios, without the least aid of human agency, until completed, and give, with the most scrupulous accuracy, either a fac.simile representation of the original, or throw the whole into caricature. A specimen of the latter will he found in my Memorial of Facts connected with the Llistory of Medallic Engraving and the Process of A. atlas, lately published through Mr. TILT Of Fleet Street; which also contains a variety of other specimens of the 'red-
acting tracer. I am, Sir, respectfully yours,
VINCENT NOLTE.
[We have not seen the model from which the engraving is made ; but the print certainly does not convey the same character of resemblance as the bust. This, however, may be no fault of the machine.—En.]
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