CHAPTER III.

FIRST ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD

   Anderson declined the friendly proposition of Dr. Young, being unwilling to bind himself to hte profession. He continued to practise, however, and his time was fully occupied. While visiting his patients and giving them teh best of care, he still found leisure to engrave, making illustrations both on copper and type-metal for all the principal publishers in New York.
   In 1792 he had been employed, in company with C. Tiebout, Tisdale, Rollinson, J. Allen, A. Doolittle of New Haven, and B. Tanner, to engrave on copper the illustratins for an edition of Maynard's Josephus, the most important illustrated work that had yet been published in New York. Anderson was the youngest of these engravers, being at that time only seventeen.
   He appears to ahve used wood for the first time in 1793, when he cut a tobacco stamp on that material. Shortly after he was engaged by 

S. Campbell, a New York bookseller, to engrave one hundred geometrical figures on wood, for each of which be was to receive fifty cents.  Campbell furnished the wood, which was obtained from a maker of carpenters' tools, at the cost of four cents a block.  He found that box-wood was very expensive, and attempted to use the wood of the pear-tree in its place; but soon perceived it was not suited for fine work, and returned to the better if more expensive medium.
More than a year elapsed before be ventured to
use the new material for his more important engravings. He tells us in his diary how often be was discouraged by finding cracks in the box-wood, but he persevered, seeing how much better adapted it was to the purpose than type-metal; and finally, in September, 1794, he decided to engrave a number of cuts on wood for an edition of "The Looking Glass for the Mind," which was being published by William Durell. He had commenced the series on type-metal, but was not satisfled with the results, and it was not long after his successful experiment with wood before be entirely abandoned the use of the the former material.
   Such was the beginning of wood-engraving in
this country. A poor medical student, with rude