PRINTING, PROGRESS OF, IN RECENT YEAKs 



563 



wheel or cylinder. There were several receivers, 

 which rotated with the wheel, and in their rota- 

 tion they picked up the type, its capacity of coin- 

 position was about 3,500 ems an hour. A great 

 deal of money was spent on this machine, and the 

 company is still in existence. 



An English machine, devised by Alexander 

 Mackie, and patented in 18(30, was in two parts. 

 One was a little instrument consisting of 14 keys, 

 by means of which a narrow strip of paper was 

 perforated preparatory to being used in the ma- 

 chine proper. This consisted of three Hat rings, 

 one above the other, the upper .and lower being 

 stationary. On the top ring were 20 pockets, 

 each containing 7 kinds of type. The middle 

 ring traveled around the circle. It had 20 " pick- 

 pockets," each " pickpocket " being subdivided 

 into 7 legs and 7 fingers. There was a drum over 

 which the perforated paper traveled by a positive 

 motion, about one-tenth of an inch at every move- 

 ment. The type were gathered from the respective 

 pockets, as the middle wheel went round, and 

 then sent along a delivery-channel to a traveling 

 belt, which carried them along down a siphon 

 spout, one letter upon another, and held ready for 

 justification. The machine is the prototype of 

 the more recent Goodson and Lanston machines. 



The Frazer and Kastenbein composing-machines 

 in England and the Burr and McMillan machines 

 in the United States have all met with some suc- 

 cess and been sold to some extent in the past 

 twenty years. They may be classed together as 

 gravity machines, in which the types are kept in 

 upright channels and pushed out one at a time 

 from the bottoms of the channels by the opera- 

 tion of a keyboard. They are now all practically 

 out of date, though efforts are being made to 

 modernize them and put them on a basis to com- 

 pete with the Mergenthaler linotype. About 1895 

 the Burr was reconstructed as the Empire, and a 

 considerable number were sold. It has since been 

 provided with a justifying mechanism that large- 

 ly reduces the labor cost. 



A large number of other composing-machines 

 have been projected, some of them at enormous 

 cost, yet without finding a market. Among these 

 was the Paige machine, on which nearly $2,000,000 

 was spent and lost (the machine being now stored 

 at Cornell University as a mechanical curiosity), 

 the Risley & Lake matrix machine, the Sears 

 typomatrix, Lagerman typotheter, composite 

 type-bar, Goodson matrix machine, Johnson type 

 setter and caster, and others, which are still being 

 experimented with. The Rogers typograph, and 

 also the monoline machine both somewhat simi- 

 lar to the linotype were prevented from being 

 used in the United States because of infringing 

 Mergenthaler's patents, but some of them are in 

 use in Europe. 



About 1886 the Mergenthaler linotype machine 

 came into commercial use, and after a few years 

 of development and patent suits it took the lead, 

 and since 1894 it has been enormously successful. 

 About 8,000 machines have been sold, and they 

 are still selling at the rate of about 1,000 a year, 

 though the price is $3,000, with extras. This 

 machine was the invention of Ottmar Mergen- 

 thaler, of Baltimore (see Annual Cyclopaedia for 

 1899, page 623), and marks the most radical 

 change in methods of composition since the time 

 of Gutenberg. The line is used as the unit, in- 

 stead of a single letter. In other words, the ma- 

 chine produces and assembles complete cast lines 

 of type, ready for the column. The machine is 

 worked by finger-keys, as is the typewriter. The 

 fundamental parts are a series of matrices, each 

 containing a single letter or character, and a 



i.it 



THE MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE. 



scries of spacing device n.ir-kncss. 



Hie matrices are arran^- u pi, O f 



magazine in the upper rig hi , '.,',, O f the 



machine, and provided with (-,<;,;,. 

 the operation of a key is followed 

 of a matrix as re- 

 quired. The space- 

 bars are arranged 

 by themselves, and 

 discharged in like 

 manner by the 

 touch of a key. 

 As the matrices 

 emerge from the 

 magazine they are 

 received on an in- 

 clined traveling 

 belt, and deliv- 

 ered, one after an- 

 other, into a re- 

 ceiver, and assem- 

 bled into line. 

 When the line is 

 full, the operator 

 touches a lever, 

 and the composed 

 line is transferred 

 to the face of a mold. A melting-pot containing a 

 supply of molten type-metal, and provided with 

 a force-pump, is connected with the mold; the 

 casting is made instantly, and the matrices are 

 removed and transferred to the distributing 

 mechanism, by which they are returned to the 

 original magazine channels for further use. The 

 organization of the machine is such that the 

 manipulation of the keys, the casting of the pre- 

 ceding line, and the distribution of a still earlier 

 line, are carried on concurrently and independent- 

 ly. The capacity of the linotype machine is from 

 3,000 to 10,000 ems an hour, or about five times the 

 speed of a hand compositor. A new face of type is 

 obtained at each casting. The spacing is absolute- 

 ly uniform, automatic, and instantaneous, by the 

 expansion of the compound space-bars. These 

 spaces are compound wedges, released as required, 

 and at the close of the line are all driven forward 

 until the line space is properly filled. 



Though Mr. Mergenthaler was justly entitled to 

 and received the credit of producing this remark- 

 able machine, yet other inventors contributed 

 patents that added much to its commercial suc- 

 cess. Among these are John R. Rogers and 

 Philip T. Dodge. A great variety of minor im- 

 provements have been added of late years, in- 

 creasing the usefulness of the linotype. The 

 most recent and valuable of these is the two- 

 letter matrix, which enables both Roman and 

 italic characters to be produced from the same 

 keyboard, through the aid of a shift-key, operated 

 very much as the shift-key of a typewriter. 



The present year the Mergenthaler Linotype 

 Company have introduced the " junior linotype " 

 machine, which is an improved and perfected form 

 of the Rogers typograph, and offered it for sale 

 at $1,500, supplying the demand for a linotype 

 machine in country newspaper offices. 



The Scudder monoline machine, producing a 

 product similar to the linotype, is built and sold 

 in Canada. 



Thome's cylindrical type setting and distribut- 

 ing machine was brought out about 1880. It 

 comprises a distributing as well as a setting 

 mechanism, either of which may operate independ- 

 ently, or both work simultaneously. In 1898 it 

 was remodeled and improved, and it is now 

 known as the simplex. The cylinders are 

 mounted vertically one above the other, the dis- 



