Another method of tracing signatures is frequently resorted to by persons adept in the art, and this consists in making a lead-pencil copy of the genuine signature holding the paper on which the forgery is to be produced; tracing the outline of the signature by means of a pencil, and then with ink to write over the pencil copy.  But as the method necessitates the use of an india rubber to remove the surplus black lead where not covered by the ink, evidences of the use of the rubber will be found to occur, and traces of the black lead can be found by the microscope.  While the appearances and conditions are common to traced signatures, there are in addition to their presence generally found evidences of pauses made in the writing, the effect of which will appear not as shading of the lines, but as irregularities or excrescences produced thereon by resting the hand in its movement, and by which at intervals more ink flowed from the pen than would occur when the latter was being moved habitually over the paper.  Where the signatures of the same person exactly coincide when one is laid over the other in parallel arrangement with a strong light behind them, this condition of their appearance is very positive evidence that one of them was traced from the other and is a forgery, as it is a circumstance which cannot possibly occur in the writing of two signatures produced habitually.

In considering reproduced signatures and forged writing and in detailing some of the most common features which are found to occur in it, it must not be understood that all the phenomena attending the production of forged signatures can be given.  Inasmuch as each person has a peculiar muscular co-ordination that is manifested in the production of habitually written signatures, so each forger from the same cause has an individual habit that must be used when simulating; hence there will be as many styles of writing manifested in production of forgeries as there are forgers to produce them.  No positive rule can be laid down for the classification of their peculiarities excepting the manner of accuracy with which the simulation appearing in them is done.  Each case of disputed writing must be examined by itself, and while there are certain process steps to be followed which experience suggests as facilitating the analysis, yet the examiner must wholly depend upon what is seen in the disputed signature that is, or is not, found in the admittedly genuine writing of the person whose signature is questioned, and the comparison of the one with the other.

Reproduced signatures often show a copying effort that is manifested in the details of their production.  These evidences generally appear, in some instances, as pauses made in the lines connecting the letters of the signature, where the pen rested while the eye of the forger was directed from the writing being done to the copy, that the writer could fix in the mind the form of a succeeding letter.  These pauses