TYPE 



5930 



TYPE 



became engrossed in elaborating a theory for 

 the flow of glaciers a theory which brought 

 him in direct conflict with other scientists. His 

 chief scientific labors, however, are connected 

 with a study of radiant heat, its transmission 

 and radiation, and its absorption by vapors and 

 gases. Other experiments with pure air led to 

 improved methods of sterilization. In 1872- 

 1873 he lectured in America, and generously 

 donated the large proceeds of his tour to the 

 cause of American science. 



Great and permanent as are his scientific 

 contributions, the personality of the man him- 

 self assures for him a surer and more perma- 

 nent regard in the mind of posterity. First he 

 observed and explored nature, and then set 

 himself to expressing his knowledge in the 

 most forceful, vivid manner possible. Though 

 he earnestly pursued science for its own sake, 

 he was equally bent on making it popular, on 

 bringing it within the understanding of com- 

 mon men. His name, with those of Darwin and 

 Huxley, is permanently connected with the en- 

 deavor to establish the new standpoint of 

 science as a part of modern philosophy. His 

 principal works include Faraday as a Discov- 

 erer, Heat as a Mode of Motion, The Forms of 

 Water, Lectures on Light, On Sound, Diamag- 

 netism and Magno-crystallic Action, Contribu- 

 tions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of 

 Radiant Heat, The Glaciers of the Alps, Hours 

 of Exercise in the Alps, and Fragments of Sci- 

 ence for Unscientific People. M.R.T. 



TYPE, a raised letter or character cast in 

 metal or carved in wood, and used in printing. 

 Printers once carved their own type from blocks 

 of wood and later cast them in metal, but type 

 founding is now an important industry, and 

 printers buy their type. 

 Newspapers and magazines 

 are printed from type that is 

 separately cast for each issue 

 and at once melted down (see 

 LINOTYPE). The type com- 

 monly found in printing es- 

 tablishments is a slender, 

 rectangular block of metal 

 ninety-two hundredths of an 

 inch high, carrying a raised 

 letter on its top, or face. A 

 nick on one surface indicates 

 how the type should be set ; a 

 groove along the bottom al- Bxplanatlon ap . 

 lows the type to stand on two pears in the text, 

 feet and gives it more steadiness. In the figure, 

 / is the face, n the nick, and g the groove. 



n 



Founding. The first step in casting type is to 

 shape a model of the letter desired. This 

 model, or die, is of steel, and when it has been 

 finished, the workman stamps it into soft cop- 

 per, leaving an impress of the letter. This soft 

 copper becomes then the mother type, or ma- 

 trix, from which an indefinite number can be 

 struck off. The matrix is placed in a mold 

 having the shape and size of the finished type, 

 and melted type metal is run in and allowed 

 to harden, much as bullets were molded in 

 pioneer days. The founding was, indeed, once 

 done wholly by hand, but machines now in 

 use make it possible to cast 140 or more pieces 

 of type in a minute. The metal used is an 

 alloy of lead and antimony, with a little copper 

 and tin added. It hardens almost instantly. 

 In the process of manufacture, from one-fourth 

 to one-third of the letters are defective, and 

 are destroyed. 



A complete assortment of type of any given 

 size is called a font. The weight of a font 

 varies with the kind of printing to be done, 

 and has a range of from about one pound to 

 500 pounds or more. The printer arranges his 

 type for convenience into upper and lower 

 cases. The upper case contains compartments 

 for the capital letters, small capitals and signs, 

 and in the lower case, the small letters, figures 

 and spaces are kept. Some letters are used in 

 writing much more frequently than others; z, 

 for example, occurs much less frequently than 

 a or e, and, accordingly, a font will contain 

 many more a's and e's than z's. 



Size. Thirteen sizes of type are in common 

 use in printing books and newspapers, but the 

 smaller of these sizes are relatively little used. 

 The tendency in recent times has been to in- 

 crease the size of the type used so as to avoid 

 needless strain on the eye of the reader. The 

 size of type is indicated either by a special 

 name or by the number of points it measures, 

 a point being one-seventy-second of an inch. 

 Modern printers use the term point in describ- 

 ing type. Both methods of naming are shown 

 in the following table: 



Pearl 5 -point 



Agate 51-point 



Nonpareil 6-point 



Minion 7-point 



Brevier 8-point 



Bourgeois 9-point 



Long Primer 10-point 



Small Pica 11-point 



Pica 12-point 



English 14-point 



