TIMES PRINTING MACHINE. 



In case of any misdelivery a sheet is spoilt, and, consequently, 

 the effective performance of the machine is impaired. If, how- 

 ever, a still greater speed of printing were required, the same 

 description of machine, without changing its principle, would 

 be sufficient for the exigency ; it would be necessary that the 

 types should be surrounded with a greater number of printing 

 cylinders. 



It may be right to observe, that the cylinders and rollers are 

 not uniformly distributed round the great central drum ; they are 

 so arranged as to leave on one side of that drum an open space 

 equal to the width of the type form. This is necessary in order 

 to give access to the type form so as to adjust it. 



One of the practical difficulties which Mr. Applegath had to 

 encounter in the solution of the problem, which he has so success- 

 fully effected, arose from the shock produced to the machinery by 

 reversing the motion of the horizontal frame, which, in the old 

 machine, carried the type-form and inking-table, a moving mass 

 which weighed twenty-five hundred weight. This frame had a 

 motion of 88 inches in each direction, and it was found that 

 such a weight could not be driven through such a space with 

 safety, at a greater rate than about forty -five strokes per 

 minute, which limited its maximum producing power to 5000 

 sheets per hour. 



Another difficulty in the construction of this vast piece of 

 machinery was so to regulate the self-acting mechanism that the 

 impression of the type-form should always be made in the centre 

 of the page, and so that the space upon the paper occupied by the 

 printed matter on one side may coincide exactly with that occu- 

 pied by the printed matter on the other side. 



The type-form fixed on the central drum moves at the rate of 

 about 80 inches per second, and the paper is moved in contact 

 with it of course at exactly the same rate. Now, if by any error 

 in the delivery or motion of a sheet of paper, it arrive at the 

 printing-cylinder l-80th part of a second too soon or too late, the 

 relative position of the columns will vary by l-80th part of 80 

 inches that is to say, by one inch. In that case the edge of the 

 printed matter on one side would be an inch nearer to the edge of 

 the paper than on the other side. 



This is an incident which rarely happens, but when it does, a 

 sheet, of course, is spoilt. In fact, the waste from that cause is 

 considerably less in the present vertical machine than in the 

 former less powerful horizontal one. 



The vertical position of the inking-rollers, in which the type is 

 only touched on its extreme surface, is more conducive to the 

 goodness of the work than the horizontal machine, where the 



