The New International Encyclopædia/Auer, Alois

AUER, ou'ẽr, Alois, Ritter von Welsbach (1813-69). An Austrian printer. He was born at Wels, in Upper Austria, and was trained in a printing establishment of his native town to be a compositor. During his scanty leisure moments he studied French, Italian, English, and other languages, in which he underwent an examination in 1835 and 1836 before the University of Vienna. In October, 1837, he was appointed professor of Italian in the Gymnasium of Linz, in Upper Austria. In 1839 he set out on his travels through Germany, Switzerland, France, and England, collecting materials for his favorite art. From 1841 to 1868 he was director of the Imperial printing office at Vienna, which under his management became one of the largest establishments of the kind in Europe. He was prolific in typographical inventions and made known a photographic discovery, ‘spontaneous impression,’ in Die Entdeckung des Naturselbstdrucks (1854); published Die Sprachenhalle oder das Vaterunser in 608 Sprachen, with Roman types (1844); and Das Vaterunser in 206 Sprachen, with their national alphabets (1847). See Nature Printing.