582 CALICO-PRINTING 



by the exhaust fan, which also causes a perfect combustion of gas, and produces .'t 

 perfectly clour flame. In the top of each tube is fitted a steel doctor or scraper, K, for 

 cleaning the singed side of the cloth. L, exhaust fan ; M, suction-pipe of fan ; N, 

 delivery pipe of fan ; o, cloth being singed. 



The bleaching requisite for printing cloths is of much superior nature to that suffi- 

 cient for calico intended to be sold in the -white state. It is sufficient for the latter to 

 be white enough to please the eye : a result easily obtained by chlorine treatment after 

 a comparatively mild alkaline boiling ; but the former must be so well boiled with 

 lime and alkali, as to remove every particle of resinous and glutinous matter previous 

 to the chlorine stoop. This, if not attended to, becomes a source of great annoyance to 

 the printer in his subsequent operations, from the difficulty of obtaining sufficiently 

 good whites without injuring the colours. The high pressure kiers patented by 

 Barlow, and which are fully described in the article BLEACHING, have been found to 

 facilitate the thorough scouring of the cloth very much at a less cost than tlic old 

 kiers. 



The pieces, on leaving tho bleach-house drying machine are taken to the ' white 

 room,' a large room for storing the bleached goods, where they are unstitched, folded, 

 sorted into the different qualities in use, and distributed to the proper compartments 

 of the room, whence they are withdrawn as wanted for printing. 



Till about the year 1760, the printing of linens or calicoes was done by hand, 

 wooden blocks being employed, on which the pattern is raised in relief. About this 

 time a modification of the press used for printing engravings was adapted to printing 

 with flat engraved copper plates on fabrics. This press was used to produce certain 

 styles only, generally single colours, where delicacy of outline was required, shaded or 

 stippled work being also introduced. The printing by blocks in several colours was 

 the principal mode still, till in 1785 the cylinder printing-machine was invented by a 

 Scotchman named Bell, and brought into successful use at Mossely, near Preston, by 

 the house of Livesey, Hargreaves, and Co. The house of Oberkampf, of Jouy, in France, 

 almost immediately adopted the invention, and have been frequently considered, in 

 France at least, the originators of the machine ; but it is now pretty certain that the 

 honour of the invention is due to Great Britain. The introduction of the cylinder 

 machine gradually caused the disuse of the flat press, the London printers continuing 

 to use them long after the Lancashire printers had given them up ; the first cylinder 

 machine was used in London in 1812. Blocks are still freely used for some descrip- 

 tion of prints, such as woollen or mousseline-de-laine goods, and also for introducing 

 colours after printing by the cylinder and dyeing, &c. the cylinder not being capable 

 of fitting in colours, after the piece has once left the machine. A blocking-machine, 

 called the Perrotine, was introduced in France in 1834 by M. Perrot, and is still ex- 

 tensively used there, but though tried in this country, it never came into general use. 

 It executes as much work as twenty hand printers, and for the special purposes for which 

 it was invented is a satisfactory machine ; the patterns capable of being printed by it 

 are, however, limited in size, in consequence of the narrow width of the blocks. Surface 

 printing, or printing from cylinders engraved in relief, was an invention preceding by 

 a few years the engraved copper cylinder, but apparently not in general use. In 1800, 

 a Frenchman, named Ebingar, patented somewhat the same sort of thing, and in 1805, 

 James Burton, of the house of Peel, at Church, invented the mule machine, which 

 worked with one or two engraved copper cylinders, and one or two wooden rollers 

 engraved in relief. This machine is very little used now, the impression produced by 

 'it not having the precision of that from copper rollers, and improvements in engraving 

 copper rollers having given the printer many of the advantages possessed by the sur- 

 face roller. Quite lately, however, Mr. James Chadwick has patented a species of 

 surface roller which promises to become useful. The ordinary stereotyped patterns 

 described hereafter are adapted by screws to a brass or other metal roller, which in 

 then fitted on the mandrel used with tho ordinary engraved rollers, and a firmness and 

 solidity thus given which was never possessed by the wooden surface roller. 



Printing by block is thus performed : The hand blocks are made of sycamore or 

 pear-tree wood, or of deal faced with these woods, and are from 2 to 3 inches 

 thick, 9 or 10 inches long, and 5 broad, with a strong box handle on tho back 

 for seizing them by. The face of the block is either carved in relief into tho desired 

 design, like an ordinary wood-cut, or the figure is formed by the insertion edge-wise 

 into the wood of narrow slips of flattened copper wire. These tiny fillets, being filed 

 level on tho ono edge, are cut or bent into the proper snape, and forced into the wood 

 by the taps of a hammer at the traced lines of the configuration. Their upper 

 surfaces are now filed flat, and polished into one horizontal plane, for tho sake of 

 equality of impression. As the slips arc of equal thickness in their whole depth, 

 from having been made by running the wire through between the steel cylinders of a 

 flatting mill, the lines of the figure, however much they get worn by use, are always 



