700 



PRINTINGPRIOR. 



responding increase of the individuals employed in 

 manufacturing and distributing. We hesitate not 

 to say, that one of the greatest benefits conferred for 

 the last hundred years on the operative printers, 

 was the introduction of the printing machine.* 



A printing machine, possessing very considerable 

 advantages, lias been invented several years since 

 by Mr D. Napier of London. The general action 

 of this machine, so far as pressing by cylinders and 

 inking by rollers, is concerned, is identical with the 

 machine of Cowper and Applegnrth, but in this 

 machine the moving power is not obtained from a 

 steam engine, but from two men turning a winch, 

 on the axle of which a heavy fly wheel is placed, to 

 ensure regularity of motion. The manner of keep- 

 ing register in this machine is novel, being performed 

 by gripers within the cylinder, which perform the 

 office of the tapes in the machine formerly described. 

 The manner of engaging and disengaging these 

 gripers is very ingenious, but too complicated to 

 admit of a particular description here. By the in- 

 troduction of this contrivance for keeping the regi- 

 ster by gripers instead of tapes, and by another 

 piece of mechanism, equally ingenious, of raising and 

 depressing the pressing cylinders by means of ec- 

 centrics, the two intervening cylinders in the other 

 machines is dispensed with, and hence much space 

 and much power is saved. The degree of pressure 

 too can be adjusted to any degree required. The 

 inking apparatus has some peculiarities, which con- 

 tribute greatly to the equal distribution of the ink on 

 the types. Mr Hansard states tliat his machine turn- 

 ed off one thousand sheets printed on both sides per 

 hour, but admits that the labour of driving was con- 

 siderable. This machine, it may be necessary to re- 

 mark, has never been brought into very general use. 



With respect to Mr Rutt's machine, a perspective 

 view of which is given in Fig. 2. plate LXXVII., 

 we require to say very little, after the very minute 

 account we have already given of Cowper and Ap- 

 plegarth's. Rutt's machine, like that of Napier, is 

 driven by manual power, and the principle of a re- 

 volving cylinder is also employed. A table is seen 

 at the back of the machine, with a boy in the act of 

 taking away a sheet after it has been printed. Dur- 

 ing the time that the table returns to the front part 

 of the machine, the cylinder remains stationary, al- 

 lowing time for another boy to lay another sheet on 

 it, as shown in the figure. When the table returns to 

 the back part of the machine, the cylinder revolves, 

 and the inking and printing are accomplished. 

 The ink rollers are moved by bevelled wheels at 

 the side of the machine, and, by a simple mode of 

 disengagement, the inking apparatus may be 

 wrought for trial and adjustment independently of 

 the cylinder motion. 



Messrs Bacon and Duncan also invented a print- 

 ing machine, which possesses considerable merit. 

 The types were fixed in galleys, on the four sides of 

 a revolving prism. The ink was distributed over the 

 types by an elastic roller at the top of the prism, 

 and the pressure was given by another elastic roller 

 at the bottom, which applied the paper to the types 

 on the revolving prism ; the motions were all con- 

 nected by a train of wheel work. 



Mr William Church of Birmingham took out let- 

 ters patent in the year 1822, for printing machinery, 

 very ingeniously contrived, but never brought into 

 general use. His patent embraced three machines. 



The object of the first is to cast metallic types 

 with extraordinary expedition, and to arrange them 

 for the compositor. 



* What is commonly called Benslcy's marhinp is Cuwper 

 and Applegarth's; the drawing \vas taken first from a machine 

 bought by Mr Bensley. 



The second machine selects and combines the 

 words into sentences. 



The third is for taking impressions from the types 

 so arranged. 



Professor Babbage, who was noticed under our 

 article Arithmetic, lias invented a machine for cal- 

 culating and printing mathematical tables, with un- 

 erring precision; but although a great deal of 

 money has been advanced by government, for ex- 

 pediting its construction, and it has been many years 

 in progress, no idea can be formed of the time of its 

 completion. 



Copper-plate Printing. It is supposed that im- 

 pressions were taken from engraved copper-plates 

 so far back as the year 1540, but the art was not in- 

 troduced into England before the reign of James F . 

 The presses employed, till a recent date, were con- 

 structed of wood ; and though sufficiently simple in 

 construction and fitted to take off impressions, they 

 were nevertheless, from the nature of the material, 

 clumsy and not durable. The presses are now uni- 

 versally constructed of iron. All engraver's presses 

 are of the rolling kind and act upon the same general 

 principles, but differ in minute details. The most 

 improved form of the engraver's press is that of Mr 

 Dyer. A perspective view of an improved form of 

 press F. 8. plate LXXVI. A A A is the frame or 

 stand of the press, made of cast iron, and consisting 

 of two sides, connected together by cross pieces of 

 malleable iron. C and D are two rollers of iron, 

 accurately turned in the lathe, and turning on iron 

 axes which pass through the side cheeks of the 

 frame. The axis of the upper roller seen at it is 

 tunied by means of the four levers L L L L, and 

 the pieces in which this axis turns are not per- 

 manently fixed in the frame, but are capable of 

 being raised or depressed by means of screws. F 

 is a plank of mahogany or other hard wood, having 

 its upper surface fixed with a plate of iron; or it is 

 formed entirely of iron. This piece of wood is about 

 equal in breadth to the length of the rollers. It is 

 upon this that the plate from which the impression 

 to be taken is laid. The plank and plate are placed 

 so as to slide between the rollers when they are 

 made to revolve by the turning of the handles 

 L L L L. The use of the screws for raising or 

 lowering the axes of the rollers, is that they may be 

 adjusted at such a distance from each other, as to 

 give the requisite degree of pressure on the plate as 

 it passes between them. The upper roller has a 

 blanket upon it, which is kept adapted to its surface 

 by means of a string over a pulley I, and having 

 a weight K suspended at the other end. After the 

 carriage or plank F is passed between the rollers 

 and an impression given, it is made to return, by 

 being drawn back by a loaded string passing over a 

 pully. The plate is first laid over with ink, and the 

 superfluous portion being taken away by wiping, 

 the paper, damped, is laid over it, and the whole 

 being passed between the rollers, the impression is 

 taken. 



For a description of the lithographic printing 

 press, see our article Lithography. 



1'RIOR, in monasteries ; the next officer in rank 

 to the abbot ; or, where there is no abbot, the su- 

 perior of the monastery. Prioress is applied, in a 

 similar sense, to the head of a female convent. A 

 monastery which is under the government of a prior 

 is called a priory. See Abbot, and Monastery. 



PRIOR, MATTHEW ; an English poet, born in 

 1664, in London, or at Winborne, in Dorset- 

 shire. His father dying when he was young, 

 he was brought up by an uncle, who kept the 

 Rummer tavern at Charing-cross, and sent to West- 

 minster school. He early imbibed a strong 



