202 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing press of to-day it is difficult to realize that little more than 

 half a century of tiuic and invention stand between this piece of 

 mechanism, that seems to work with human intelligence, and the 

 AVashington hand press, upon which the production of printed 

 sheets was a matter of slow and arduous labor. The great metro- 

 politan newspapers of to-day are printed by monster machines 

 weighing thirty tons, composed of four thousand separate pieces 

 of steel, iron, brass, wood, and cloth. In the great printing-press 

 factory of K. Hoe & Co. eighteen months' time is required to 

 build one of the modern presses, and the cost of it would have more 

 than paid for all the newspaper printing presses in use in the 

 United States at the beginning of the century. These monster 

 machines are known as quadruple presses, which means that four 

 complete presses have been built into one. When in operation, 

 white paper is fed to them automatically from rolls, and this paper, 

 with a speed greater than the eye can follow, is converted into 

 the finished newspaper, printed on both sides, cut into sheets, pasted 

 together, folded, counted, and deposited in files of fifty or one 

 hundred at one side of the press. White paper is fed to the press 

 from two points, and finished newspapers are delivered at two 

 places on the opposite side. An idea of the speed with which the 

 work is done may be gained by watching the printed papers fall 

 from the folder. J'hey drop so fast that the eye, no matter how 

 well trained, can not count them. These presses have a capacity 

 of ninety-six thousand four-, six-, or eight-page papers per hour, 

 and forty-eight thousand ten-, twelve-, or sixteen-page papers. 

 Their mechanism is so perfect and so carefully adjusted that the 

 breaking of a narrow band of tape in the folder, the loosening of 

 a nut, the slightest bending of a rod, friction in a bearing, or any 

 other derangement, no matter how slight, is instantly apparent to 

 the skilled machinist in charge. 



The white paper used in making the newspapers of to-(hiy is 

 manufactured from wood pulp and is put up in long rolls, wound 

 about an iron cylinder that can be adjusted in place at one end 

 of the press. These rolls contain from two to four miles of paper, 

 and weigh from eight hundred to twelve luuidi-ed pounds each. 

 As soon as one roll is used up another is lifted into place, the loos(> 

 ends of the two are pasted together, and, after a stop of less than 

 two minutes, the great press is again belching forth finished news- 

 papers at the rate of sixteen hundred a minute, or two hundred and 

 sixty-six each second. 



Almost every invention and device of recent years in coimec- 

 fion with the use of electricity is in some way utilized in tlu^ pro- 

 duction and disti-ilmtioii of the daily newspapers. The evolution 



